[at-l] Into the Void (death)

[PUDSCRAWLER at aol.com (PUDSCRAWLER@aol.com)]

In a message dated 6/14/2004 10:54:07 AM Mountain Daylight Time, 
at-l-request@backcountry.net writes:


> Astonishing tale of the human spirit, and what one discovers when all 
> is stripped away. Most people I know, including me, would probably 
> have curled up in the crevasse waiting for the end. It makes the final 
> climb up Katahdin's forbidding "Gateway" look like a Sunday 
> post-church stroll to the bakery on a nice day.
> 

My friend Chip fell 40 feet into a crevasse in the Northwest Territory during 
a solo exploration.  I have the photo he immediately took from the perch on 
which he had landed.  It shows the hole in the snow above which his body had 
fallen through.  I had the same reaction, asking him how he got the strength and 
courage to climb out.

The answer was obvious.  What else was he to do?  In fact, he took off his 
pack and climbed out, then returned to get the pack, and climbed out again.

It is largely because of this episode in his climbing days that we 
experienced great denial when he disappeared in 1985 on an expedition on Mt. Cook on the 
South Island of New Zealand.  He would eventually show up . . . but he 
hasn't.

INTO THE VOID was a little hard to watch, especially knowing how the climber 
who cut himself free lost his reputation as a result.  Climbers are very tough 
and unforgiving towards each other, for good reason.  Neither Chip's nor his 
hiking partner's bodies were ever found in spite of humongous efforts on the 
part of the park service over there.  That's the rest of the story.  If neither 
ever returns or is found, there is always the mystery as well as the grief.  
It is good that both of those guys in the film were able to return.

Kinnickinic