“No worries,” Caro says. She pauses while Ash snaps a few quick pictures, and then they fall into step together as they hurry to catch up with Hope.
“We’ll need to keep an eye out for flash floods as the day goes on,” Caro says when they reach her. “Even though everything looks good now, we won’t be able to see the whole sky again until we come out of the Underground near the end of the hike.”
“Got it,” Hope says. “We’ll be vigilant.” They all glance up at the slice of blue sky visible above them. In the few moments since Caro last looked, it’s changed color, deepening toward the azure it will become at midday if the weather stays clear.
“The thing about flash floods,” Caro says, “is that they can happen even if the weather seems fine where you are. It can rain up on a plateau miles away, and then the water runs off into the canyons and gets bigger and bigger and faster and faster as it feeds to the creek.”
“We’re really in the wilderness now.” Ash sounds elated and nervous.
“Even if we had our cell phones, there’s no reception in the canyon.” Caro looks at Hope. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have agreed to put them in the lockbox for the hike. It would be handy to have a signal if we run into trouble.”
“We’ll be very careful,” Hope says.
“Holy crap.” Ash pulls up short. They’ve come to one of the iconic spots of the Underground, where the rock walls belly out in the subway-tunnel-shaped formations that give the hike its name. Caro understands the disbelief in Ash’s voice, even though Caro sent them all a picture of this exact spot when they were planning the trip. It’s so beautiful, it’s hard to believe it’s real, that it exists outside of screensavers and posters.
The sandstone surfaces are a variety of hues: red, burnished gold, sooty black, and almost white. The hanging gardens of bright-green moss and plants cling to the stone. The creek gathers in pools colored pristine shades of turquoise, deep green, and purest blue, like jewels set in a sandstone crown miles long and millennia old. The smallest pools are iced over at the edges, frosty white tendrils branching out over aqua water.
They pause, listening to the creek as it gathers in the pools and runs on through the canyon. Caro feels like she can sense what the others are feeling.We could let go and be part of all of this. Let the moss grow over our sandstone bones, the water move in our veins, the light fill our hearts and the furthest corners of our minds, until we are erased.
It’s always such a pleasure to see people experience this place for the first time. And though she’s been here before, the hike is always different in some way. It’s like that saying about never being able to step in the same river twice. You could come to the Underground every day and it would never be the same. The water would be higher or lower, the temperaturecooler or warmer, this tree would be in bud, that creature would have come through before you, leaving prints, and on and on and on. Like how kids are always changing, how you’re not the same person each day of your life. It’s like nesting dolls, or sandstone layers, or snow on red rock. Everything and nothing. Timeless and gone in a moment.
“It’s almosttoobeautiful,” Ash says softly. “I can’t take it in.”
Hope nods in agreement. “It’s like,Go home, eyes, you’re drunk.”
That makes Caro laugh.
Ash takes out her camera again. “I know, I know,” she says. “A picture can’t do it justice. But I can’t help myself.”
“Me either,” Hope says, snapping away with her disposable.
Caro can’t help it—right now, she wishes Dan were here. Dan, with his boundless enthusiasm and his wide brown eyes. (He always jokes that he’s all one color—brown eyes, brown hair, brown skin that tans even deeper the minute he steps outside.) She loves Dan. She loves hiking with him. She loves doing everything with him.
So why hasn’t she told him about Hope?
She hasn’tliedto him—Dan knows she has book club friends named Hope and Ash and that Caro’s on this trip with them. He’s waved to them both as he’s walked past her screen during their meetings; he’s laughed out loud as she’s read him texts they’ve sent. But he doesn’t know that Hope is HopeHanover. Caro feels bad about that, but Dan tells people things. He can’t help himself. He is zero percent malicious about it and always feels terrible later. Caro wouldn’t mindhimknowing, but he’d let it slip. Not telling him feels like protecting Hope. And Hope trusts Caro. They all trust each other, which is why they’re here, doing this.
When Ash and Hope finish taking photos, they all carry on along down the creek. The canyon swells out and then narrows in around them. They’re moving at a good pace, but Caro can tell that her friends are taking it all in by theoohs andaahs she hears.
This is one of her favorite parts of the Underground—the miles where the hike follows the creek bed exactly, and the water-smoothed rocks rolland crash against your ankles as you make your way through the creek, which can be anywhere from ankle deep to hip high to over your head, depending on where you are and how rainy it’s been.
Back when she was growing up, before permits were required, she and her father had hiked this canyon every summer. Some summers, her dad would hike the Underground several times. With Caro, with his friends, with local church youth groups he was asked to lead because of his experience. He and Caro’s mom had hiked it together often, before she died. (Caro was always sad the three of them had never done it together—she’d been too young before her mom passed away.) But she’d gotten to bring Dan here about eight years ago, when they were first dating. Caro smiles, remembering that trip—her and her father exchanging glances as they’d come around each turn, knowing what waited for Dan ahead, looking forward to his reactions.
Henry, Caro’s dad, always knew what to pack for any wilderness excursion. His hiking gear was decidedly utilitarian rather than stylish. Caro had teased him mercilessly about it—the khaki shorts, the button-up Patagonia shirt older than she was, the too-tall socks sticking out of his hiking boots—and about his knobby knees. Her father’s hair had gone prematurely white in his late thirties, and he wore thick-rimmed black glasses that brought to mind his celebrity doppelgänger, Steve Martin.
Whenever she went anywhere with her father, people called out to him. “Dr. Stewart!” He’d been a family practitioner in town for decades, the hometown boy who went away to college and med school and returned to practice and serve in his community. Before the dementia began to take hold, he’d been known for his memory. “Nowshegave me a scare when she was three,” he’d say, pointing to a tween walking through the grocery store, a pack of Oreos tucked under her arm, her ponytail bobbing with every step. “Bailey Hammond. The youngest of Amy and Devon Hammond’s kids. She came in with a fever of 107, and I ran across the parking lot from my office to the hospital with her in my arms.” He was also constantly bumping into current or former students. Henry had taughtan Introduction to Anatomy course at the small university in St. John for years, though his adjunct pay was pennies compared to what he made as a doctor. He’d loved meeting the students; he’d loved writing their letters of recommendation to help them get into medical school; he’d loved it when they’d emailed him to let him know where they were and what they were doing now. He’d loved his life, and now it had become so much smaller.
As she catches up with her friends, Caro hears other voices echoing up through the canyon. “Oh, yeah,” Ash says. “Other people. I’d almost forgotten anyone else existed.”
“Right?” Caro says.
Before long they begin catching glimpses of the group ahead of them. They look to be college-age kids, about five in number. Caro loves this about hiking, the way you come upon other groups and pass them, or they pass you, never to be seen again, or you do a sort of back and forth for the duration of the hike. It’s like at Disneyland where you come to know people because of being in the lines.Ah, there’s that family with the toddler and the surprisingly helpful preteen. They’ve made it through eight Go-Gurts now and counting. Oh look, the young couple that was arguing is hugging again, the guy wrapping his arms around the woman from behind, both of them laughing, their Mickey Mouse ears no longer looking ironic instead of sweet.
“You guys ready to swim?” Caro asks her friends.
They’ve come to the biggest pool yet, and it looks deep as well as long. The frost’s crystalline patterns are beautiful up close. Caro can smell the water. She can feel the scoop and sway of the stone.
“Absolutely.” Hope takes one of the bracelets from her wrist and uses it to pull her hair up into a topknot.
