It was so cold, so unbelievably cold. He was trying to ignore how dogtired he was. Because then he would want to rest, and that would mean it would even get colder. No, resting was not an option. He would have to keep moving to keep himself warm.
He had found it kind of weird that nobody had found him yet. On the other hand, it was snowy last night and after that is was dark. No rescue team would start a mission at the beginning of the night. After he had fallen between the rocks he had quickly realized that he was on his own for now.
During the night he had tried to calculate how many hours it would take for his buddies to get down the mountain. They would call for alarm and his wife would be worried sick. He was thinking about that she should look out for herself first before worrying about him. She actually never liked the fact that he was always climbing mountains. But she let him be, it was his way of life. She most likely had the worst night of her life.
Drones.nl
After he had fallen his first priority was checking himself to see how he was doing. He waited a couple of minutes with doing this because the adrenalinerush was keeping him from feeling any pain at all. Soon he started to feel bumped and bruised, but not like he had broken anything. Then he started to orientate on his surroundings. Eventhough they had walked for hours on the mountain all of a sudden the view looked totally different. Thank goodness for his compass. He had gotten it from his grandfather as a gift and was still gratefull for it. GPS is fine...when it works. Compasses do what they should do regardless to what circumstances are.
East would be his direction, but that would be sketchy because of the big open snowfield that was there. Potential crevasses or avalanches where all options crossing this. But West was a steep wall, and his climbing gear was on his buddies who were hundreds of meters above him somewhere. And waiting here exposed to the elements was also not an option. He had to keep moving otherwise he would freeze to death.
He was making good progress over the snowfield when the sun had started to set. That was even more of an issue because he didnt have a headlight with him anymore. That one got lost in his fall. And more annoying, he was starting to get thirsty. He really needed to drink. At the moment he was travelling in a pace where he was not sweating too much, but he knew he was loosing fluids. The other guys had the burner to melt snow, so he had to use only his thermobottle. He stuffed some snow in there and put the cold bottle under his jacket. Hopefully his body heat would melt the snow.
The night was a drag. No signs of life at all on the whole mountain and he was alone with his thoughts. he thought about home, the years in the past, his work, even his dog. And the whole time he kept singing out loud. That if anybody, anybody at all was out there, they might hear him. He had been walking non stop for more than 24 hours now. His body was starting to give protesting signals. Kramps in his legs and he could also feel his energy level getting so low.
And what was that damn annoying sound the whole time. It sounded like a buzz, like a bee so close to him. He looked around and saw a drone flying at only 5 meters distance. He was saved.
This fictive story is based on the true story of the mountaineer Rick Allen that was rescued last week on a Pakistanian mountain. Remember this story is pure fiction and NOT Rick Allens story
