OMG! I just read all of what you sent me and the similarities are distressing. My God! So familiar and something that I didn’t realize I had blocked out. PTSD? Hypothermia don’t play.
Jocko, Crutch and I were so lucky to have been found where and when we were but if anyone is interested in what led up to the “Marcel Experience” here it is. Skip ahead if you like.
https://3meterswell.blogspot.com/1972/12/lost-and-found.html
Without getting into it it involved ski boats, alcohol, propellers, head and body injuries, several operations and pissed off parents. Along with a rescue by some of the film crew from the movie “PT 109”. I’m sure there was probably at least one Marcel on that rescue boat but I don’t remember much at that point.
Special thanks to that crew.
About 40 years ago I first heard a question that has served me well when encountering situations where choices need to be made. A bridge engineer was conducting a problem solving session with a number of us and he shared with us a saying his father used when he was growing up. His father was a farmer, frequently faced with fixing something on the farm and his approach was to first ask himself…"What would a smart guy do?
I’ve asked myself that question many times since Ive heard it. The answers usually have me headed in a good direction, but more importantly makes me pause and consider things more completely.
“No one ever died on a portage.”
Voyageur quote number one.
Your story gave me a mental image of Marcel in the shape of Werner Herzog’s character, The Zec.
Years ago a fellow posted here, “Its better to regret carrying around a rapid than to regret running one.”
As an afterthought, though, this is a fine rule to guide for wilderness tripping where loss of gear or the consequences of a foul up might result in injury - but if you carry that notion too far you’ll never run anything anytime. Nobody gets better at river running doing that. I did exactly that for many many years and now have some regrets (relatively minor) about that, too. I even have a particular set in mind that I’ll be running, empty on a warm day, when I get a chance.
Allan,
Not far from the truth. Marcel is the guy on the right. The man in the middle is Dave Mahre who was the person in charge of our rescue. Fellow on the left is Lex Maxwell and he was not part of it.
Here’s another pic of Marcel and Dave, on Mt. Rainier’s Liberty Ridge…
I have never regretted a portage or lining of rapids one bit.
I have regretted running some of them due to lost equipment, smashed canoes, punctured rafts and having to rescue people. I have seen people get so scared they quit the sport and walked back to the take out. I have lost two friendships over canoe wrecks.
Good one, Andykeck!
Looks like you have connections in the Puget Sound area. Have you figured out who the 3rd rescuer was? He’s mentioned in the Yakima Herald article.
My philosophy has been " Line it up & go or pick it up & walk. Don’t matter either way once you’ve made the choice".
I tend to be a bit over cautious so there isn’t really anything I’ve done that I regret & only one rapid on the Dog that I wonder about. We had camped at the head of the rapid so the boat was unloaded anyway & I wasn’t sure if I could make the ferry so I launched at the bottom of the rapid along with a couple of others.
Connections indeed, I lived in Seattle for a little more than 20 years and still count REI as one of my better clients. They guy you haven’t mentioned yet is Fred Dunham, although that bit of knowledge does not come out of any connection to the mountaineering titans of Washington’s past. I didn’t get to Seattle until much later.
Correct. Fred and I are friends today. A year ago he inducted me into the Sherpas with the Writ of the Hideous Sherpa at Frenchman’s Coulee.
I don’t think a screenwriter could put together a more amazing closure to that story. Congrats!
Noting the ski poles … is Dave related to the Mahre brothers, Phil & Steve?
Thanks. The whole experience from the beginning though today has been something that I feel so blessed to have had. It obviously still shapes my life today. It has connected me with so many people who I would have never known, otherwise.
Shortly after I wrote that story I got a phone call from Tom Hornbein. The story was making the rounds among climbers of a certain age and he tracked me down just to chat. Pretty surprising for me to get a call like that. He laughed and told me some stories of his own. I got to talk to him about the Everest West Ridge traverse. We’ve exchanged a few emails.
Totally random. Getting lost and found at 17 opened doors, connected me with some of my heros, helped my risk assessment process, and I’ve made new friends. There-I-was-thought-I-was-gonna-die but it turned out good.
Fred is still actively climbing and holding court with the Sherpas in Eastern Washington.
Yes. Dave was their Father.
Ah, the story continues to amaze. I never met any of the Titans of that era, but I did work for a while with a woman that was some relation of Fred Beckey and thus got a lot of (probably sanitized) good stories. And my wife had a friendly working relationship with Ed Viesturs so I got some contact glory there too.
My family settled in WA state in 1889. I am a third generation Husky. While studying forestry at UW in the 1970s there were a lot of snow and ice climbers around. I went to school with guys that would climb peaks in the Cascades in the winter, and name them after themselves. I got interested in glaciology and climbing, but got discouraged by all the people with dead friends. One guy I met had lost all of his fingers and toes when he fell into a crevasse on Mt St Elias. Seattle was like a small town in those days.
Great story, and a lesson for us all. In my long-distance motorcycle community, we have a syndrome called “Gotta get there”. It’s the base reason for many injuries and fatalities. In that world, pulling over and grabbing a hotel might be the difference between life or death. You did a great job in that same situation.
