The Caldera

Thirty-four years have passed since Kevin Reynolds perpetrated the most heinous crime the citizens of Carver Montana had ever witnessed in their small alpine community. Now Kevin's cousin Mitch has found a bundle of old letters written by Kevin to his father in 2001 the year of Kevin's execution. His curiosity peaked Mitch has recruited two of his good friends to hike up to the Blind Valley caldera and scout out the scene of the crimes of 1969 and to try to find the hidden cave where the old mountain man Sam Elliott once lived. As far as the boys are concerned their trip to Blind Valley is supposed to be a six-day expedition filled with the sights and smells of the wilderness. What they expect to find is a sugar bowl valley Mitch's cousin Kevin referred to as Short Pines.</p>So what do they find? A seemingly peaceful valley the floor of which is thickly forested with stunted evergreens and ringed with high granite cliffs. The three friends find that the Blind Valley caldera is a place of great beauty yet it is someplace very much more unworldly than they ever could have imagined...