The song was written in 1964, inspired by something that happened to Steve Gillette's little sister, Darcy, when she was 12. She was running behind her horse chasing it into the corral when she was kicked. She broke her cheekbone but had no lasting ill effects. Tom Campbell took a melody that Gillette had written and came up with a story about two young lovers and a tragic fall. The place names are actual places around the region of the high valleys and the Walker River in Nevada, where Campbell lived when he was eight or nine years old. It has been recorded by Ian and Silvia, John Denver and many others. I learned it from the Ian and Silvia album.