We had been hiking since early morning. The sun was beginning to disappear into the horizon, and the wind whistling through the trees foretold of a terrible storm quickly approaching. There was no way we were going to make it down the mountain before night descended and we would be in total darkness. We had passed a cave entrance a couple hundred yards back, and decided to head back up in that direction.

Stumbling along the narrow path we came across yet another cave, this one we had not noticed on the way down. It would mean crawling down into it, but it was now getting two dark to go any further.

Lighting the lantern, Jim had been elected to be the first to crawl into it's depths. He was the larger of the five, so if he could slip in the rest would have no problem. One by one we crawled, squirmed and slithered our way through the tunnel like opening. One inside we were able to stand up and hold the lantern high. The ceiling in the cave was two high to see, but the cave space itself was just enough to hold the five us of comfortably.

Once we had all lighted the lanterns we were carrying, you could see the cave held many dark extensions leading off from the space we decided to hold up in for the night. Although it was creepy it was at least safe from the storm and darkness that was brewing beyond the entrance.

It was well known that these mountains and woods could be extremely dangerous. People had been lost for days or weeks. Some had been found by the animals long before the search parties had found them. The scattered bones made identification impossible. Most of the bones were never found at all. We were all aware of the impending danger that might be facing us.

We began to snack on the dwindling food supply that was in our back packs, when a cold, damp wind whirled through the opening and extinguished two of the three lanterns we had sitting on the protruding, sandy rock formations.

We were all dumb struck when the whirling wind that had extinguished the two lanterns, began to whirl a path down and around the cavern. It stopped briefly only to quickly pick up speed as it whirled a path under a large overhang, which we had not seen before. The overhang looked like a foreboding work of art. A face was clearly etched into the moss covered stone. It had to have been natures doing and clearly not the work of a chisel.

Following the dust whirled path, we found ourselves in yet another crevice within this cavern. The high overhanging rocks showed many of the same faces. The faces seemed to be placed at just the right angles to follow, as one would follow road signs.

We found ourselves staring at a sad, and unforgettable sight. Before us was the body of a small girl laying on a soft pallet of dry moss. We knew without a doubt, it was the little one that was lost while on a camping trip with her family last summer. Her little body was as beautiful as if she had only been there a day instead of almost a year. The very same face was embedded in the rock directly above where she layed. He somehow looked sadder, as he guarded over her.

We were able to leave the cave the next day and find a Ranger Station, where we then led them back to the cave and the little girl...The face that led us to the child disappeared, as soon as she was lovingly placed on a blanket and carried away...

Little Yolanda is now resting in hallowed ground. The condition of her remains made it possible for her family to see her as they remembered her.