After a local mountain becomes a deadly and imminent threat, three strikingly different women become linked in a desperate mission. Children's author Katherine Sommers is searching for her depressed husband, David, and their son Brian, camping together on Mt. St. Helens' tumultuous north slope. Mellie Sedor seeks her husband, Daniel, who has taken a logging job to pay for their daughter's chemotherapy. Fashion photographer Jen Stockton joins Cowlitz County Sheriff Frank McKenzie, himself the victim of a brutal loss, in his quest to evacuate the awakening volcano. Jen came to the mountain in an effort to recover the peace she experienced as a child. Instead, she finds destruction and heroism, tragedy and friendship.