Go Ahead, Eat Snow
Karen (aka birdbrain) hands me a shopping bagful of magazines every few months. National Geographic’s Adventure and Traveler magazines, Outside, Smithsonian and even the Rolling Stone. Many of these I’ve subscribed to in the past, but have let lapse.
January’s issue of Nat Geo Adventure has a short profile of Charles Horton who left his home in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, to go cross country skiing. He’d planned to be gone a few hours, but after breaking his leg, he was rescued nine days later. Charles had lost thirty pounds, his core temp hovered at 86 degrees Fahrenheit, and his rescuer said he’d never seen anyone to survive that many days. “He definitely knew what he was doing, “ said Sgt. Anthony Mazzola.
Charles, with his near death experience behind him, now advises others to: tell a friend where you’re going (and not someone who’s about to leave town for a week), accept your situation, be realistic, and work with what you’ve got. “I turned my dayback into a splint and crawled, dragging my leg behind me. It took me two hours to go a tenth of a mile. Finally, I found a dry spot under a tree with enough branches for fuel and a bed.â€
I guess he’d also suggest keeping a sense of humor. “When the first medic arrived on day nine, she asked: “Are you Charles Horton?†Cotton-mouthed, I answered softly, “If I weren’t, would you leave me to go find him?â€
I wouldn’t have lasted a day. Then again I wouldn’t be skiing alone. Or skiing at all even. Still, I’m always amazed at these kind of stories of human survival. I hope I never have first hand experience.
Comment by La Rad — February 5, 2006 @ 9:53 am
I may be infinitesimally more likely than LaRad to face such a situation, but only by the scantest of statistical factors, and I doubt I’d’ve made it, either. Should I face what Aaron Ralston or Bill Jeracki did, well, I’d just plain die.
But the likely hallucinations of such an experience give perhaps one plausible genesis for Kotaix (the banded, pugilistic, thumb-sucking Selk’nam Death Bunny in the previous entry). That figure still creeps me out. And to Google that that getup is a means of a matriarchal society to terrorize their males into domestic chores, well, “the willies” barely covers it …
Comment by el Kib — February 5, 2006 @ 1:12 pm
Dare to visit our house the morning of a nighttime party. Yes, Diane cooks but I clean.
Comment by michael — February 5, 2006 @ 2:06 pm
(1) I like where “Mainecourse” is now. When did it move (again)?
(2) I was going to write up the Postcard-from-Chile induced dream/nightmare I had Friday night, but I didn’t have time (and now I’ve pretty well forgotten it). Suffice it to say that I awoke with a temporarily clear understanding of what the get-up was all about. Do I want to actually know?
Comment by Jennifer — February 5, 2006 @ 5:51 pm
Somehow I missed that story. And me, an avid XC skier, who often goes off in the woods alone. Got to root around amidst our teetering piles of Outsides, Adventures and Natl Geos, and find that issue!
Comment by rakkity — February 7, 2006 @ 1:45 pm