In the morning, Armen awoke to another nosebleed. He let the blood drip down into his mattress of dead oak leaves. He pinched his nose when he decided the leak wasn’t about to patch itself. He pulled himself out of his bag and sat up with his finger and thumb clamped to his nose. He looked around to discover a pleasantly wooded, sunbathed flat had replaced the dark cave of a canyon they’d stumbled into the night before. They’d groped their way up that canyon as though it were a portal into another world. Perhaps it was. The asphalt grid, the fences, corridors, canals, crop rows, and tract homes had vanished. He looked up at the canyon walls. When he thought he’d clamped his nose long enough, he released his grip. His nostrils clung to each other for a moment. 
When the passages opened, he inhaled the roasted aromas of the canyon, and he knew he was in another world. He sat upright and breathed. The air was perfectly still, but then it stirred to caress his face, and then it was still again.
Sam stirred. Armen got up, picked up his sleeping bag, and found a rock to roll it up upon.
Sam yawned, grabbed his fishing tackled, and walked down to the river. Armen took out the topo map he’d bought in Visalia. It showed a trail that followed the river and then headed directly east up a ridge toward Hockett Plateau. He folded up the map, grabbed his canteen, and walked down to the river. The granite boulders that stood around the babbling summer stream were covered in orange ladybugs. Sam was upstream. Armen filled his canteen and returned to camp to prepare breakfast.
After they ate and did their dishes, Armen and Sam walked over to the Ranger’s trailer. When the ranger came out, Armen greeted him and mentioned the riverside trail that they planned to follow up to the plateau. The ranger shook his head. “That trail ends at the river. The bridge washed out in ‘69, and it hasn’t been maintained since.”
“Can’t we cross the river? It doesn’t look like much to me.” Sam suggested.
“You certainly could,” the ranger replied, “at least at this time of year, but you might not find it so easy to ford the manzanita thickets up the hill. You’ll be better off taking the maintained trail.”
Sam looked at Armen, who conceded with a conciliatory shrug.
The ranger proceeded to brief the boys on purging water of giardia with fire, and hanging food out of the reach of bears. He offered the bumper of his camper trailer as a bike rack.