Daniel Solwren walked along a path in the Caribou Wilderness, rugged territory 60 miles east of Redding (Shasta County), searching for a trail back to his camp.
Fighting a nagging headache, disorientation and dehydration in the July heat, fear started gripping him. Solwren, who lives in El Sobrante, had lost track of the cairns he made earlier in the day to demarcate his trail, which had never happened to him.
A set of footprints emerged in the dirt. Solwren felt a flicker of relief, thinking he had found his trail, but it was fleeting. The footprints were his own…