Zigzag

zigzag
verb, intransitive. To have or move along in a zigzag course, alternating direction. Also a noun, adjective or adverb.

The women paused after emerging from the trees that had blocked the prospect before them until then. The trail zigzagged up the slope--a tracing on the mountain--until it disappeared into a patch of boulders. Trees were few on the mountainside, casting little shade on the trail, that they could see.

"There it is," Leah stated, shrugging to adjust her pack's load. "It looks even worse than I heard."

"Are you sure we shouldn't just camp here?" Carly's voice held a faint whining note. "We could get a fresh start in the morning."

Leah gave her a stony look. "The others are waiting, remember? They'll probably have dinner ready by the time we climb that and join them. The only food you and I are carrying right now are a few snacks and our water. I don't know about you, but I want a real meal this evening."

She turned her eyes to the daunting view ahead. They were going to be exhausted by the time they reached the alpine meadow that they had been told lay at the end of the trail and on the far side of the eminence it traversed. There was no other way to join the rest of the party except to get started. The buddy system was inviolate. Leah would not leave Carly; nor would she submit to her companion's lazy impulse. Besides condemning them to a punishing climb in the morning after an inadequate meal, doing so would worry the rest of the group needlessly.

"I guess you're right. I know you're right," Carly sighed. She, too, hunched her shoulders and fiddled with her pack's waist strap. Then, to Leah's surprise, she took a deep breath and started toward the foot of the trail.

Definitions adapted from The New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005 (eBook Edition, copyright 2008), and from Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam Company, Publishers, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, 1965, depending on which is more convenient to hand.