IT TOOK EIGHT DAYS TO CLEAR the fuselage, chipping away at the rock-hard snow with broken pieces of plastic. By now we were all convinced that our only chance was to walk out. Three failed attempts had convinced many that escape over the high peaks to the west was impossible, so in mid-November we tried going east. It quickly became clear that the valley did not, as we had hoped, bend around to the west, but we hadn't gone far when we discovered the plane's tail section, filled with an unexpected booty of chocolate, moldy sandwiches, and, most important, the Fairchild's batteries, which we believed could power the plane's radio so we could call out. Yet our jubilation was short-lived: After a week of tinkering, the radio remained lifeless. Meanwhile, we lost two more. Arturo Nogueira, the team's fly half and best kicker, died from infected wounds in his broken legs, and team supporter Rafael Echavarran, who'd suffered bravely through his own gangrenous leg injuries, passed away soon after. Even the strongest among us were fading. I could see hollow resignation in my friends' eyes. I wondered if they could see the same in mine.

Most alarmingly, our food was running low. We were splitting skulls now to get at the brains inside, and eating things we couldn't stomach before: lungs, marrow, the hands and feet. To the ordinary mind, our actions may seem incomprehensible, but the instinct to survive runs very deep, and when death is so near, a human being can get used to anything.

In the first week of December, as the weather improved, we began to prepare for a final westward climb. Fito and his cousins cut meat and stored it in the snow, while the others sewed pieces of insulation from the tail section into a sleeping bag that we hoped would keep the climbers warm at night. Roberto, after much resistance, had agreed to go with me, as had Antonio "Tintin" Vizintín, a front-line forward with the strength and temperament of a bull. For days we gathered equipment: the nylon seat covers we used as blankets, snowshoes that Fito fashioned out of the seat cushions, a bottle to melt water in the sun, and knapsacks Roberto made by tying off the legs of trousers and threading nylon straps through the pant legs.

Tintin and I were eager to set off, but Roberto seemed to find one excuse to delay after another—snapping that the sleeping bag needed better stitching, or he needed more time to gather his strength. But he was cruelly jolted from his mulishness on the afternoon of December 11, when Numa Turcatti, a friend of the team whose courage had won everyone's respect, died from infected sores on his legs.

On the morning of December 12, our 61st day in the Andes, I rose quietly. I'd dressed the night before: Next to my skin I wore a cotton polo shirt and a pair of women's slacks, then three pairs of jeans and three sweaters. I wore four pairs of socks, covered with plastic supermarket bags to keep them dry. Now I gathered the aluminum pole I would use as a walking stick, a women's lipstick to protect my blistered lips, and bands of cloth to wrap around my hands. I stuffed my feet into my battered rugby shoes, pulled a wool cap over my head, and topped it with the hood and shoulders I'd cut from the antelope coat Susy had worn. Everything I did had the feel of ceremony, of consequence.