Back in the day before satellite phones and gps… After a routine climb up the West Buttress of Denali, I was looking for something to do. In the Anchorage REI I purchased a sea kayak and gear and drove to Skagway. I did not know how to read a nautical chart, did not know how to do a self rescue, had not paddled more than ten days in the calm waters of Puget Sound and had never paddled in ocean swells. I told myself that I wanted a steep learning curve, do or die. Before I pushed off a friend asked if I was worried about the danger, in my best hard man bluster I said, “my mom has two sons, she will be fine. Sneaking down the inside passage was full of adventure, watching for bear tracks and sleeping in a bivy sack on the high tide line. Fifty nine days and 850 miles later this was all about to change. I had to do this little open water crossing. Cape Caution at the North end of Vancouver Island. I left the Egg Island light house in grey weather and was promptly in a squall that pushed me into a micro beach called Indian Cove. I spent a day watching the wind whip trees back and forth befor heading south again. Then four miles south of camp a squal blew in, straight in my face. Being a novice (fool) I kept my boat near shore in the allusion of safety. But the rebonding ways and waves exploding over semi submerged sea stacks all around me made the sea caotic to say the least. I was looking for a cove on the chart 100 yards away but could not reach it, the wind was pushing me backwards as I mightly paddled for my life. So I decided to risk capsizing and turn around. The boat disappeared several times under green water but I did turn and made the four mile race back to Indian Cove. The next day I passed the cove I was heading for and determined it would have been a death trap in bad weather. Still not out of the Pacific swells I took the first inlet that the chart said would get me behind a small island and out of the way of the Pacific swells. Little did I know that the current out of the passage was raging like the Columbia river and the swells rolling in were to soon trap me between a whirlpool and black cliff of breaking waves and a huge rolling swell. I knew I was going to die. I am alive but I do not really know how. I sent my article into Sea Kayaker many years ago and they sent it back saying they did not publish articles by complete unsafe idiots or something like that. No one knew where I was, no one was coming to look for me for two months at the earliest, I had no radio or communication device except one flare, non of this stuck on an island with a computer and sat phone for rescue. Anyway that is my story, let me know if you want to read it.

Kinaman- cool story! I would do the same.

Mt Shasta CA Feb 1982. Went with two buddies to climb Casaval Ridge. Left the parking lot with snow falling and skied to 10,000' (left our skis at tree line). Dug a snow cave and spent the night. Woke up the next day to a whiteout and winds you could lean into. Worked our way back to our skis to find that one of mine had blown away. Given I would be moving much slower than my friends I decided to start down without them and promptly ended up lost in a blizzard. The lower I got the deeper the snow became and at one point I was wading up to my waist. I knew I should find a safe place to hole up, but was too scared to stop moving. At one point I was in a gully and an avalanche broke loose and came down 10 feet in front of me. Fracture line was at least 3' and had I been in its path I would have been dead for sure. Finally made it back to the road in the dark after 12 hours on the move and started digging a snow cave when a snow plow came along and gave me a ride back to town where my friends were sure that I was dead. Violated pretty much every rule in the book - starting the climb in a storm, not knowing the route well, no map, splitting up. The lessions I learned totally changed my approach to the mountains after that.

Maybe not as close as it could've been - but still, getting lost in a high sierra thunderstorm wearing only shorts and a t-shirt was...cold. http://johnclimbrok.blogspot.com/2008/07/hypothermic-circles.html

In January 1990 I was in a boating accident in the Bering Sea off of Adak, one of the Aleutian Islands. We were lost at sea in a "Class A" storm (basically zero visibility) for several hours with radio, depth finder, and radar not working - and at least 10-foot seas. After the boat went over, I was trapped for 17 hours (all night and into the next day) with two of three of my companions (one person disappeared when the boat capsized to... we didn't know where)in the over-turned boat. Water temps were near freezing, with air temps below. I had a shock suit - NOT a survival suit - on. During the night, both of of the other people died (they succumbed to hypothermia and drown). I was a 23-year-old volunteer with the Fish and Wildlife Service on Adak, which was also a Navy base, and had never been on the ocean before (and had received no training). There were no organized search and rescue plans/procedures. I was found by volunteers who defied Navy commander orders, and came out to find me (although we had never met). This is my story... but, more than that, the story of so many others (some good, some not so good).

here is my never before told story of surviving the Mt. Saint Helens eruption. Check it out to find out what it was like to be there. http://www.squidoo.com/surviving-mt-saint-helens

here is my never before told story of surviving the Mt. Saint Helens eruption. Check it out to find out what it was like to be there. http://www.squidoo.com/surviving-mt-saint-helens