They awoke after dawn. While Amber started a fire to cook breakfast on, Derek attacked the task of setting up the tent in the full light of day. Within 20 minutes it was standing up, fully assembled.

"What'd you do different?" she asked.

"I dunno. It must have been my nerves."

"What nerves?"

"You know, wedding night jitters."

"That shouldn't be a problem tonight, right?"

He snickered. "Not a chance."

As they were readying their gear for a day hike, two college boys came up the trail and stopped to chat. They were juniors at Boise State, and they'd decided to skip 2 days of classes to extend their weekend in the Tetons.

"It's a good time to be out here. Not as many people since school just started," one of them, Matt, explained.

"We came in last night," Derek said. "We were married yesterday morning."

"No shit? Congratulations."

"Thanks. So where y'all headed today?" Derek asked.

"Mt. Hunt. You?"

"Prospectors."

"Looks like we'll be sharing part of the trail, then."

Derek followed Matt's eyes to his young wife, who was bending over to fill her Camelbak, her pert butt in a tight pair of bicycle shorts pointing high in the air.

He cleared his throat. "We might see you."

Amber approached them. "Ready to go, babe?"

"Uh, I gotta take care of a few things at the campsite first. You guys go ahead. Have a good hike."

"You, too," Matt said, sounding a touch disappointed. He and his friend set off up the trail.

"Why didn't you want to hike with those guys?" Amber said. "They could have told us what else there is to do around here."

"Did you see the way that guy Matt was looking at you?"

"No."

"Well, he was looking at you."

She put her hands on her hips. "Husband, are you jealous?"

"I understand college boys, Amber. I was one of them, not long ago. We were a bunch of lunatics. Trust me, we're better off hiking by ourselves."

It was mid-morning when they started heading west along Open Canyon Trail. At 9,000 feet they turned right into a rocky, wooded gully. They gained 1,600 feet over the next mile. They passed the treeline and shortly after that gained the ridge. Turning right again they headed along the ridge towards the summit of Prospectors Mountain. Hailing from Colorado, where 14ers were common, the newlyweds found the hiking relatively easy.

The views of the Snake River Valley to the east and the taller Teton mountains to the north were spectacular. Mt. Hunt rose up on the opposite side of the canyon they just hiked out of, less than a mile away as the crow flies.

"Hey, is that those two guys on the other summit?" Amber said.

Derek put the telephoto lens on his camera and trained it on the top of the pyramid of Mt. Hunt. He saw two small figures milling around among the rocks.

"I think so," he said.

She squinted and held her thumb and pointer finger a millimeter apart at arm's length in front her. "They look like little ants."

Derek looked to the north again. There was a small glacial lake situated in a cirque 1,300 feet below.

"Want to have lunch at that lake?"

"Sure."

The most direct route to the lake was too steep for both of them, but a shoulder from the summit, which curled around the west side of the lake, was shallower. The followed it and relieved themselves of their gear in the deep bowl of the cirque, the summit looming high above them.

Amber skipped across the stones next to the blue water. "Isn't it beautiful, Derek?"

He looked at her, and she looked at him. "We should have sex here."

She laughed. "Is that all you can think about?"

"Yes."

She threw his sandwich at him. They ate in silence, until they were interrupted by a loud roar that sounded like a fighter jet taking off, following by a thunderous crash. A tremor shook the ground underneath them.

"What was that?" Amber said.

"I have no idea."

They packed their food and hiked north out of the cirque. A thin plume of smoke rose out of the trees to their west, on the north face of Prospectors Mountain.

"Is that what caused that explosion?"

"We should check it out." They descended the rocky morraine towards the smoke to the west.

Thirty minutes of bushwhacking later, a sound like frying bacon reached their ears. Among a dense thicket of conifers they found a steaming, grayish purple boulder. The soil around the rock had been upturned recently, and several trees next to the rock had been snapped in half. They smelled charred wood and grass.

"I think it's an asteroid." Derek waded ankle-deep through the upturned soil and reached out to touch it.

"Careful, you'll burn yourself."

The surface of the rock was warm, but the remarkable thing about it was how soft it felt. Like a dry sponge.

"It's okay. It's cooled off, already."

"Then why is it making that noise?" she asked.

"Maybe it's still hot on the inside, and there's moisture in there boiling off," he speculated.

Amber drew up next to him and touched the back of her hand to the rock. When she realized it wouldn't burn her, she laid her palm against it.

"This thing must weigh 10 tons, Derek. An asteroid strike this big is rare. We should report it."

"That could take half the day."

"Then we'll do it in the morning. We were planning a zero day tomorrow, right? We can drive to the park headquarters and give them the coordinates."

He looked down at the Garmin on his belt loop and marked their location.

"Ready to go?" she asked. "This thing gives me the creeps."

Derek patted the asteroid one more time, then they turned north, continuing down the mountainside into Death Canyon.