Ingrid has made a deal with her mother she gets to go to the school of her choice as long as she completes a three-week wilderness programme But when Ingrid arrives she quickly realizes there has been a terrible mistake there will be no marshmallows or cabins here Instead her group will embark on a torturous trek with almost no guidance from the two counsellors & supplied with only the things they can carry On top of this the other teen participants are "at risk youth" a motley crew of screw-ups lunatics & delinquents But as the laborious days go by & as memories of her complicated past come flooding back Ingrid must confront the question of whether she shares more in common with these troubled teens than she's willing to admit