Seventy-year-old Jack Wilkerson, a retired chemist, has a talent for creating hiking sticks as a hobby. While riding a remote Utah mountain trail to cut the quaking aspen "blanks" he uses to create his masterpieces, he sees something that he shouldn't have seen and is shot in the head for his trouble. He barely survives the gunshot and the subsequent tumble down into a steep canyon. The question is, will he be able to survive the journey back...