Surviving the Fall

We often hear about accidents in the mountains and are rightfully shaken to our core. We grieve the loss and are left wondering what happened. Kevin’s a friend of mine who roams regularly in the mountains I spend my time in. I know routes he, he runs mine, we give each other “kudos: on Strava. A few years ago Kevin stood on the summit of Mount Ellinor for several hours welcoming runners during Beast of Big Creek . He ran Beast himself another year.

A few weeks, almost by happenstance – or maybe by some weird intuition – I checked my Cushman Six route on Fastest Known Time. I had not checked it in awhile and realized that, as the summer is coming to a close, it would be interesting to see if anyone had done the route since. To my shock and delight I learned that Kevin had done it, not this year, but last year. I had no idea. I am a bad friend. So I emailed him right away, going with an exuberant celebratory tone. Kevin replied, but shared with me his other story, from this summer, where things went sideways, in a very bad way.

I am linking here to Kevin’s blog post about his fall off a ridge between Mount Washington and Mount Ellinor, an area I have been on several times. I know that ridge, I know that bowl he landed in. This hits hard. But Kevin survived, and here, tells the story of his fall – or rather – his rescue and the aftermath. There are several more blog posts where he details the weeks and months of recovery after. I haven’t even gotten through them all but needed to share this one right away. Go take a moment to read them all and then celebrate life.

Life is precious man, hug the people around you. And also, mostly a reminder to myself: keep in contact with your friends. I am so pissed at myself that I was completely unaware that this had happened to Kevin. Kevin, the next beer’s on me. Or several of them, actually.