This set of letters is the correspondence between one young woman while she lived and worked on a California Conservation Corps Backcountry Trail Crew in Yosemite National Park and her mother who missed her from afar. Why would a young woman apply for a job where she had to live off the grid for five-and-a-half months without a cell phone, computer, blow dryer, reality television and Panda Express? Ask AmeriCorps. Ask the California Conservation Corps. Hundreds of people apply for these backcountry positions every year. As you will read, it's rather amazing what can happen in six months, both on the home front and on the peaks and in the valleys of Yosemite National Park.