Page 4 of Rescued By the Mountain Guide

Three miles up, quick photos, three miles down. I'll be back before noon.Beforethe storm hits. The sky above still shows patches of blue between gathering clouds, and the wind hasn't picked up significantly.

As I lock the car and consult the trail map, my new hiking boots crunch on fresh snow. Clear markers lead the way, and I've downloaded the route to my phone. This Jackson person is probably just being overly cautious—understandable given his history, but I'm not some helpless tourist. I grew up hiking in Vermont. Different terrain, sure, but the principles remain the same.

The first mile passes easily, the trail winding through pine trees heavy with snow. My camera captures the pristine wilderness, perfect for the "untouched beauty" angle my article needs. The silence wraps around me like a blanket, broken only by the soft padding of my boots and occasional birdsong.

By the second mile, the wind picks up, whipping loose strands of hair across my face. The trees thin out, exposing me to the elements more directly. Clouds have swallowed the remaining blue sky, turning everything a flat, ominous gray. Second thoughts nag at me, but I'm more than halfway there. Turning back now would waste the entire trip up.

Just push forward. Get the shots. Head back down.

How bad can it get?

The trail steepens, and my breathing grows labored. The altitude—something I hadn't adequately accounted for—makes every step more taxing than expected.

A gust of wind nearly knocks me sideways, and the first heavy snowflakes begin to fall. Not the gentle, picturesque flakes from earlier, but hard, driving pellets that sting my cheeks and gather rapidly on my jacket.

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.

The thought barely forms when the trail marker ahead disappears behind a sudden curtain of white. The wind howls now, disorienting me as visibility drops dramatically. My phone's GPS flickers, the signal wavering.

Stay calm. Follow your tracks back.

I turn, heart thumping painfully against my ribs, only to find my footprints already filling with fresh snow. The path I took up has vanished—Gone—replaced by an indistinguishable blanket of white.

Panic rises, sharp and metallic in my throat. The storm wasn't supposed to hit for hours. Jackson was right—it's accelerated beyond all predictions. And I, in my stubborn pride, ignored every warning.

Think, Cloe. Think.

The trail map shows a shortcut—a narrow path that cuts across the switchbacks, potentially shaving precious minutes off my descent. I squint through the thickening snow, spotting the faint indentation of the cutoff winding sharply downhill. Steeper. Narrower. Less traveled.

But it slices the mountain like a blade. Right now, speed matters more than caution.

The moment my boot hits the incline, the terrain shifts underfoot. Not packed trail—loose shale, dusted with snow, hiding patches of slick ice beneath. My heel slips. I pinwheel an arm for balance, my heart thudding as gravel skitters down the slope, vanishing into the mist below.

A low branch whips across my cheek as I push forward, stinging cold against skin already raw from the wind. The path narrows again, no more than a goat track now, and it hugs tight to a drop-off that disappears into swirling white. My boots crunch down, but the snow gives unevenly—some spots soft and shallow, others concealing frozen rock that sends me skidding sideways until I catch myself against a pine trunk, bark scraping my palm.

Every step demands full attention and commitment. One wrong move and this shortcut stops being faster and starts being fatal.

My foot slips.

Time slows.

One moment, I’m upright; the next, I’m sliding uncontrollably down the steep incline, snow and rocks tumbling with me. My trail pack tears away, disappearing into the whiteness. I claw desperately for purchase, fingernails scraping against hidden ice until my body slams against something solid—a narrow outcropping of rock that halts my descent.

Pain lances through my left ankle. The ledge beneath me can't be more than three feet wide, dropping away into swirling white nothingness below. Above me, the path I slid from seems impossibly distant.

Shit.

I'm trapped.

My hands, bare after losing my gloves in the fall, grow numb against the freezing rock. The storm envelops me completely now, visibility reduced to mere feet. No one knows where I am. No one is coming. The realization sinks into my bones, colder than the snow accumulating on my shoulders.

"Help!" My voice sounds pathetically small against the howling wind. "Somebody help!"

Minutes blur into what might be an hour. My body trembles uncontrollably, and my fingers lose sensation entirely. Consciousness begins to waver, darkness edging into my vision.

This is how it ends.

Not with the career breakthrough I dreamed of, but frozen on a mountainside, a cautionary tale for other ambitious fools.

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