Expert Mountaineer

After summitting a fourteener, 49 year-old Steven Brodsky was forced off the wrong side of the mountain by a sudden blizzard. Steven was an experienced mountaineer, and an instructor for the Colorado Mountain Club. He built a snow-cave, and rationed the food he had along. When rescuers found him two days later, he was in good condition and walked to the helicopter.

The Colorado Mountain Club has placed a note about Steven's expertise on their web site. The page states that "the most important thing to take on a mountain adventure is your brain - good decision-making skills, the ability to adapt to changing, even life-threatening, situations, and to make the most of the equipment and resources that you have with you."

That is the ideal for me also - to use the brain God gave me, and in a tough spot handle like the highly skilled mountaineer that I have taught myself to be.

The reality falls a little short of the ideal though. It is a little embarassing to recount some of the mishaps I have had over the years:

~ Walking out on to an ice flow that had melted with the morning sun - and realizing as I was sliding downhill that I made a big mistake. Walking on eggs to get out of there was an understatement - I took mouse steps, and braced myself with my trekking poles until I reached a tree I could grab.

~ Hauling a overloaded bear bag up into a tree after dark with a lightweight rope. When the rope broke I found its hard to dodge an object falling out of a tree when you can't see it.

~ Tieing my boots to the top of my pack as I crossed a stream, then leaping and catching them just as they fell into the current, with my heavy pack holding me in the water. I made it out but had visions of me and/or my boots being swept downstream.

~ Entranced by the technical wizardry of my GPS showing the distance and direction I was going, not seeing the spruce branch that poked me in the eye.

~ Chasing my daughters dog Boogie around the campsite trying to get the trout back that he stole. Having to lie dead until he came to investigate, then grabbing his collar.

~ Not paying attention to my compass as I crossed a stream in winter. Angling down to the left of the stream, taking me back in the direction of the parking lot. (This was in March, 2004, when I developed a severe fever in the night. It turns out I was very lucky to be as close to my truck as I was.)

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