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This episode is brought to you by Honda. When you test drive the all-new Prologue EV, there's a lot that can impress you about it. There's the class-leading passenger space, the clean, thoughtful design, and the intuitive technology. But out of everything, what you'll really love most is that it's a Honda. Visit Honda.com slash EV to see offers. It's March 1982 in the Sierra Nevada, California. A fierce lightning storm rages around the snow-capped peak of Mount Whitney.
Deafening thunderclaps roll across the granite-grey mountains. Blinding bolts of electricity leap from the blizzard-white skies. Just a few hundred feet below the summit, standing on an exposed ledge, 22-year-old Jean Munchrath hugs the rock face, clinging on for dear life. At any second, she could be ripped from the mountain, hurled into the abyss. Jean is all alone. She shouldn't be, but she is. Somewhere down below her is her boyfriend, Ken.
She watched him climb over the edge and disappear into the maelstrom some time ago. Her teeth rattle as she shivers uncontrollably. She can't stay here forever. What if something's happened to Ken? What if he needs our help? She decides to go down after him. Without ropes or ice screws, she will have to free climb. Put one foot wrong and she'll plummet to her death. With her fingers locked into tiny hollows in the ice, Jean twists around and takes one last glance over the precipice.
a sudden lightning flash illuminates the sheer drop. Jean takes a breath and starts to lower herself down off the ledge. She moves slowly, carefully. Even without the 35-pound backpack she has on, and even in good weather, this would be highly technical climbing. She tests the ice with her axe before she makes each move, placing each toe with caution. But after a few minutes, Jean finds she can't reach the next foothold. She gropes blindly with her free leg,
but her boot glances off the smooth surface. Fearing she might lose balance, she flattens herself against the mountain, the blood pumping in her ears. An awful realization dawns on her. She is trapped. Unable to move up or down, she is spread-eagled against the ice, her body trembling with the effort. Her freezing hands are barely clinging on. And I was just terrified, and I remember thinking,
I can't hang on forever. You know, I don't know what I'm going to do, but I cannot hang on forever. And in that fearful moment, the last thought I had was my inner voice said, God, don't let me fall. Ever wondered what you would do when disaster strikes? If your life depended on your next decision, could you make the right choice? Welcome to Real Survival Stories.
These are the astonishing tales of ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations. People suddenly forced to fight for their lives. In this episode, we meet Jean Munsrath. In 1982, she's an intrepid young adventurer and recent college graduate who embarks on a cross-country skiing trip with her boyfriend, Ken, after months of preparation and training. Their thrilling adventure is all going to plan until it isn't.
When a storm swallows up Mount Whitney, the young couple are forced into a rapid, unplanned descent. Jean will find herself stranded, all alone, and staring death in the face. With no help in sight, she must dig deep to find an inner strength she never knew she had. It's the strangest thing. I felt this...
presence over me. It's really hard to describe. And I sensed that that was death. And I remember making this vow as I felt this presence. And that vow was, if I live until morning, I will live my greatest dreams. I'm John Hopkins from Noisa. This is Real Survival Stories. It's early March 1982 in the high Sierra Nevada of Central California.
Jean and Ken are two weeks into the adventure of a lifetime. The young couple flit through the pine trees, carving criss-crossing ski tracks into the fresh powder snow. They're skiing the high mountain John Muir Trail. For some, this landscape of glacial canyons and soaring alpine summits can seem intimidating. But for 22-year-old Jean, who grew up in the mountains of Colorado, it's here where she feels most alive.
Mountains are just such a source of soul food. They uplift me. You know, you lift your eyes up to something bigger and they're humbling. And, you know, not everybody relates to mountains, but I think we all have something that is sort of our soul food, you know, and we can't live without. And for me, it's mountains. For a free spirit like Jean, the John Muir Trail is like heaven on earth.
The 200-mile long route stretches from Yosemite in Northern California and finishes on top of the towering Mount Whitney, the tallest mountain in the contiguous United States. The trail has been on Jean's bucket list for years. She had hoped to hike it one summer, but skiing it in spring, that was Ken's idea.
A shy San Diego maths major with boyish good looks and dark curls, Ken shares Jean's deep love of the outdoors, which is how they happened to meet. Ken and I had met during this rock climbing outing with the university and
After that, we became great friends. Like on weekends, we would go skiing up into the mountains. We would go bicycle riding, backpacking. I mean, we just had one adventure after another together. And he told me how he had hiked the John Muir Trail and loved it.
I was totally enthralled. I wanted to hear all about it because that's what I had hoped to do. And so he told me all about this experience. And then when he was finished with that, he just looked at me and in a way I will never forget. It was like his eyes just pierced to my core. And he said, but my dream is to ski the John Muir Trail and I need someone to do it with. And I knew at that moment that was going to be me.
Now they're two weeks into their long-awaited expedition, and it's everything they hoped it would be. It's pure wilderness, wild and uncompromising. The train is really, really steep and rugged, so it's a world of...
Silence, at times profound silence, because you know snow absorbs sound. It was a world of bright white and a varying snowpack, sometimes glittering, you know like diamonds in front of you with little rainbows of light coming off of that. It was also black rock, you know, so it was kind of like a black and white world with a cobalt blue sky.
But for all that, this route is also notorious for being one of the toughest trails in North America. Every year, local news networks report the deaths of unfortunate hikers, climbers, and skiers caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Embarking on the expedition at the start of spring, as they have done, will ensure there's still enough winter snow cover for skiing. At the same time, the snow shouldn't be so thick as to make the high mountain passes dangerous.
The time of year also means they're unlikely to encounter many other skiers along the way. They will be without GPS, radio, or any other means of making contact with civilization, and that's part of the appeal. But if anything goes wrong, their chances of rescue will be almost zero. Jean and Ken will have to be completely self-reliant.
you know, the inherent nature of adventure is there's risk and there's uncertainty. We're maybe going into familiar terrain, maybe we're not, but we don't know what will happen and what will unfold and how we will deal with those things. And so there was that background there, but there was also the excitement. And part of that is the fun and, you know, not knowing, right? It keeps life interesting.
Clad in thick winter jackets and woolly hats, Jean and Ken spend the days hiking up through the ravines and climbing over mountain passes, before skiing back down through snowshoots and gullies. They're both carrying bulky 35-pound rucksacks loaded with food and camping gear. They've also brought along ice axes for the climbing sections. They'll need these to reach Mount Whitney's summit at the trail's end. With the crisp mountain air filling her lungs, Jean feels completely free and unburdened.
Each evening, the young pair huddled together in the warm glow of the campfire.
Each day presented different scenery, different passes, different challenges, and truly it was an adventure. So yeah, we were living like nomads and a very simple lifestyle, but I think that was part of the joy of it is it was so simple. All we had to think about was, you know, we needed to eat and continue on and make sure we stayed on route and got enough miles under our belt in a given day and stayed safe. And yeah, it was beautiful.
As the days go by, they ski deeper into the mountains. They're making good time. They're ahead of schedule. It's all going perfectly. But one morning, as they swoop through a sublime, pine-fringed pass, a strange feeling comes over Jean. About a third of the way into the trip, we were going up Silver Pass. And I just had, at that time, this gut feeling. I mean, it literally rose up from my gut that something terrible was going to happen on this trip.
With everything going to plan, Jean can't figure out where this sense of foreboding is coming from, but she can't shake it off. You know, I kind of push that feeling down and I'm a very intuitive person and I wished I had listened to that. But I ask myself, what do you do with this feeling? Because how do you know if it's intuition versus just a random thought, right? Or fear arising, right?
I thought, well, I won't say anything because Ken, my skiing partner, was such a logical person. And to say, OK, I know we've trained for this trip for years. We planned this trip to the nth degree. And I think we should just turn around and give it all up because I have this gut feeling. I knew that wouldn't go over. In hindsight, I wished I had listened to that, you know, it would have saved me a lot of grief. Jean does her best to shrug off the premonition. But as the peaks around them grow taller...
She's uncomfortably aware of just how far from help they are. You know, there was no way to communicate back then. There was no cell phones. There was no GPS, anything like that. No emergency beacons. Nonetheless, they continue making excellent progress. After three weeks, Jean and Ken have arrived at Crab Tree Meadows. It's their last waypoint before the grand finale, climbing Mount Whitney. In its shadow, they look up.
It rises to 14,500 feet. They strap their skis onto their packs, break out the ice axes, and attack the ascent of the West Face with glee. It's not long before they're scaling the final climb. We were feeling very optimistic. Things had been going very good. We were ahead of schedule. I was strong and fit. In fact, at the peak of my physical fitness and very confident.
I was amazed about how fast we were climbing the peak. Again, I think it was due to fitness and strength and, you know, looking around and seeing all the peaks that we had seen for many weeks and they were becoming smaller and smaller on the horizon as we gained this height. And then when we actually got to the summit, it was...
huge, like flat, covered with boulders, mostly windblown, but there was some snow up there. And it took a long time actually to get from the edge of the Western face across the summit to the true tippy top of it. - Reaching the true summit, Jean and Ken drink in the awe-inspiring views. This is the moment they've been dreaming about, and it doesn't disappoint. Jean rolls the film in her camera
and looks through the viewfinder. She snaps a photo of Ken as he grins into the lens. - It was a real exuberant moment. You know, we had finally accomplished our goal. We were here, it was the end of the trip. There was a phenomenal view and we just, we felt really good about things. And that changed practically in a heartbeat. - As Jean and Ken gaze out into the bright blue skies, they both noticed that dark clouds are starting to gather.
Conditions on Mount Whitney can switch in the blink of an eye. As the highest point in the Sierra, incoming weather systems roll off the Pacific Ocean, race eastwards, and swirl around its peak. But despite their mountain know-how, Jean and Ken are shocked at just how quickly the clouds are approaching. Within minutes, the wind picks up and snow starts to fall.
So the clouds were building in the distance and we weren't too concerned, but they built so fast. And it got very, very dark and it started to snow on us and the temperature is dropping. And then we're starting to see lightning and we're hearing thunder and it's getting closer and closer. A huge storm is closing in. They need to find shelter, fast. There is a small alpine hut just along the summit.
But as they race towards it, a blinding white flash lights up the sky right above them. This is the worst place you can be in a lightning storm. I mean, the threat of getting hit and killed by lightning was quite serious. And Ken and I realized the danger we were in, and that was frightening. I mean, really frightening. Another fork of lightning tears through the blackening sky.
The roof of the hut flares, reflecting back the blast of light. Jean suddenly suspects it may not be the safe haven they seek. This shelter, the stone shelter that was there on the summit, it had a metal corrugated roof, and it was buzzing, you know, bzzz, bzzz.
I looked at Ken and his hair was standing up and my hair was starting to stand up. You know, so there's a lot of electricity in the air. You're in imminent danger here of a lightning strike and you're high and you're vulnerable. And, you know, other than the shelter, you are the tallest thing around and that's going to attract the lightning. Jean and Ken know they need to get off the summit immediately. But the West Face they just climbed is now directly in the storm's path.
Their other option is to descend the north face of the mountain. It should offer better protection from the weather, but neither of them knows the best route down it. It's a tough call to make. They decide to take their chances. As they peer down the northern slope, they're alarmed by the gradient. It looks almost vertical. So we tied our skis onto our backpacks and we took out our ice axes
And I remember asking Ken, do you really think we can go down this? It is so steep. And he assured me we could and we needed to move like now. So I looked at him and I remember that exchange, that glance of fear in both of our eyes, a lot of fear. Isaacs is bared. They approach the precipice. Jean swallows, a knot of nerves rising in her throat.
We're scared. We're absolutely terrified. We need to make a decision fast. So we decided to go down the North Face and we traversed along the edge of the mountain that leads down the North Face to find the best route. So we found these snowy coirs or gullies, if you will. And when we looked
down the mountain it appeared that they went all the way down but of course you don't have a full distance and you the curvature of the mountain in the snow and foreshortened view we couldn't see that there were actually cliffs down there so we opted to go down that way their hope is that by sliding down these snow shoots they'll be able to lose altitude swiftly while avoiding a technical descent ken went down first he faced the mountain
And he started kicking steps into the snow.
He's hanging off of his ice axe, and then he starts what's known in the mountaineer's world as a hanging glissade, which is to literally be hanging on your ice axe. So the pick of the ice axe is in the snow, maybe a half an inch, and your whole body weight, all of your skis, your 35 to 45-pound backpack, it's all being held by this half inch on metal ice.
A hanging glissade requires an enormous amount of skill and precision. The freezing blizzard is all around them now. If Ken's axe comes loose or his feet slip, he will tumble to his death. And so Ken is going down and then I step over the edge. I remember taking a deep breath like, "Okay, here we go." You know? The going is painfully slow at first, but as they settle into the descent, they move quicker, covering 50 feet, 100 feet,
Up ahead, Ken's progress through the snow has created a track of sorts that Jean can follow, but after a while it vanishes. Pausing to look around, she soon spots him a short way off. He's changed his position and is now in a sitting glissade. So he's now on his rear end and he's managing the ice axe in front of him. So if he slips, he can turn around theoretically and self-arrest and stop himself by digging that pick back into the mountain.
Hopefully, Ken's decision to deploy this maneuver is an indication that the angle is getting less steep. Or maybe the snow is softening, making it easier to gain traction with his feet. But then something happens. He hits ice. And all of a sudden, all I saw was this blue blur flying down the mountain out of the corner of my eye, and it disappeared out of my sight. As Jean peers down into the clouds of churning snow, she can see no sign of Ken.
She calls his name, but hears nothing back, only the shrieking wind. And I realize he's fallen. I don't know where he is. I'm alone. I am beyond terrified. She stays there for a moment, stunned, but she must force herself to keep going. She has to get down safely and quickly for both of them.
If I lost my concentration, I was going to fall. And I knew that. And I would maybe die, but also I wouldn't be available to help him. And I didn't know what his fate was. I didn't know if he was alive. I didn't know if he was dead or injured or where he was. So I really went slow. And so this went on for hours. And every, I don't know, 20 feet or so as I went down,
I would stop. I would kick my toes into that slope, make sure my ice axe was really well anchored into the snow. And I would scream, Ken, Ken, are you okay? And I just screamed out into the void, into the wind. And I never, ever heard his voice. By late afternoon, as she continues inching down the gully, Jean is completely exhausted. But finally...
The angle of the slope starts to ease off. Now she can start to slide down more speedily. She comes to a rest at a small lip of rock. From here, she can see clearly down the mountain. And when she looks over the edge, she feels a rush of relief. And I saw Ken way below me and he was waving his arms back and forth. So I knew he was alive. I didn't know anything more than that.
And then I saw that he was working his way up toward me. And he disappeared out of sight for a while, and I just continued to go down. And eventually, he arrived where I was, and that was a very, very happy reunion. As they wrap one another in a welcome embrace, Jean is amazed to find that, by some miracle, Ken hasn't suffered any serious injuries. Despite falling some 800 feet, he has started to experience frostbite.
He said to me, my feet are really cold. Like I can hardly feel them. And so we sat on this ledge. I took my pack off. Ken had actually come up the mountain without his pack. I know from my mountaineering experience, like I had to warm him up. His feet had to function to get down. And I remember he sat across from me and I said,
Took off his ski boots and his socks and his feet were like ice and I shoved them in my armpits. I felt this shiver of cold go through my whole core because that's what had to be done, you know, as his feet would warm up. That's when he just looked at me and he started crying. And then he said, will you marry me? You know, I want to grow old with you. Kind of an odd place to have that happen. But of course I said yes.
But I didn't dream about what our life would look like together. I think most young couples do that. It was a desperate moment. We had to get off this mountain alive. The daylight was disappearing. This is no time to consider wedding plans. They need to find a place to shelter for the night. With Ken's feet somewhat warmed, the newly betrothed couple are ready for the next section of the descent.
This part is sheer rock face, and that means technical climbing, which is not something they're really prepared for. They decide that Gene will stay put temporarily while Ken goes down ahead to retrieve his pack.
Because Ken had already climbed up, he kind of knew a way down. And so he said, you know, stay here. I'm going to down climb this 20 feet or so of rocks. And then I'm going to traverse this ledge to avoid the serious cliffs below. I'll go get my pack, come back up with the rope and help you down. Ken disappears over the ledge.
Jean curls up and hugs her knees to her chest. She's horribly exposed here, caught right in the teeth of the wind. The minutes drag by. Where is he? Is he okay? Jean gets to her feet to try to keep her blood pumping. She too is at risk of frostbite. Should she stick to the plan? Or reassess? She can't wait forever. Eventually, even though it's not what they agreed, she decides that the danger of exposure outweighs the risks of the descent.
I'm standing there and it's snowing and it's cold and, you know, the daylight is disappearing on us. And I had the thought at that time, well, I'm young, I'm strong, I'm fit. I can down climb this too. I don't need to wait who knows how long in the cold and for him to get that rope. Jane's an experienced rock climber, but she's never attempted anything like this before. She just prays that her ski boots will offer enough grip.
So then I started down climbing. So this is technical climbing and it was going okay for the first, I don't know, five, 10 feet. And then I also realized I'm shorter than Ken. I'm just under five, three, and I can't reach the same holes, footholds and handholds that he could.
And pretty soon I'm finding myself kind of spread eagle on the rock. And I realized that I don't have a place to go. I now can't go up. I can't go down. I can't go sideways. I'm stuck. And there wasn't really anything I could do. And I was trying to hang on. And I started to not only get very scared, but I'm shaking. I'm physically shaking from exhaustion. And I was just terrified. And I remember thinking,
I can't hang on forever. You know, I don't know what I'm going to do, but I cannot hang on forever. And in that fearful moment, the last thought I had was my inner voice said, God, don't let me fall. It kind of as a plea, you know, and then my world, it went dark. Jean's hands and feet slip from the mountainside and she plummets through the air.
I heard my ice axe scraping on the rock. I heard this pound, pound, pound as I was hitting the rock and falling. And then I was unconscious at some point. And I fell. I later learned 150 to 165 feet bouncing off of rocks. Head spinning, Jean slowly opens her eyes.
And when I came to
Ken was yelling at me. He's like, are you okay? Are you okay? And he's dragging me across the snow. He took my pack off and I'm falling and he's picking me back up and dragging me and I'm falling. And I knew I was hurt and I was really disoriented and it was getting close to dark but not quite. And he dragged me for like an eighth of a mile. After carrying her across the ice-covered slope, Ken stops.
Battling against the wind, he manages to erect their tent and pull Jean inside. I remember laying there and looking out and the last rays of light had pierced through these dark snowy clouds and it was shining on Mount Russell, which was across the valley and it was beautiful. And I remember thinking, this is the last thing I'm going to see before I die.
And I remember thinking, yeah, this is a beautiful place to die. Jean has suffered multiple spinal fractures. She's broken her hip in three places and her tailbone is obliterated. She has a head wound, a concussion and significant internal injuries. I remember laying there in the dark and asking Ken to help.
stay awake all night because I wasn't sure I was going to make it. Like my breathing had gotten really shallow and I'm bleeding pretty intensely externally and internally. And so with my shallow breathing, I said, just stay awake if you can and resuscitate me if necessary, which he agreed to do. And then right before I went to sleep, it's the strangest thing. I was very awake, very aware. And I felt this
presence over me. It's really hard to describe. It felt like the outline of a body, an energetic body, like right floating right above me, like close enough to kiss me, if you will. It was very intimate in that way. And I sensed that that was death. I didn't know if I'd make it through the night. Well, of course I wanted to live. And I remember making this vow as I felt this presence. And that vow was,
If I live until morning, I will live my greatest dreams. Jean opens her eyes. She's almost surprised to find she's made it through to the morning, but she's still in severe pain and in no state to move. The couple discuss whether Ken should head down the mountain to find help, but it feels too risky leaving Jean alone. At least here they have shelter, food, and water. They decide to wait out the storm.
The next two days was really just about resting. We didn't talk a lot unless it was planning our survival and, you know, kind of drifting in and out of sleep. I couldn't get comfortable. I had rocks underneath my air mattress, my Therm-a-Rest air mattress, and I was in so much pain because of all my fractures. And Ken couldn't get comfortable, and he was moaning and groaning a lot. And, you know, you're just listening to the wind.
Sometime early that morning, my inner voice spoke again. This mantra arose. And that mantra was, I'm going to live. I'm going to live. I'm going to live. And I said that mantra for over two days straight, not out loud because I didn't want to alarm Ken.
but inside, over and over and over. So if I wasn't sleeping or I wasn't talking to Ken, that's what was going on. And I don't know if it was a way of convincing myself, yes, you're really going to live. Jean is determined to make it off this mountain. She knows the steep trek will take at least three days. The terrain will push her broken body beyond its limits. There's only one way down.
After two nights of rest, they slowly pack up the tent and gather their gear. And I remember standing up out of that tent. It took us forever to pack up because everything was so painful, every movement. We had aspirin with us and that was the extent of it. And I remember Ken putting that 35 pounds on my broken back and pelvis. It hurt so bad. But I had no choice.
Traveling light isn't an option. They'll need all of their kit on the descent. Shouldering her heavy bag, fractured spine in agony, Jean forces herself forward, her ski boots slowly crunching across the thick snow. All she can do is repeat her mantra and focus on all that she has to live for. And there were times where I thought, I don't know if I can do this. I just don't know.
And I would look up to the mountains and I would pray for the strength and the courage to continue. And there were times I literally collapsed. And I would just remember my vow. I had lived until morning. I was going to live my dreams. And the dream that kept me going is
was I wanted to see the Himalayas because of my love for mountains. I wanted to see the tallest, most beautiful in my mind, mountains on Earth. And so I would visualize those Himalayas when I was in terrible moments of despair and no, get up, you know, pull yourself up and do it again and again. For the next two days with Ken by her side, Jean somehow manages to keep going, putting one foot in front of the other.
Gradually, the mountain conditions start to change. The last knockings of the storm are finally passed. The snow starts to recede as they approach the lower slopes. They dip below the tree line and they can hear the chirp of birdsong. The couple set up camp on a sun-dappled ledge.
And the next day we got up again and now we're starting to see bits of the trail. We got low enough down where we could actually follow pieces of where people had trod down the earth. And I'm just collapsing left and right on the trail. Like I'm planting my face in the dirt and thinking I can't, I'm not going to make it. And then again, I would just keep thinking of my dream. I want to see the Himalayas and I force myself back up. Finally, they reach a well-worn hiking track.
A proper route, Jean bursts into tears. After five days of sheer grit and determination, it all catches up with her. And that was the first time in five days I cried because I couldn't let myself cry earlier because I had to focus on surviving. I had to really put everything into getting out alive. And now I could feel the emotions. I could let myself feel physical pain that I kept trying to quash down.
With her arm draped around Ken's neck, Jean hobbles along the path. They reach a winding access road. Ken dashes ahead. Soon he's managed to flag down a passing car. And of course I thought we were free and clear then and he went to flag down a car and the first car that came up Ken flagged down and they refused to take us to the hospital.
And I'm just amazed by that because we looked, we were covered in blood. I mean, we looked like death warmed over, you know. So Ken didn't come right back to tell me that this car had refused. He stayed out in the parking lot and was hoping for another car to come by. But then when Ken came back, then he told me that the first car had refused.
refused us a ride. And I now felt a sadness about that because I cannot fathom turning someone down in a moment of desperation. But just then, in that moment of disbelief, Jean also experiences the warmth of human compassion. Running to catch up with Ken is another young man, a second driver, who is ready to drop everything to help her.
Ken brought this man over to me and he has offered to give us a ride. I mean, my hair is matted in blood. I mean, I look terrible. I smell terrible. And he's like, everything's going to be okay now. And he was comforting me.
And he, I found out, had driven up to the trailhead that day just kind of on a fluke because he and his wife and their baby, so we're talking an infant is with them. They're from Utah and they're moving to California. And it was a beautiful day. So they thought they would just take the side trip to enjoy the scenery. And...
He unloaded his car, it was full of his belongings. He left his wife and his baby there. They're gonna be up there in the cold for at least an hour and a half, maybe longer, to make the round trip to the hospital. And I remember he came and he picked me up with caring and gentleness and carried my broken bloody body to the car and put me in the front seat.
And he drove slowly down the mountain because, believe me, every bump and crack in the road, of which there are many on that road, I could just feel shooting pain through my body. But he was so sensitive. And he's my one unsung hero I can't find. I had his contact info, but it was lost in the emergency room. And I would give anything to meet that man in person and tell him how much that act of kindness meant to me.
Literally, it might have saved my life because time was of essence. I was really close to dying. Jean spends 10 days in a local hospital before being transferred to San Diego. She undergoes extensive surgery. A doctor warns her that she will probably never hike again. And I didn't have any idea of, you know, what the injuries were going to result in for the rest of my life. And that...
generally would not be something to say to me, but in this case I guess it was good because I'm the kind of person if you tell me I can't do something I really want to do, my inner voice will speak up and say, "Oh yeah? Just give me some time and I'm gonna prove you wrong." And that's exactly what happened. In time she makes it back out to the Sierra. She even manages to ski again. And she never forgets the deal that she made with herself that first night after her fall.
Just three years later, Jean comes good on that promise as she hikes through the Himalayas and watches the sun sink behind Mount Everest.
That's the moment I had lived for. Anticipating that moment is what kept me alive and got me out of the mountains and helped me recover. You know, I literally had the topo map of the Everest region on my bedroom wall for years as a reminder, this is what you're working towards. And so I'm standing there and I have tears running down my face. You know, I made it. I'm alive. I lived until morning. I've lived to get to the Himalayas.
And I wanted to stay there. I remember it got dark and cold and everybody's heading down. I went down by headlamp. I was the last one down and I was cried all the way down. And these were tears of just pure joy. Back in the US, Jean marries Ken. They spend more than 20 years together, going on many adventures and both forging successful careers in the National Park Service. But in truth, though Jean makes a remarkable recovery from her injuries, it's by no means plain sailing.
At times, even years later, chronic pain returns with a vengeance. And it takes many years to process the trauma of her near-death ordeal. I think, in hindsight, I needed a lot more actual recovery and, I guess, healing advice and physical therapy, which I didn't get. And I think that kind of came back to haunt me later on.
Jean spends half a lifetime almost trying to forget what happened on Mount Whitney. But one day, a suggestion from a trauma therapist gives her an idea. Jean decides to write a book about her experience. And in putting pen to paper, she starts to really confront her demons.
But I realized that sometimes you have to go back to move forward, and I needed to deal with this head on. And so I decided I would train and get strong again, and it was a good motivation to go back to Mount Whitney, to go back to the North Face. Two decades after those fateful days on Mount Whitney, Jean returns there. With the help of friends, she manages to retrace her steps back up that same perilous descent.
What they find there on the mountains is truly remarkable as Jean's story comes full circle.
We looked for my skis, which we never found, but we did find one of Ken's skis. And I found the heel of my ski boot. And I have to say, that was one of the most healing moments for me. I didn't realize how powerful it was to go back. Because I'm standing there at the base of the cliffs. I'm holding tangible objects from the past.
And it kind of connected this timeline and my inner and outer being on a different level. And I bawled. I mean, it was cathartic. I just bawled and I screamed because so much emotion flooded through me. I learned the importance of mind and energy.
how powerful our minds are. And I learned that on Mount Whitney. I had to focus so much and I had to kind of continue that focus in different ways to get out. And then I continued to learn the power of my mind to heal and to deal with adversity of chronic pain and even to get through some painful treatments.
You know, we can become prisoners of our own pain or we can choose to let them transform us and take it out and make it a thing of good. And so that's something I've definitely wanted to do is to benefit others and inspire others to heal and inspire others to go after those big dreams, but in a responsible way. In the next episode, we meet Ken Hildebrand, a registered beaver trapper from Alberta, Canada.
As a seasoned survivalist, he believes he's prepared for any eventuality as he heads out to work in the Rockies. But when he upends his quad bike on a remote mountain pass, Ken's outdoor skills and training will be strained to the limit. As the wind whips up and predators circle, how long can he hold out? That's next time on Real Survival Stories. If you don't want to wait a week, hear Ken's story today by subscribing to Noiser Plus. See the episode description for more information.