Last Valentine¡¯s Day, Ryan Osmun, a 34-year-old from Mesa, Arizona, and his girlfriend, Jessika McNeill, decided to hike the Subway, a remote, semi-technical slot canyon trail in Utah¡¯s Zion National Park. Well into their trip, Osmun stepped in a tiny patch of quicksand that completely swallowed his leg. As a winter storm moved in, McNeill had to make a desperate hike out of the canyon to find help?while Osmun tried to stay alive, stuck in an icy riverbed as more and more snow fell.

We¡¯d?hiked in?Zion before this, but not the Subway.?I figured it would be a long day¡ªfive hours in, five hours out. And the weather was sunny when we started. At the beginning of the hike, we found a stick that was about six feet long?and took it with us to poke into the ground whenever we crossed water to make sure it was okay to step there.

As we hiked, snow started lightly sprinkling off and on. About five miles in, we had to walk through?a pond. Less than five feet from the edge, Jessika¡¯s front foot sunk. Then?she fell forward, and both legs started to?sink. I told her to stop moving and not to freak out, and then I went to help. I got her by the shoulders and pulled her out. That¡¯s when I felt my leg sinking in. I didn¡¯t pay attention to what was going on; I figured I¡¯d just pull it out.

When Jessika got to shore, my right leg sank all the way to my thigh. It was also up to my left calf, and I was able to free it. The ground that sunk was just a tiny area around me, but I couldn¡¯t move my right leg at all. I couldn¡¯t even stand to get leverage to pull on it.?Jess gave me the stick. I jammed it down the side of my leg. She got another stick, and I tried to wiggle and pull my leg, but nothing was moving at all.

She started scooping sand with both hands, but it was refilling faster than she could pull it out. Her entire body was soaking wet. I told her she had to stop;?she was wasting her energy. I was not going to be able to get out of the sand.

It was just us. There was no cell reception. And I knew no one would ever come across us until the next person hiked the canyon, and who knows when that would have been. Jessika was afraid we were going to die.

I told her she had to leave.?I didn¡¯t know what would happen, but I didn¡¯t want to think that she wouldn¡¯t be able to get?out.

About a half-hour after she left, it started snowing like crazy. That¡¯s when I thought that I probably was not going to make it out of here.

I was wearing?a big jacket that would keep me warm for a while. I pulled my beanie over my face and zipped my jacket all the way up so I could pull my head inside. The stick had a Y shape at the end that I was able to rest on. The snow lasted 30 or 40 minutes. When I pulled my head up out of my jacket, there was?close to an inch of snow on top of me. Then the skies cleared up, and it was actually kind of nice for a couple hours.

It started snowing again?and didn¡¯t seem like it was going to stop. I pulled my head back into my jacket and fell asleep. I don¡¯t know how long I was asleep, but I woke up falling backwards into the water. It had been about five hours since Jess left,?and it was getting dark. I figured if they were bringing a helicopter to pull me out, it would have been there by now. Sitting in the water, I tried to get up but couldn¡¯t. I had no energy. So I pulled my hands into my jacket sleeves, which were basically frozen, and grabbed the stick, which was still stuck in the ground, and pulled myself up. I knew that if I fell back in, I wouldn¡¯t be able to pull myself back out.

At that point, I was soaking wet and knew I wasn¡¯t going to make it. I started to think about what I could do to die faster. But I didn¡¯t want to drown if I fell again. That would be the worst way to go.

I just thought about my family and tried to remember the last time I¡¯d seen them. I fell asleep again, then woke up when I thought I heard people. I pulled my head out of my jacket to look and saw snow piling up on the sleeve. I could barely get my head back into my jacket because it was starting to freeze. That¡¯s when a light came across my closed eyes. I figured it was nothing, but the light moved more, so I?pulled my head out. It was definitely a flashlight.

I started yelling for help. The rescuer, Tim, started yelling back to me. He ran up to where I was?and strapped himself onto the rocks to make sure he didn¡¯t sink. I asked who contacted him.?He said it was Jessika?and told me she made it out and was okay.?She fainted right after making the emergency call, but they were able to find her. She showed them a picture of where I was.?It took Tim three hours to get to me. The rest of his crew was an hour behind.

At first, he attached a pulley?system around my waist, with the other end on a gigantic rock. When he started ratcheting, I was screaming because it was so painful. He had on a drysuit and began to dig around my leg?but?realized it was going nowhere. Then?he secured the rest of the area and waited for his crew.

They had to pull me out by?my leg. Tim explained to me that the machine pulls at three pounds per square inch, so it would get me out, but he didn¡¯t know what it would do to my leg. I didn¡¯t really care at that point.

Two guys held me under each of my shoulders, and Tim scooted a?strap all the way to my kneecap. My leg was so cold¡ªevery time he touched my skin, it felt like the most jagged knife going into it.?He dug as fast as he could while another person ratcheted. It felt like a crazy amount of pressure ripping my whole leg off. Tim got his hand around my ankle and just started pulling?up, and I felt it moving. I screamed to keep going. After about three more ratchets, my leg was out of the ground. I felt all the pressure release, and they dragged me to the side of the canyon. I couldn¡¯t feel my leg at all.

I was so cold. I hugged one of the rescuers for five minutes for warmth. They got me into a sleeping bag with some heating pads.?Within 15 minutes, my body was back to normal temperature, but my leg was still frozen.

That¡¯s when I asked them to radio in and tell Jessika I was okay. It was dark, and the weather was too bad for a helicopter. They gave me an IV and some strong pain medication, and we settled in for the night. When I woke up at 6:00 the next morning, there was six inches of snow over the top of my sleeping bag, and it was still coming down.?We sat there for three or four hours. When it finally cleared up, around noon, they called in a helicopter.

When I got to the hospital in St. George, they brought in Jessika, and we both started crying. I couldn¡¯t stop thanking her and telling her how strong and brave she was.

I wanted to look at my leg when the doctor came in. It was really swollen; the whole thing was the size of my thigh. They x-rayed it and found no fractures or breaks or anything. ¡°This is honestly not too bad,¡± the doctor?told me. He?wanted me to try?walking on it. Jessika held me up, and I walked on it. Everything was fine.

The mental recovery has been much harder. I took a week off, but when Jessika would go to work, in my mind I couldn¡¯t figure out if she was going to come back. It was crazy to feel like that. For the first three months, I would wake up wet with sweat. I had dreams of falling in water and drowning.?It¡¯s hard talking about it. I¡¯ve never found somebody who was in a similar situation. I sat there for 12 hours and knew for sure I would die.?But I didn¡¯t.

The post I Was Trapped in Quicksand for 12 Hours in a Blizzard appeared first on ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Online.

Kyler Bourgeous grew up just a few minutes from the entrance of , Utah, a 42-square-mile state park in the Great Salt Lake. Over the years, the now 30-year-old college student has biked and run every route in the park?without a problem. That is, until Sunday, June 1, 2019. While running on the Frary Peak Trail, he came around a bend and was gored and trampled by one of the park¡¯s bison.

Months later, on September 27, Bourgeous and his girlfriend, 22-year-old Kayleigh Davis, who works for the Utah Department of Health, met up at the park for a?date. Davis decided to take a run while Bourgeous hung back to watch his dogs. A few minutes later, a Boy Scout ran up the trail with the news¡ªDavis?had been gored by a bison.

The couple, still together, shared their bizarre story with us.

Bourgeous:

I¡¯ve never had any trouble with animals in the park. We¡¯ve had to take bison detours plenty of times when they¡¯re near the trail¡ªwe just swing wide around them. The way Frary Peak is, you can¡¯t see what¡¯s on the other side of the ridge until you¡¯re up there. In June, I was running up this trail, and the bison were hanging out in a little bowl just down the other side of the slope.?

I was almost?to the three-mile marker on the trail, where it crests this ridge¡ªthat¡¯s when I ran into them. As soon as I saw them, I said, ¡°Oops¡±?out loud. Then?I started walking away slowly, trying to get some distance between us. But I only made it a few steps when the bison decided to charge. I ran when I saw it coming.

It closed the gap quickly, because their top speed [up to 35 miles per hour] is so high. Right before it got me, I turned sideways into it. So?I have this flashback now, where I see the bison right before it hits me, which has been a problem because the incident has caused some PTSD.

I turned into it with my right side, which ended up working as well as it could have because I didn¡¯t suffer any permanent injuries. It hit me with both of its horns. I got one in my hip, which took out a pretty big chunk of flesh, and the other one in my arm, which took out a smaller lump. It also fractured a rib, putting a small hole in my lung, which started collapsing.

The impact sent me flying through the air. I rotated?and?hit?the ground. The bison trampled me after that. I remember this whirlwind of hooves and getting smashed under it, which ripped my ear and scalp and bruised my back.?

The whole thing was over pretty quickly, but after the bison stopped, it only moved away a little bit. It stood there and watched me, waiting for me to do anything, like it was going to finish me off if it felt threatened at all.

There were some people on the rocks just above the ridge who saw this happen. I yelled up to them that I need a helicopter immediately, but I could hear them shushing me, because the bison was still so close. I side-glanced over at it and realized I probably shouldn¡¯t move and should just be cool, because it was staring at me. I think I got a huge hit of adrenaline, knowing that I hadn¡¯t died, and that¡¯s why I started yelling.

After a few minutes, the bison finally moved far enough away that?the people on the ridge ran down to try and help me. I¡¯ve got a picture where you can see the hoofprint on top of my head and another where I have prints all over my back.

Blood and sweat were running down my face and into my eyes, which hurt quite a bit. I couldn¡¯t really open my eyes and look around, so I don¡¯t know who helped me, but thank you.

After I was airlifted to the hospital, doctors put a drain in my hip and another in my armpit. When they noticed my lung was still collapsing, I had to get a chest tube installed to drain fluid around my lung. But I ended up healing remarkably quickly. [He left the hospital two days after the attack?and was back on the trail 11 days later.]

Kayleigh and I matched through an online dating app soon after that. I put in my profile that I survived a bison attack, and of course, that was the first thing she asked me about.

Every date?we went hiking or did something outdoors. That day in September, the day she got attacked, we met to see the sunset on the Lakeside Trail. I¡¯d brought my dogs, and since I¡¯d gone running earlier that day, I told her to run ahead.

Davis:

I¡¯ve been training for a half marathon, so I thought I¡¯d run on Antelope Island, since they have some good long trails. I ran ahead and was going to meet Kyler and the dogs at a trail marker.

The bison was standing there eating grass about 200 feet away, not interested in me. Just knowing Kyler¡¯s story, I didn¡¯t want to get too close. I felt uncomfortable seeing it, so I?decided to turn back and tell Kyler I didn¡¯t want to run the trail anymore.?

I waved to some mountain bikers and some scouts on the trail, probably about 50 yards away from?the bison, who were?closer to it than I was. I saw the bison looking right at me. Then?it was running toward?me. The only thing I could think to do was to run away. I looked over my shoulder three times, and each time it was getting closer. It was 70 yards away from me when I started running, but I only made it ten?more yards before it caught up to me. The third time I looked over, he was right there and threw me straight into the air, about 15 feet.

I was thinking a lot of things, wondering if I was going to land on him or if I was going to land on my head. I was thinking this would be it. Honestly, I don¡¯t remember much?until I landed and was laying on the ground, staring straight up as it looked right at me. It was doing the hoof thing, like he was going to charge me if I moved. In that moment, I was thinking of Kyler getting trampled, and I didn¡¯t want that to happen to me, so I just stayed still.

The bikers called 911 right away. I laid?there scared,?the bison standing over me, sniffing me. I heard the scout leader, who was also an off-duty police officer, in the background saying, ¡°Don¡¯t move¡± and ¡°Calm down.¡±?Then?the bison bluffed like it was going to charge the scout leader, who was trying to get it away from me. Finally,?it started walking away.

I had a fractured ankle, and it punctured the back of my thigh.

I was like, What are the odds??I was crying, waiting for Kyler to come up, and wondering what he was going to think. I worried that I messed up his day?and that he probably won¡¯t want to go back to Antelope Island ever again. I was still crying when he came up to me. He held my hand and told me not to worry. After comforting me, he got his bear mace out and stood guard, in case the bison came back while we waited for the helicopter.

Bourgeous:

I¡¯ve been blamed for this happening. People assume that by association I must¡¯ve done something, especially when it happens twice.

Davis:

The rangers said both incidents were freak accidents. I laugh about it, but it¡¯s also pretty traumatic. I had a dream the other night where I was somewhere safe, but the bison kept chasing me, and I was like, Oh, it knows my sins.

A lot of coworkers give me bison jerky and tell me I can get my revenge by eating bison burgers.

Bourgeous:

I don¡¯t know why this happened. Maybe the bison see me as a threat. I¡¯ve done every trail on the island countless times. I¡¯ve done Frary Peak 150 times. So I wonder if maybe the bison got sick of seeing me out there. I always avoided them, but they were probably pissed off that I¡¯m all over the place.

Since then?I¡¯ve been riding my bike along the causeway, but just to edge of the island. The other day, I snuck up the road a little. There¡¯s a wide-open view where you can see the bison from a mile away. Some people were stopped a half-mile ahead of me, and there were three bison in the distance. I saw them get out of their car and start sneaking up closer and closer. One of them stayed by the car, so I biked up to her and told her that they probably should not do this. She called to her friends to come back, and the bison basically didn¡¯t notice them.

I started moving a little bit farther up the road. Immediately, two of the bison turned and whipped their tails up. I got out of there.

The post Two Bison Attacks, One Harrowing Date appeared first on ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Online.

Colin Dowler wanted to go on an adventure for his 45th birthday, so in?July, he decided to scout out a route up Canada¡¯s?Mount Doogie Dowler, a distinctive, 7,000-foot peak as jagged as houndstooth overlooking Heriot Bay that is named for his grandfather, a longtime store owner and postmaster in the area. Colin boated from Quadra Island to a logging camp on the coast of mainland British Columbia, below the peak. From the camp, he biked his way up the remote two-track?logging road?as far as he could and bushwhacked partway up the mountain, where he spent the night in the wild.

The hike was uneventful, and he made it back to his bike the next day, ready for an easy?ride back to his boat. Less than a mile later, Colin?was standing face to face with?a grizzly.

Here¡¯s his story, as told to ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø.

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As soon as I got out of the bush and onto my mountain bike, I?was on the home stretch. I was excited about celebrating my birthday when I got back.

Peddling away, I came around a bend, and there was a grizzly bear, about a hundred feet in front of me. So?I stopped and said, ¡°Hey bear,¡± because that¡¯s what you do when you see one.

He looked into the bush, looked back up the road, and started walking my way. I kept talking to him. I decided not to turn?around to get out of there, but in hindsight, maybe I should have.

The grizzly?was pretty close, and my bear spray was gone. It fell out of my backpack somewhere on the mountain. So?I grabbed one of my hiking poles and extended it to use as some sort of deterrent. I was still straddling my bike in the hopes that the bear would just step off the trail.

It¡¯s a logging road, so it was basically two tire marks with a bump in the middle. He continued to saunter up the road toward me but?stayed in his lane. He ended up getting pretty close, maybe 20 feet away. It made me nervous that he hadn¡¯t left yet.

I?stepped off my bike, and he kind of shuddered, like he was a little bit jumpy in that moment. He kept approaching until his?head was parallel with my front tire, and as he walked past, he dipped his head down. We made a little bit of eye contact, and I looked away, because eye contact didn¡¯t really seem like something I wanted to do.

I remember thinking as he was walking by, Man, this would be cool to video. I¡¯d have footage of a bear walking just clean by me and carrying on his way.

He kept walking by until his rump was almost past my rear tire. And then he did a 180-degree turn.

I spin around, standing with my mountain bike between us.?He shuddered again and started walking toward?me. I started backing up and talking to him again. I was just trying to speak nicely to the bear in hopes that he would change his mind.

I held out my hiking pole as he approached. I ended up poking him right in the top of the head. He pushed into it, did a flip move with his head that?rolled off the pole, and got his mouth onto it. We had a tug-of-war, until he let go of it and started closing in on me again.

I dropped the pole and kept backing up.?I flung my backpack between us, hopeful that some food in one of the outside pockets would keep him busy for a bit. He stopped and took a quick sniff, but after maybe half a second, he was coming toward me again.

Then?he began doing very slow, deliberate swats at my bike. The first one was pretty mild, but then they got more powerful. As he swatted, I threw my bike at him, and he got briefly hung up on it, but then he?lunged forward?and grabbed me between my ribs and my left hip.

That¡¯s when it really sank in¡ªI was in trouble.

He picked me up by my side. It was painful and hot and weird. He carried me that way for about 50 feet. I remember thinking that if he carried me into the bush, I was a goner for sure.

He got me to the edge of the road and started to settle in on my abdomen, shaking?me a little bit as he chewed. In my head, I thought of doing something from the movies, like gouging his eyes and hanging on. The eye poke lasted about as long as the snap of a finger. I don¡¯t really know what happened after that, but my guess is that he didn¡¯t like getting poked in the eye, so he shook me.

That spun me 180 degrees, so my legs were in the ditch and my upper body on the road. He started chewing on my left thigh. He would bite and stop and bite. I could see his big yellow teeth and his drool. I stuck my thumbs in his cheeks, gouging in and trying to peel his mouth off.?I don¡¯t think he liked that, so he bit my hand.

I tried to play dead, but I couldn¡¯t, because he would bite in and I¡¯d start screaming again. The grating sound while he chewed on my leg was?like a dog chewing on a bone.

I wondered how all of this was going to end:?Is he going to eat me alive, or is he going to do so much damage that I¡¯m going to slowly die? Then I remembered that I had a knife.

It was the knife my dad gave me.?I think that knife was the first random gift he¡¯s given me in my adult life. I think they were 70 or 75 percent off at Canadian Tire.

I crawled my fingers into my pocket and popped open my?little knife¡ªa two-and-three-quarter-inch blade¡ªand then slid it underneath the bear¡¯s chest. Unbeknownst to me, I learned later, I had left a good-sized gash there.

Then?I gave a really good heave and stabbed his neck. He immediately stopped biting. A big gush of blood came out of him. I had a surge of adrenaline, and I said,?¡°Now you¡¯re bleeding, too, bear!¡±

He got off me and walked down the middle of the road. I remember being disappointed that he moved too far for me to stab him a whole bunch of times. Then he pooped, at least twice, and peed. It was clear he was suffering some trauma, too. He walked down the road and past me about 50 feet, to where he originally came out of the bush.

I was thinking, I¡¯m dying, he¡¯s dying, and I don¡¯t have much time here.

I used my knife to cut my shirt off to make a tourniquet. It?felt like my clothes were bunched up on my leg as I tried to pull the tourniquet up¡ªbut that was?the meat sticking out of my flesh. That was pretty disturbing. Finally, I?pulled the tourniquet up past all that and cinched it down.

I¡¯m pretty sure at this point that the bear was gone. So?I skidded on my butt to my bike and got on, which was a huge struggle. I tried to take off but fell over. That was pretty scary. I was telling myself that I had to get it right, because it was my last chance.

Going down the road, I used my right pedal to push and my left leg as a weight to balance.?I had to put a little force on it a few times to?get my right pedal back up. I coasted as much as I could.

It was an effort of endurance, and I dug down deep. As I rode back, I thought, I might be an amputee when this is all over, but I¡¯m still gonna try to make it.

Finally, I made it to the logging camp, where the crew called in an air ambulance. That saved my life.

I thought the bear might have been small and mangy. But when conservation officers caught him a few days later, they said he was a large, healthy four- or five-year-old grizzly. He played cat and mouse with them, too. The sergeant told me that, from the description of my attack and the way that bear behaved when they were looking for him, he believes it was a predatory attack, which is rare for grizzly bears.

There was a substantial?gaping wound on my left leg. I¡¯ve definitely got some nerve damage and have lost some muscle. It may take a couple years to figure out where I¡¯m going to end up.

I don¡¯t know if I should have done anything different. Should I have dropped my bike and backed away, or would leaving my bike there have encouraged him to?pursue me? Should I have gotten on my bike and tried to ride away, or does that get him to start chasing me down?

I¡¯m not sure that there is a right answer. I just know that I got mauled. I¡¯ve got a feeling that my solo trips into grizzly country are behind me, depending on what my wife says.

The post This Man Fought a Grizzly Bear with a Pocketknife appeared first on ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Online.

On the evening of June 23,?forestry worker Dee Gallant, 45, was walking with her?115-pound husky retriever,?Murphy, on?a remote logging road a half-hour¡¯s drive from her home in Duncan, on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. It wasn¡¯t long before she realized they weren¡¯t alone.

Here¡¯s her story as told to ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø.

I¡¯m not into dog parks, so I like to go up the mountain with my dog, where there aren¡¯t other people. The trail I was on this time is?in a gated area and not publicly accessible, but I used to work up there, and the crew doesn¡¯t care.

It was already dusk when I started, but I thought I¡¯d?go anyway, because Murphy needed?his walk.

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A couple of kilometers up the road, I could feel something watching me. You know when the hair goes up on the back of your neck, and you just know something¡¯s wrong? Over to my right, I saw this brown, rusty patch of ground that didn¡¯t look right. Then I realized it was a cougar. Just a minute before, about 25 feet back down the trail,?I had had to pee, so I had stepped off the trail and copped a squat. If I had waited another 15 feet, I would have been crouched down and in a really vulnerable position when it showed up.

My first thought after seeing the cat was,?This is so awesome.?My second thought was, It¡¯s coming toward?me. This is not awesome.

I raised my arms and waved them to try and look big, but it kept coming. So?I stopped and looked at it and said, ¡°Hey, you stop!¡± And it did.

Then?I slowly pulled my phone out of my pocket to get a picture of it, but it was accidentally set on video, so I .

It didn¡¯t go away. It locked eyes and stayed there with me for probably five minutes, but it seemed like an eternity.

Murphy was on a really long Flexi leash, so I pulled him in close so we looked bigger together. But Murphy didn¡¯t see the cat¡ªI guess he was sniffing around looking for bunnies, which was probably for the best.

The cougar and I just stared at each other as I told it off. I called it a bad kitty, said I¡¯d fight him, and yelled other things at it to see if it would leave. I wasn¡¯t super scared at that point. But I wanted to be on my toes. I¡¯m a pretty tough, Harley-riding kind of girl. I do kickboxing. I knew I¡¯d get hurt if I had to fight it, but I wasn¡¯t going to just give up.

That¡¯s when I decided I needed to do something a little bit different, because it wasn¡¯t going away. I stopped recording?and started swiping through my music library looking for songs that have a real punch-in-the-face kind of start.?I went past and Jack Johnson, the mellow stuff. Then I saw ¡°Don¡¯t Tread on Me¡± by . That was perfect, just what I wanted. I turned my volume all the way up and hit play. After being so fixated on me and looking so confident, the cat just turned and bolted into the bush as soon as it heard the music.

I didn¡¯t know how large it was until it turned sideways¡ªit was a lot bigger than I thought. I wouldn¡¯t be able to take that kitty. I got nervous. I wasn¡¯t sure where it was at that point or if it was going to jump out at me.

Murphy and I continued our hike since we were already there, but I kept my phone in my hand, music ready to go. I talked really loud to Murphy and stayed in the middle of the road the whole way. He kept looking at me like I was losing my mind. But we made it out and went home.

The video went viral when I posted it on Facebook. The following week, I got a message from the artist-liaison service for Metallica, telling me that one of the band members wanted to reach out. Soon after that, I was sitting at my desk at work and got a call from a number I didn¡¯t recognize. I almost didn¡¯t answer since I was at work, but my boss said it was OK. When I picked up the phone, this super deep voice said, ¡°Hi Denise, this is James Hetfield from Metallica.¡± I almost fell off my chair. We talked about what happened, dogs, and the places we live.

I¡¯ve had a lot of people tell me they won¡¯t go hiking without Metallica on their phone, and I tell them that¡¯s great, by all means go buy one of their albums on iTunes. I can¡¯t guarantee it will work¡ªdon¡¯t sue me if it doesn¡¯t¡ªbut it certainly did for me. I¡¯m glad to be alive.

The post A Cougar Was Stalking Her, So She Played Metallica appeared first on ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Online.

Mount Rainier¡¯s Liberty Ridge begins at roughly 8,000 feet on the peak¡¯s north face and runs?all the way to the 14,411-foot summit. Considered a?classic climb, Liberty Ridge?is the most technically difficult and dangerous route to the top of Rainier. Only 53 percent of the climbers who attempt?the ridge?complete it.?

Yev Krasnitskiy, a 39-year-old systems engineer from Portland, Oregon, has summited?Rainier?half a dozen times, including one ascent?via Liberty Ridge. On June 1 of this year, he began a second?attempt of the ridge with three other climbers. What was planned as a long?one-day climb?became a five-day life-or-death ordeal.?

Here¡¯s Krasnitskiy¡¯s story, as told to ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø.??

Two old friends from the East Coast told me they wanted to come out and climb Mount Rainier. I knew them from a mountaineering group I was involved in, and both had plenty of experience. They were bringing a third person I didn¡¯t know very well. He didn¡¯t have high-altitude experience, though he¡¯d done a lot of rock and ice climbing.?

Our original plan was to spend the first night at 8,200 feet, then another night midway up Liberty Ridge at the Thumb Rock camp, at 10,760 feet. That¡¯s a good acclimation point. But after rockfall killed a climber there the week before our trip, we decided to go for the summit in a single day, starting from the low camp around 10 p.m. on Saturday. Our decision to not spend a second?night at high camp turned out to be a costly one. ?

Around 8 a.m. on Sunday, we made it to a saddle around 10,800 feet. Our climber with less experience at altitude was doing well, so we decided to keep going. It gets harder to turn back after that point; the route becomes more dangerous because of loose rock and snow slides.?At around 12,000 feet, though, he started feeling the altitude. He wanted to stop and rest, so we took some longer breaks, but it was getting late in morning. The snow was starting to melt, and rocks were beginning to fall. We needed to keep moving, so we put him in the lead so he could move at a pace he was comfortable with.?

Finally, we got to Black Pyramid, a 1,000-foot rock feature on the right side of Liberty Ridge?where steep rock and ice pitches begin. Our sick friend started up the ice on his own without talking to us first and without protection. That was unusual, because he¡¯s a good ice climber. It took him a long time, but he finally set up a belay station after we yelled at him. That¡¯s when we realized he wasn¡¯t responding well.?

By noon, we were past Black Pyramid. The wind was starting to pick up. Our friend wasn¡¯t doing well, so we decided to try a section of snow to the left of the ice steps that took us off the main route.?

Around 7 p.m., our friend asked if we could stop and set up the tent. That wasn¡¯t easy in the 40 mph wind. The sun was setting by the time we finally had the tent up.?

Because we had planned on a short trip, we didn¡¯t have much stuff with us¡ªa few freeze-dried meals, some energy bars, and enough gas to melt a liter of water and make tea for a couple days. I also had a shovel and GPS in my pack. We had our cellphones and a walkie-talkie with us too.?

We were in a bad place¡ªon an outcropping about the size of a table under an ice cliff.?The wind got stronger during the night, ripping the tent and snapping the poles. We tried to secure it by placing our packs and rocks around the edges. Finally, we just stuck our feet between the rocks and held the tent with our bodies. At some point, my pack, containing?half the food, fell down the slope.

By the time the sun came up on Monday, it was obvious that our friend had hypothermia along with altitude sickness. We didn¡¯t want to take him higher, but taking him down meant we¡¯d have to help him over unstable rock and ice.?

That¡¯s when we decided to call for help. My phone had a signal, so I dialed 911. But in the rush to give our basic info, I forgot to ask how to communicate with the rangers on our walkie-talkie. We were lucky to have made contact at all. After that, we couldn¡¯t get a signal on any of our phones.?

Ten minutes later, a ranger helicopter appeared, but it couldn¡¯t land because of the wind. We tried to get to a flat spot so the rangers?could drop the litter for our friend, but the helicopter couldn¡¯t get close enough.?

We set up what was left of the tent as best we could and stayed where we were, hoping the wind would stop long enough for the rangers?to reach us. Despite two attempts, one from a larger Chinook, the helicopter still couldn¡¯t get close enough. It was clear that we wouldn¡¯t?be able to get our friend airlifted from that spot.?

During the night, some ice fell on us and completely destroyed what was left of the tent. We dug ourselves out and decided to go up higher. With the rocks, it was just too treacherous to move down. ?

We gathered everything and started climbing again, moving across the ridge to the ice steps we were originally supposed to be on. It didn¡¯t take long until the wind froze us in place, so we sat there and covered up with our sleeping bags.?

That was the scariest moment. I remember my three partners wanted to sleep¡ªa sure way to freeze to death¡ªso I encouraged them to do everything they could to stay awake and generate heat. It got a lot quieter, except for occasional complaints about being cold and weak. I tried to stay upbeat, telling the rest of the team that this would pass, that we¡¯d eventually get a break in the weather. But nobody was really responding.

A few hours later, we finally got a break from the wind. We moved up a few hundred feet and found an ice cave with enough space for the four of us to lie down. Our supplies were down to a few bars, one liter of water, one liter of tea, and a small amount of?gas.?

On Thursday morning, I wanted to leave the ice cave and go up because I thought there was a chance we¡¯d meet other climbers who could pass on a message to the rangers about where we were. Our sick friend was feeling a little better and thought he could keep going, so we got our things together and started moving.?

As we got onto the final slope to the summit, the weather cleared. Suddenly, a helicopter appeared out of nowhere and landed right next to us.?

A ranger jumped out and yelled, ¡°Are you the Liberty Ridge group?¡±

They flew us down and transported us by ambulance to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Nobody was hurt too badly, even our friend who got sick. My feet looked pretty bad, with blood-filled blisters, but I didn¡¯t end up losing any toes, just some toenails and skin.

We were lucky. It could have been much worse.

The post The Climbers Who Survived a Week Stuck on Mount Rainier appeared first on ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Online.

Jim Nepstad was nervous about meeting with the tribes. It was June 2011, just six months after he¡¯d transferred to , in northeast Iowa, a park created to preserve centuries-old burial mounds that held the remains of hundreds of Native Americans who once inhabited the upper Midwest. The stakes were high: This was Nepstad¡¯s first superintendent posting after 27 years in the National Park Service, most recently as chief of planning and resources at , in Wisconsin, and he arrived with a mandate to clean up a scandal involving a pattern among park staffers of desecrating Native American grave sites.

Media coverage of the issue was turning the 2,256-acre park into a major source of embarrassment for the Park Service, and representatives of the 20-some-odd American Indian tribes that claim a cultural or genetic link to the park were seething. Most felt the Park Service had ignored the sullying of sacred sites. Nepstad¡¯s job was to assess the physical damage, repair relations with the tribes, and bring competency back to the little park. Instead, he was about to reveal another, even more disturbing problem: Almost all the ancient human remains under the park¡¯s care were inexplicably missing, and no one had a clue where they were.

The park was already an epicenter of controversy. Between 1999 and 2010, under superintendent Phyllis Ewing, Effigy Mounds essentially went rogue. According to a Park Service investigation report published in 2015, Ewing and her staff either skimped on or ignored reviews, which require any federal building project to be vetted for archaeological impact. Ewing and her team . They developed once-sleepy hiking trails into ATV maintenance roads and installed a five-ton steel bridge over a creek without conducting a proper impact report. They built three elevated boardwalks, one of which punched hundreds of postholes into an archaeologically sensitive area home to the remnants of 60 mounds. They built a maintenance shed over part of a hidden burial mound. All of this happened under the noses of their superiors at Park Service headquarters, who didn¡¯t catch on until a former employee turned whistle-blower brought the projects to their attention in 2010.

In early 2011, after a representative of one of the tribes affiliated with the park requested an inventory of the park¡¯s remains, an administrative assistant named Sharon Greener placed an orange binder on Nepstad¡¯s desk and told him, ¡°You should probably read this.¡± As he paged through the report, compiled in 1998, he noticed a disturbing pattern: Skull fragments, tibia, vertebrae, and other human remains that were once housed in the park¡¯s small museum were listed as missing. In all, more than 2,000 bones and fragments belonging to at least 41 people, including newborns, children, and their families, were unaccounted for. Even worse, they had been missing for well over two decades, and no one, it seemed, had made a serious effort to find out what happened to them.

¡°Here, I had come into this park having made public statements that we were going to get this stuff straightened up and get this park flying right,¡± Nepstad says. ¡°Then, within less than four months of arriving, I¡¯m confronted with this situation.¡±

Going into the meeting with Nepstad, the tribal representatives didn¡¯t know to what extent the park had mishandled the bones. As Nepstad explained the situation, the mood around the conference table darkened. Human remains did not simply disappear from a museum collection. There should have been a very strict chain of custody, and even improperly handling them is a federal crime. Any movement of remains out of the collection had to be officially documented, or ¡°deaccessioned.¡± But Nepstad hadn¡¯t found any paperwork on them, raising the possibility of foul play. Had someone stolen the bones, he wondered?

There are tens of thousands of burial mounds in the United States, most of which are east of the Mississippi and were built by Native Americans over millennia, from about 3,500 B.C. until the 1600s. Most mounds are simple conical or linear rod-shaped structures made by piling dirt into earthworks. But between 700 and 1,100 A.D. in the upper Midwest, a confederacy of culturally similar communities known as the Effigy Moundbuilders transformed mound building into an art form. They designed elaborate effigies in the shapes of animals¡ªgeese, bears, wolves, hawks, and even more fanciful creatures like water spirits. In some areas, dozens of cones and effigies literally fill the landscape. Like , they are most impressive when viewed from the air.

The majority of these mounds, several thousand of them, are found in southern Wisconsin. But some, like the 206 burials at Effigy Mounds, emerged along the banks of the Mississippi River in Iowa, as well as parts of northern Illinois and southeastern Minnesota.

Beyond serving as burial sites, the significance of the mounds is unclear. Some archaeologists believe the small communities of Woodland Indians would meet once a year to feast, celebrate, and communally bury the remains of relatives by building a new mound. The communities eventually disappeared, but succeeding native groups, some of which were pushed into the upper Midwest, many of which were pushed westward by European settlers, adopted the mysterious mounds as their own.

White settlers who moved into the area in the mid-1800s, however, treated the mounds with the level of care you might expect: Up to 80 percent of the mounds were simply plowed over, and any remains inside were ground into the dirt. All of them might have been lost if not for the curiosity of academics and amateur archaeologists who began examining the phenomenon and recording the locations and shapes of the mounds.

Some of the most impressive mounds along the Mississippi were secured when, in 1949, President Truman established the 1,000-acre Effigy Mounds National Monument. (The park was later expanded twice.) Despite gaining federal protection, however, archaeologists were still allowed to excavate the park¡¯s burial mounds and remove remains throughout the 1950s and into the 1970s. Some of the bones and artifacts buried with the dead were collected and put on display for a time in the Effigy Mounds visitor center, but most ended up in a small collection space in the basement.

By the 1970s, Indian civil rights groups who believed that unearthing, examining, and in some cases publicly displaying their ancestors¡¯ remains constituted a cardinal sin, were raising their collective voice. ¡°I can remember vividly an elder statesperson from a tribe telling us it was possible we could be visited by [the American Indian Movement], and that things could turn hostile,¡± says John Doershuk, Iowa¡¯s state archaeologist. In 1976, under pressure from the tribes, , effectively halting archaeological work at Effigy Mounds.

A milestone in the national fight to respect and repatriate Indian remains came in 1990, when , requiring any agency or institution receiving federal funds to catalog all the remains in their possession within five years and begin returning them to tribes. ¡°NAGPRA is one of the most critical pieces of Native American human rights legislation ever passed by Congress,¡± retired Republican Colorado senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell said in a 2015 press release. ¡°It protects that which is most sacred to all of humanity; the right to be buried in accordance with our own religion and under the same soil as your relatives.¡±

In April 2011, on the day Nepstad learned about the missing remains, he approached the park¡¯s sole law enforcement officer, Bob Palmer, who worked seasonally at the park for more than 20 years. Had Palmer heard about any bones disappearing?

Palmer hadn¡¯t, but he did remember a conversation he had the previous summer with Thomas Munson, superintendent at Effigy Mounds from 1971 to 1994. Munson had told Palmer that a box of animal bones had gotten mixed up with his belongings when he moved from park housing in 1990 to his home in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, just across the river. It seemed strange to Palmer that Munson would have found an errant packing box 21 years after moving, but he told Munson to keep the box until a new superintendent arrived. But now, listening to Nepstad, Palmer wondered if there could have been a horrible mistake. ¡°I put two and two together, and I told Jim [Nepstad] I may know where this stuff is,¡± Palmer says.

The same day, Palmer drove across the river to Munson¡¯s home to ask him about the box. The former park chief, then in his 70s, rummaged around in his garage for a bit but said he couldn¡¯t find it. A day later, Palmer got a call from Munson: He¡¯d found the unmarked moving box, and could Palmer please pick it up? When Palmer got the box back to his office, he folded back a black trash bag inside. ¡°I opened it up, and that¡¯s what it was¡ªhuman remains with the museum numbers on them.¡±

With the remains at hand, Nepstad and Palmer thought the whole affair was behind them. But a few weeks later, an archaeologist¡¯s inventory revealed that the box held only about one-third of the 2,000 missing bones and fragments. During a follow-up phone call, the former superintendent suggested they check the attics and crawl spaces in park buildings. The state archaeologist¡¯s office confirmed that the box contained only about one-third of the missing remains. The rest were still missing.

As Nepstad and his rangers continued looking for clues on park property, they finally came across the deaccession report, deep in the park¡¯s files, detailing the missing bones. But it was strange: The human remains hadn¡¯t been sent to another museum or borrowed by a university. Instead, in July 1990, the missing human remains had been marked as ¡°abandoned,¡± a term reserved for objects determined not to be archaeologically significant, like clods of dirt. There was no way anyone could mistake the museum¡¯s bones for trash. More perplexing was the signature on the report:

Special Agent David Barland-Liles investigates museum thefts and other crimes for the , and he was familiar with the issues at Effigy Mounds. He¡¯d probed the park¡¯s construction violations and produced a blistering report about the incidents, concluding that former superintendent Phyllis Ewing showed ¡°willful blindness¡± to the law with regard to building projects in the park during her tenure. (The U.S. Attorney¡¯s Office declined to prosecute Ewing or her staffers. Ewing, who declined to comment for this story, filed a lawsuit against the Park Service in 2015, claiming she was a scapegoat for larger Park Service failures and had not been properly trained. The suit was eventually dismissed.) When Nepstad called him in late 2011, Barland-Liles was glad to help.

Learning about the missing remains, though, was upsetting: What kind of person would steal human bones from a national park, Barland-Liles wondered? And what would their motive be? ¡°The hair stood up on my arms when I realized what I was up against,¡± he says. This wasn¡¯t just some honest mistake or bureaucratic snafu. Someone, or a group of people, committed a crime and attempted to cover the trail. ¡°There was no doubt,¡± Barland-Liles says. ¡°I started going down the road to find the truth. I had two goals: Let¡¯s find the rest of these people, and let¡¯s find justice.¡±

Barland-Liles began systematically reviewing everyone who worked at Effigy Mounds between the 1980s and late 2000s, and a timeline began to emerge. He found that several staffers had noticed the missing remains and tried to investigate, but anyone who attempted to dig deeper had been told by Thomas Munson that it wasn¡¯t worth pursuing.

Roughly a year after Munson¡¯s retirement in 1994, new superintendent Karen Gustin wrote a memo stating that the remains were gone. When she talked to Munson about them, he said the bones were probably sent off to the state archaeologist or the Park Service¡¯s , and never returned. Katherine Miller, who took over as superintendent in 1997, also called Munson when she learned the bones were missing. He told her a different story¡ªthat he remembered storing the bones in a metal locker in a park maintenance shed. Munson speculated that the remains were probably forgotten there and thrown out with the locker.

Miller, however, did not let the issue rest. She reached out to Dale Henning, an archaeology professor at nearby Luther College, to track down the remains. Though he wasn¡¯t able to locate them, Henning produced . (It was Henning¡¯s report that eventually landed on Nepstad¡¯s desk in 2011.) There¡¯s no evidence that anyone at the park continued the investigation after Ewing took over in 1999 until Nepstad reopened the case 12 years later.

On January 18, 2012, Barland-Liles met Munson at his house while Munson¡¯s wife, Linda, was away. The superintendent, then in his early 70s, was cooperative, but he refused to allow their conversation to be recorded. He told the investigator yet another story, claiming he received a call from an unidentified source at the Park Service asking him to send the remains to the Midwest Archeological Center, and that he personally drove a box of remains to Lincoln, Nebraska, where Park Service staffers removed it from his car. The other box had been accidentally put in his garage during the move from park housing.

But Barland-Liles had done his homework. Park documents showed Munson completed his move to Prairie du Chien at least three days before he signed the deaccession paperwork, meaning the remains were still at the Effigy Mounds visitor center after the move and could not have been accidentally mixed in with his possessions as he¡¯d claimed. The Midwest Archeological Center had no records of receiving the remains from the park. ¡°Dates on the forms don¡¯t mean anything,¡± Munson told Barland-Liles, according to the investigator¡¯s notes. ¡°I can¡¯t explain all those discrepancies.¡±

Barland-Liles left Munson¡¯s home thinking the former superintendent was either hiding something or was perhaps deeply confused. That same day, he interviewed Sharon Greener, who was still an administrative assistant at Effigy Mounds. She said that in 1990, Munson, superintendent at the time, instructed her to find all the remains in the park¡¯s collection and bring them to his office. Munson instructed Greener to type up the deaccession report and mark the bones as abandoned, though as a new seasonal employee, it¡¯s unlikely she knew she was doing anything illegal. The task made her uncomfortable, Greener told the investigator, and she didn¡¯t believe the remains were getting the respect they deserved by being placed in cardboard boxes. But she wasn¡¯t in a position to object. ¡°I blindly listened to Tom [Munson] tell me to do it,¡± said Greener.

All the clues pointed toward Munson, but Barland-Liles needed to figure out how they had disappeared. ¡°The noose was tightening, and the ability of people to make up stories was ending,¡± he says. ¡°The truth was becoming more and more scary and dark. It was making the Park Service a little nervous. But since, as an investigator, I had a different chain of command and a singular mission, I got to ignore that and march forward.¡±

Understanding a perpetrator¡¯s motives can bring order to the facts of a case, but Barland-Liles was at a loss: Why would someone in Munson¡¯s position steal bone fragments under his care and hide them away for 21 years?

In an interview with Barland-Liles, a former chief of maintenance under Munson named Tom Sinclair shed some light on the superintendent¡¯s possible reasoning. According to his account, as Congress prepared to pass NAGPRA in 1990, Munson became paranoid that tribes would use the new law to assume control of Effigy Mounds National Monument, including the artifacts and remains within it. Such interference would erase the historical record pieced together over decades by dedicated archaeologists. Munson tied up the park¡¯s single phone line discussing his theories with a fellow superintendent at Pipestone National Monument, another archaeologically significant park, in southwest Minnesota, Sinclair told the investigator.

Munson wasn¡¯t alone in his fears about the new law. Others in the archaeological and research communities anticipated that NAGPRA would deal a blow to the bedrock of North American history. ¡°They were concerned about returning skeletal remains and artifacts because, at the time, they viewed these as purely scientific objects,¡± says Robert Birmingham, former state archaeologist of Wisconsin and a leading expert on effigy mounds. ¡°There was a sense that they were taking away objects of study that would inform us about ancient societies in the Americas.¡±

There had been other obstructions of NAGPRA. In 1998, the University of Nebraska¨CLincoln confirmed that in the 1960s, the anthropology department burned American Indian remains found in archaeological digs in the veterinary school incinerator because they felt the remains had no scientific value.

The problems have continued. In 2013, Patrick Williams, who worked as a museum specialist at the , the agency that constructs dams and waterways in western states, claimed the agency had been ignoring NAGPRA for decades. According to a 2014 whistle-blower complaint facilitated by , a government watchdog group that monitors problems in the Park Service and other agencies, the office stored 164,000 uncataloged artifacts and remains collected during construction projects in cardboard boxes in their Sacramento headquarters and allegedly altered databases to erase the records of some remains.

¡°We hear things all the time,¡± says Jeff Ruch, PEER¡¯s executive director, who was instrumental in publicizing the Effigy Mounds Section 106 violations. ¡°But we can¡¯t act on NAGPRA violations unless someone comes forward to make it public.¡±

On May 16, 2012, after six months of investigation, Barland-Liles was sitting in the basement of the Effigy Mounds visitor center, where the missing bones were once stored, when Sharon Greener reiterated her story¡ªbut with a new detail: In 1990, she had helped Munson carry two cardboard boxes full of bones from the visitor center basement to the trunk of Munson¡¯s Ford Taurus. Greener said she believed at the time that Munson was either going to bury or dispose of them somehow, and she didn¡¯t push for answers.

It was the last time anyone saw the missing remains¡ªthe final clue Barland-Liles had been searching for. It confirmed that there were two boxes, not just one, and that both were at one point in Munson¡¯s possession. ¡°The clouds lifted,¡± Barland-Liles says. ¡°It was one of the most important days of my career.¡±

The next day, Barland-Liles parked his SUV in front of Munson¡¯s two-story brick home a few blocks from the Mississippi River. It was, and remains, the nicest house on the street, with mature trees, a fenced-in backyard, and a white clapboard two-car garage hidden at the rear of the house.

Munson¡¯s wife, Linda, invited Barland-Liles inside. She was spry and energetic and wore white tennis shoes. Her husband was stooped and frail-looking, with a wry expression on his face. The investigator asked Linda to stick around. He explained that her husband was involved in a Park Service investigation, and that there were inconsistencies in his stories. The three sat in the living room, the couple across the coffee table from the investigator.

Barland-Liles presented his findings: documents showing that the Munsons had moved before the remains disappeared; a statement from Karen Miller that Munson had told her the remains were in a storage locker at the park, which was at odds with his story about driving the bones to Nebraska. He told Munson that the Midwest Archeological Center had no record of him delivering a box of bones. There was no evidence that any shadowy Park Service official ever instructed superintendents to dispose of Native American remains. In fact, memos showed that just the opposite¡ªsuperintendents were instructed to fully comply with NAGPRA.

Barland-Liles paused and looked at the couple. Munson was stoic, but Linda¡¯s expression had turned grim. ¡°I¡¯m guessing no one told you to do this,¡± Barland-Liles said to Munson. The former park chief just shrugged his shoulders. After a moment, Munson spoke, admitting that he¡¯d made up the story about driving the bones to Nebraska. Then he got quiet, as if he didn¡¯t have anything more to say. Linda broke the silence.

¡°What do you believe happened?¡± she asked Barland-Liles. He leaned forward in his chair and looked at her. He said he didn¡¯t believe the boxes were accidentally moved or shipped out of state or mislabeled. He believed that for 22 years, through 100-degree summers and freezing winter nights, the remains of 41 people had sat in her unheated garage, slowly crumbling to dust. Linda went quiet, absorbing the information. ¡°In the end, it came down to his wife accepting that I was telling the truth and her husband wasn¡¯t,¡± says Barland-Liles.

The investigator reached into his briefcase and produced a ¡°consent to search¡± form. Linda promptly signed it, then slid it in front of her husband. Munson hesitated. Linda patted the paper. He lifted the pen slowly and signed his name.

The three of them walked out the back door into the bright May evening. Munson stopped at the edge of the lawn while Linda led Barland-Liles through the side door of the garage. It was orderly and clean¡ªnot the type of place where boxes go missing. The pair homed in on a medium-size moving box, slightly collapsed at the top, printed with the words ¡°C-A-T Moving¡± and a cartoon of a jaunty feline in overalls. The box was just a couple feet in front of the Munson¡¯s white SUV, between a black metal Jerry can and a handmade board for the card game One-Eyed Jack. Just a few weeks before, the Munsons had moved a porch swing covering the box into their yard. Linda bent over and lifted open a flap revealing a black plastic bag. On top was the rounded stump of a femur marked with a spot of whiteout with catalog number on it. ¡°I think this is what you¡¯re looking for,¡± she said.

¡°I was shocked. I never thought I¡¯d find them,¡± Barland-Liles says now. ¡°Munson had 21 years to get rid of them. The trash man shows up every week. The Mississippi River is right there. I¡¯m not sure I will ever understand.¡±

After photographing the scene, Barland-Liles took the box and placed it on the passenger seat of his SUV, then locked the doors and walked back to the house to have a final word with the Munsons. ¡°They began to realize they were in trouble, or Tom was, which was a surprise to them,¡± Barland-Liles says. ¡°They asked me if they needed a lawyer. I said, ¡®You might.¡¯¡±

Munson did need a lawyer. The U.S. Attorney¡¯s Office . He reached a plea deal in which he copped to one count of ¡°embezzling government property, human remains.¡± In July 2016, four years after confessing to Barland-Liles, Munson was sentenced in a court in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He received ten consecutive weekends in prison, one year of home confinement, 100 hours of community service, and a $3,000 fine, and he was ordered to pay $108,905 in restitution¡ªthe estimated cost of analyzing and cataloging the remains he stole.

The tribes were disappointed. They wanted Munson to go to trial for his crimes. But the U.S. Attorney¡¯s Office explained that criminal charges may have extended the length of the process, which, due to Munson¡¯s age (he was then 76) and poor health, presented the possibility that he may never see justice.

More aggravating to some was Munson¡¯s apology. During his sentencing statement, he claimed his theft ¡°wasn¡¯t intentional.¡± His lawyer tried to excuse his client, explaining that Munson?suffered from congestive heart failure and cognitive difficulties. Munson also sent a written apology to the Park Service and the affiliated tribes and produced a video apology (in which he read his written apology on camera), which was never made public. Patt Murphy, a NAGPRA representative with the , wasn¡¯t satisfied. ¡°The only thing he wrote in that apology was his signature,¡± Murphy says. ¡°It was condescending, and he didn¡¯t admit to anything.¡±

Sharon Greener was not charged with a crime, but the Park Service fired her for initially withholding the information about Munson removing the boxes from the park. Greener, for her part, claimed she was being used as a scapegoat, when in fact she was whistle-blower. She argued that seven times between 1990 and 2012, she either told superiors about the missing bones or gave them the 1998 inventory report, hoping to trigger an investigation. In 2014, the Park Service settled with Greener, agreeing to pay her two years of back pay, lawyer¡¯s fees, and an undisclosed one-time sum for ¡°compensatory damages.¡±

Jim Nepstad is trying to move the park forward after the scandal. Effigy Mounds is bringing on a new staff of archaeological and cultural resources professionals, including a former tribal historic preservation officer for the . ¡°I will spend the rest of my time here in a rebuilding process, until we can demonstrate consistently to the tribes that this type of thing will never happen again,¡± Nepstad says.

Thomas Munson¡¯s motivations may never be fully understood. ¡°Munson was from an era that saw science as the ultimate end of knowledge,¡± says Bob Palmer, a former chief ranger at Effigy Mounds. ¡°Think of people born in the ¡¯30s and ¡¯40s, who saw the development of atomic energy and the massive advancement of science. I would suspect Tom Munson¡¯s perspective on Effigy Mounds was that the archaeology and science were more important than anything else¡ªmore important than respecting native cultures.¡±

Patt Murphy believes that Munson simply committed a racist and bigoted act¡ªpart of a long continuum of actions by the government and individuals against native peoples. ¡°He thought those funerary objects were more important than people,¡± Murphy says. ¡°His attitude was that we are animals. He kept our bones in his garage and told people they were from animals.¡±

David Barland-Liles says he has not heard of a similar crime taking place in another national park, but that it could have. ¡°If it happened here, I have reason to believe it happened somewhere else,¡± he says. ¡°The agency has to grow and recognize that it¡¯s set up in a weird way that gives superintendents little oversight, and that allows people to do something like this right under our nose.¡±

There is no ceremony for reburial, at least not among the tribes associated with Effigy Mounds. They believe that once a body reaches its final resting place, it¡¯s meant to stay there. So, next spring, when the ground thaws, a small group of tribal representatives and park employees will gather to reinter the bone fragments, likely at a secret spot on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi. The bones will return to the earth near some of the mounds where their kin remain, undisturbed for centuries. The elders may bless the ground or leave some tobacco before covering the brittle bits of cranium and vertebrae with earth, before the location is recorded with a GPS and they are left to rest without a monument or marker.

Until then, the bones of 41-some-odd people will sit in a box sealed with evidence tape in the secured basement of the Effigy Mounds visitor center, which they¡¯ve called home for the past four years. Even the superintendent doesn¡¯t have access; only the park¡¯s archaeologist has a key to the room. It¡¯s climate controlled, but otherwise not much different from the garage where they rested for decades. But at least now they are treated with respect. For now, everyone knows where they are.

The post 2,000 Sacred Bones Went Missing 21 Years Ago appeared first on ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Online.

We're real suckers for a good dog-saving-the-day story. Doesn't matter if it's a professional rescue breed going above the call of duty, or your Average Joe dog playing the unexpected hero¡ªthey're all good, and they're all likely to make us a little teary-eyed. These real-life wonder dogs give us hope that we will never run out of Lassie inspiration.

Guardian Angel

Boston Bar is a remote hamlet, deep in the Fraser River Canyon, 130 miles northeast of Vancouver. It¡¯s the type of place where backyards grade into truly wild country. On the day after New Year¡¯s 2010, 11-year-old local Austin Forman had a surprise meeting with one of his feral neighbors. He was pushing a wheelbarrow toward the family woodshed when he was charged by a mountain lion. That¡¯s when his 18-month-old female golden retriever, Angel, bounded over a lawnmower and began battling the big cat, giving Austin time to dash inside the house, where his mother dialed 911.?

When Constable Chad Gravelle of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, whose office was nearby, arrived on the scene moments after being dispatched, the cougar had dragged Angel under the back porch, where it was gnawing on her neck. Gravelle shot the cat twice, killing it, and pulled the dog out, assuming she was already lost. But with the family gathered around, Angel sucked in a huge breath and stood up. She¡¯d suffered dozens of deep puncture wounds but survived. She spent the next week recovering at a veterinary clinic. When she got home, the family treated her to steak dinner and a new, insulated dog house.?

¡°She was my best friend,¡± Austin told the CBC afterward. ¡°She¡¯s like my guardian now.¡±

Work Like a Dog

When the volunteers of the National Disaster Search Dog (NDSD) foundation found a little black lab in a shelter in Northern California, in 2007, they couldn¡¯t have guessed that just a few years later she would be the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals¡¯s Dog of the Year. But they did see her potential¡ªPearl had a great temperament, an awesome nose, and a solid work ethic. In 2008, she was assigned to Ron Horetski, a search-and-rescue captain with the Los Angeles County Fire Department. In 2010, Horetski and Pearl, along with six other canine teams, traveled to Haiti after the devastating earthquake that hit Port-au-Prince. Pearl and her four-legged companions on Los Angeles County Task Force 2 sniffed through the rubble, even squeezing their way four stories underground. Pearl and her comrades pulled out 12 survivors during their two-week deployment. Then, in 2011, Pearl was sent to Japan after the country¡¯s devastating earthquake, where she combed the wreckage for survivors.?

¡°She¡¯s the type of dog that will just flop on her back asking for a belly rub,¡± says Celeste Matesevac, community-relations manager for the NDSD. ¡°But when you say the search words, you can see her switch gears.¡±

Go Fetch

Paul Horton had biked the network of jeep trails and streets around Lake Travis near his home in Austin, Texas, hundreds of times without incident, usually to give his pal and sailing buddy, a four-year-old golden retriever named Yogi, a little exercise. But one day in October, 2010, Horton flipped over his handlebars while bumping up a curb on a dead-end road, landing squarely on his head and knocking himself unconscious. A few minutes later, when the 58-year-old awoke, he couldn¡¯t move from his armpits down.

Watching over him was Yogi. Horton, blood streaming from his nose and mouth, tried to coax Yogi to go get help, but the dog wouldn¡¯t leave his side. Horton laid there, out of site of passersby, for 45 minutes while Yogi kept vigil. Then, suddenly, the dog dashed down the road, barking frantically: he had heard Horton¡¯s neighbors, Bruce and Maggie Tate, who were out for a walk. Yogi led the couple back to where Horton lay, and the Tates contacted emergency services.?

These days, Horton, who is still paralyzed but has regained some movement in his arm, takes regular outings around Lake Travis in a wheelchair, and his trusty companion is usually by his side. ¡°He did become more protective after the accident,¡± says Horton of Yogi, who was named the 2011 Valor Dog of the Year by the Humane Society of the United States. ¡°My life would be so different without him.¡±

In the Line of Fire

Target earned her name the hard way, dodging potshots from villagers in the Afghan province of Paktia. That¡¯s why the little yellow shepherd mix and her packmates¡ªtwo mutts named Rufus and Sasha¡ªbegan hanging out near a U.S. military barracks in Dand Aw Patan, where they¡¯d get an occasional head scratch or a piece of beef jerky. In February 2010, the trio repayed that kindness when a suicide bomber rigged with 25 pounds of C-4 explosives snuck into the base and headed for the barracks. The dogs rushed the intruder, growling and barking. When soldiers yelled out the window for the dogs to shut up, the terrorist detonated his bomb prematurely, injuring five servicemen and killing Sasha. It¡¯s thought that if the dogs hadn¡¯t held the bomber up, he could have killed 50 soldiers.?

Sergeant Terry Young, a medic, and Sergeant Christopher Duke, who was injured by shrapnel in the attack, felt like they owed the dogs their lives and were heartbroken to leave them behind. ¡°I gave Target lots of love and an extra long pet wishing her the best of luck,¡± remembers Young.?

After rotating home, Young wrote an article about Target for a community newspaper that helped convince the nonprofit Hope for Warriors to pay to bring the dogs to the U.S. Rufus went to Duke, while Target went to Young in San Tan Valley, Arizona. The two dogs made the rounds during the summer and we¡¯re even featured on Oprah. But tragically, just months after relocating, Target jumped the fence in Young¡¯s backyard for a little ramble and was picked up by a dogcatcher. She was mistakenly euthanized before Young could claim him.

Down, Girl

When American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, Roselle, a yellow Lab, was on the 78th floor, sleeping under under Michael Hingson¡¯s desk. ?She¡¯d been assigned to Hingson some 21 months earlier by Guide Dogs for the Blind, so they were still considered to be in the honeymoon phase of their relationship. The building swayed when the plane impacted, and though Hingson¡¯s initial instinct was to back up the data for his employer, computer-sales firm Quantum/ATL, he decided instead to command Roselle toward stairwell B in the center of the building.?

Over the next hour, Roselle guided Hingson down through the acrid stench of jet fuel, the mounting heat, and a stream of horribly injured survivors. Along the way, she comforted others, nudging a woman suffering a panic attack and licking the hand of the first firefighter she saw. Her cool composure allowed Hingson, blind since birth, to make it down without panicking. ¡°If Roselle and I worked together, we would be okay,¡± he wrote in his account of the incident, the 2011 book Thunder Dog.?

At the bottom, as the South Tower began pancaking, Roselle led Hingson at a sprint into the Fulton Street subway station, where they waited out the collapse. In October 2011, just a few months after her death, Roselle was named the American Hero Dog of the Year by the American Humane Association.

Riding the Bull

On May 3, 2012, just after midnight, Christine Spain fainted on the tracks at a train crossing near her home in Shirley, Massachusetts. Just minutes away, a freight train was barreling toward that same spot. Spain¡¯s constant companion, eight-year-old pit bull Lilly, a shelter dog given to her five years previously by her son, Boston police officer David Lanteigne, sensed the train¡¯s approach and jumped into action. The engineer would later tell reporters that in his headlights he spotted Lilly pulling and pushing Spain¡¯s unconscious body off the tracks.?

But Lilly didn¡¯t have time to move out of the way¡ªthe train sliced through her right forepaw and fractured her pelvis in several places. First responders rushed Lilly to an emergency animal clinic. She underwent several surgeries: her right leg was amputated, and a steel plate was placed in her pelvis. Donations from well-wishers around the world poured in, covering Lilly¡¯s surgeries and physical therapy. Now she¡¯s back on her feet, taking several walks per day, and visiting classrooms and community groups to support pet adoption and break down stereotypes of pit bulls.?

¡°I think everything happens for a reason,¡± says Lanteine, who is overseeing Lilly¡¯s recovery. ¡°We got Lilly out of the shelter, and she returned the favor. She saved my mom¡¯s life.¡±

Lost and Found

In September?of 2012, 76-year-old Jerome Nadler decided to spend some time fly-fishing in 543-acre Caleb Smith State Park Preserve on Long Island. Feeling dehydrated and weak, Nadler, a doctor of internal medicine, sat down on the shore to drink a Diet Coke. That¡¯s the last thing he remembers.?

When Nadler failed to return home, the authorities began a massive search by air and land. Their first clue to his whereabouts was a bottle of floatant that the disoriented Vietnam Vet had dropped. It was enough to give Chase, a four-year-old German shepherd assigned to the Suffolk County K-9 unit, a scent. Chase took off through the forest near the Nissequogue River, his handler Sam Barreto following. Around noon, when Barreto called for Chase and the normally obedient shepherd didn¡¯t respond, he knew something was up. He walked toward the dog¡¯s last known location and found him lying down in deep brush next to Nadler, who was on his back covered with hundreds of mosquito bites.?

The doctor, who had been lost for three days during which there were periods of heavy rain, was airlifted to a nearby hospital and treated for exposure. Chase was honored with the Dog of the Year Award by the Suffolk County SPCA.

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Even adventure dogs slip up sometimes, and canine first aid isn't exactly common knowledge.?Here¡¯s how to respond to five injuries¡ªand how to keep your furry wingman safe down the road.

Broken Leg

First Aid: Fractures in dogs are uncommon, unless they¡¯re hit by a car or their owner falls on top of them while hiking (more common than you¡¯d think). Sprains and strains are more likely, though there¡¯s no real way to tell the difference in the field, and treatment is the same. How to address the injury depends on the location of the fracture or sprain, but it¡¯s similar to how you¡¯d treat a human: splint it, wrap it tightly with a T-shirt or bandage, and carry the animal to a vet. Aspirin can help with pain during evacuation.

Beware: Keep your dog calm to prevent the bone from becoming more displaced or from damaging nearby arteries, muscles, or nerves. For lower-leg fractures, Randy Acker, a vet at the Sun Valley Animal Center and author of the , suggests learning the Robert Jones bandaging technique, which will splint and immobilize the leg, preventing further damage. Breaking a big bone like the femur can lead to shock, which includes rapid heartbeat and collapse. This is a serious emergency and requires immediate vet care.

Recovery: A broken bone takes four to six weeks to heal¡ªif you can keep your dog relatively immobile. A dog that can¡¯t sit still will need more time.

Ounce of Prevention: Keep your dog leashed if you¡¯re entering an area with automobile traffic or heavy bicycle use. And if you trip, try not to land on your best friend.

Sliced Paw

First Aid: Apply pressure to the wound, and use a tourniquet¡ªvery briefly¡ªto get the blood flow under control. Once the bleeding stops, pack the paw with a quarter- or half-inch of padding. A torn up T-shirt works well. Secure the padding around the paw with electrical tape or VetWrap, a type of bandaging tape sold at large pet stores. ¡°You can¡¯t really overdo it with the padding,¡± says Chuck DeVinne, a vet in New Hampshire and author of the .

Beware: It¡¯s up to you to keep your dog from making the wound worse¡ªactive breeds and hunting dogs sometimes refuse to slow down, even with a gaping hole in their paw. ¡°My dog will just keep going,¡± explains DeVinne. ¡°I¡¯d lose him to blood loss if I didn¡¯t stop him from exercising.¡±

Recovery: The irregular skin on paw pads makes them difficult to suture, but it¡¯s worthwhile to get the cut sewn up and put the dog on a round of systemic antibiotics to prevent infection. Paws are notoriously slow healers, mending from the inside out at a rate of about an eight of an inch per week. That means, depending on the depth of the cut, it could be weeks before the pad is healed. Until then, do your best to keep the dog from intense exercise.

Ounce of Protection: Booties can prevent foot problems on the trail, but be careful¡ªill-fitting ones can rub or chafe, causing bigger problems than the cuts they¡¯re supposed to help avoid.

Snout Full of Porcupine Quills

First Aid: If it¡¯s less than a dozen, you can probably remove them yourself using pliers or a pair of fishing hemostats. Wait until the dog settles down (administering a dose of Valium or restraining their legs with duct tape can help, says Acker), then hold the skin around the base of the quill with one hand and use the pliers to pull the pricker straight out. More than a dozen? Have a vet do it. And though it may seem cruel, there¡¯s no rush¡ªthe quills can stay in there a day or two without causing permanent damage.

Beware: Acker says never break off the quills, since they tend to travel deeper into the skin, where they¡¯re hard to find. ¡°They can wander up into the nose, into the eyes, or into lungs,¡± he warns. ¡°They carry bacteria and can make abscesses.¡±

Recovery: Go to the vet for a systemic antibiotic to prevent infections. In some areas, a rabies booster is required if a dog comes into physical contact with a wild animal.

Ounce of Prevention: It¡¯s hard to train your dog to avoid porkies. Acker has one patient who¡¯s been in nine times for quill removal. If there is a problem porcupine in your neighborhood, soak a piece of wood in salt water and place it in a . (Check local nuisance-animal laws first to determine if catching and removing is permitted.) The salty wood will attract porcupines but not skunks or other critters. Release it far enough away that it won¡¯t waddle back to your doghouse.

Poisoning

First Aid: In rural areas, dogs can get into bait set by trappers, mushrooms, rotten animal carcasses, and rodenticides around outbuildings.? If you suspect your dog has swallowed a toxin and cell service is available, call the poison control hotline: 800-213-6680. If you are sure the toxin is not a petroleum product, DeVinne recommends inducing vomiting using hydrogen peroxide at one tablespoon per 30 pounds of body weight.? If this doesn¡¯t work, try a teaspoon of salt mixed with a little water to a slimy consistency.? A few hours after the vomiting has stopped, one tablespoon of Pepto-Bismol per 30 pounds of body weight can be given to help with intestinal inflammation.

Beware: If it¡¯s more than a couple of hours before you discover the poisoning, or if you suspect you haven¡¯t gotten all the toxins out, get your dog to the vet as soon as possible. And bring a any evidence that might identify the toxin, such as a label, a photo of the toxin, or even a bit of the vomit. This will help your vet determine the antidote.

Recovery: It¡¯s a good idea to visit the vet even if your dog disgorged the poison. Keep an eye on its bowel movements, looking for blood or anything unusual. If the dog is lethargic, its abdomen sore, or its body cool to the touch, seek medical care right away.

Ounce of Prevention: ¡°Frankly, with all practicality, just keep an eye on them,¡± says DeVinne. ¡°If they are near something that doesn¡¯t look good, get them away.¡± Be careful about storing dog food in sheds our outbuildings¡ªrodents often hoard treats in it, including rat poison.

Heat Exhaustion

First Aid: The initial challenge here is diagnosis. If a dog open-mouth pants constantly with its tongue out and doesn¡¯t seem to be able to close its mouth, it may be suffering from heat exhaustion. Some dogs lie down and refuse to move. Others walk like they are moving through thick mud. Check the ears¡ªif they¡¯re unusually hot, this is a good sign the dog is overheating. As soon as possible, cool it off. One quick method is to get its legs and belly in a stream or other water source for half an hour to an hour. Then, for the rest of the day, rest every 10 or 15 minutes, and give your dog plenty of water to drink.

Beware: Heat exhaustion can cause a dog's blood to thicken. If veterinary help is not available and the dog is not vomiting and not drinking normally, DeVine suggest a single tablet of regular-size adult aspirin (300mg) for a 50-pound pooch.

Recovery: Recovering from heat stroke can be a long process. Don¡¯t exercise your dog for several days, and take it to the vet for a blood test to make sure there¡¯s been no injury to internal organs.

Ounce of Prevention: Learn your dog¡¯s limits, and don¡¯t overwork it on hot days. DeVinne urges extra caution with dogs living in cooler northern climates. ¡°If you can¡¯t comfortably wear a sweatshirt while exercising,¡± he cautions, ¡°then it¡¯s too hot for your dog to exercise.¡±

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Talk to most mountaineers, trail runners, or mountain bikers, and they¡¯ll tell you that hiking is the weak sibling of adventurous outdoor sports. A little too slow, a little too granola, not enough adrenaline. But some of the most dangerous adventures in the world involve simply putting one foot in front of the other. Exposure, wild animals, guerrilla fighters, and heat are just some of the variables that can turn a walk through the mountains into a flirt with death. And while many people complete these routes unscathed, they¡¯re dangerous enough that a few mistakes can leave you seriously injured¡ªor dead. Still not convinced? Take a stroll down one of these hair-raising routes¡ªamong the most dangerous hikes in the world¡ªand let us know if you still think hiking is too tame.

Huayna Picchu, Peru

The Inca Trail?to Machu Picchu can be a tough trek, and it takes a few casualties each year. But the real danger begins when you follow the trail past the mythical city and up Huayna Picchu, aka the ¡°Hike of Death.¡± The old Inca staircase is carved out of granite and climbs about 1,000 feet in less than a mile. Plus, the route is full of rotting, crumbling rock, slippery stones, and exposed corners. Many people tackle the route totally unprepared¡ªwe¡¯re talking flip-flops and no water.

Clouds and mist make the journey more difficult, and in some sections hikers must cling to old steel cables. Going up is the easy part. Coming down the steep slope often paralyzes travelers with fear. But it¡¯s worth the pain¡ªthe view from Huayna Picchu on a sunny day is the best bird¡¯s-eye view of Machu Picchu below.

The Maze, Utah

The most remote section of Canyonlands National Park receives about 2,000 visitors per year, and not because it isn¡¯t worth visiting. The red rock labyrinth known as the Maze is difficult to reach, almost impossible to navigate, and full of dead-end gullies. It always presents the danger of rockfalls (think James Franco in 127 Hours) or deadly flash floods.

The sheer danger of the place¡ªwhich rangers emphasize to any visitors, insisting on detailed itineraries and good communication¡ªhas kept fatalities in the area to zero, though there was a double suicide in the summer of 2013. Deaths and accidents in the rest of Canyonlands, however, are a regular occurrence and show just how deadly the Maze would be¡ªif anyone could get there.

Mount Hua Shan, China

Pilgrims have climbed to the temples on the five spires of Mount Hua Shan for centuries. Almost all of the climbs are treacherous, with nearly vertical stairways and few handholds. However, the plank trail to the South Mountain is a different story. Called the most dangerous hike in the world, it consists of wooden platforms bolted onto the mountainside.

Trekkers need to hook into an iron chain paralleling the boards, which hover thousands of feet above the ground. Even getting to the trail is difficult and includes a climb up a vertical rebar staircase. At one point, the planks disappear entirely and hikers must use small divots carved into the rock. There are no official death statistics, but the rumor is that 100 people per year die on Hua Shan. Multiply that over centuries and it may be the deadliest peak in the world.

Kokoda Track, Papua New Guinea

The Kokoda Track has seen plenty of death in its time. In 1942, it was the scene of intense fighting between the Japanese and Australians. The route lay almost dormant until the past decade, when adventurous trekkers discovered the 60-mile slog connecting the outskirts of Port Moresby to the village of Kokoda.

In 2009, 13 people died in a plane crash en route to the trailhead, and four more hikers died on the trail, which takes up to 11 days to complete. They faced malaria, extreme heat, frigid nights, and daily bone-soaking afternoon rains. The route itself has been called a StairMaster in a steam room, with ankle-deep clay muck, slippery roots, and portions that become waterfalls. As you might expect, the death toll and the harsh conditions started to deter trekkers.

Since the ill-fated 2009 season, the governments of Australia and Papua New Guinea have spent millions of dollars bringing more modern facilities to the trail. You still have to watch out for all the dangers listed above, but the wild route is changing rapidly.

Drakensberg Traverse, South Africa

The stat that is often repeated about the is that before 1985, 55 people lost their lives here. After that, we guess, officials got tired of counting, but deaths are reported almost every year on the 40-mile trek through Natal National Park that crosses some of the most exposed¡ªand beautiful¡ªalpine terrain in the world.

The most daunting part may be the beginning. Two rickety chain ladders take trekkers to the ridge, where animal tracks, herding trails, and rock scrambles are cobbled together to make up the trail. But the rewards are worth it, including a stop at the Amphitheater, a rock cliff that is three times larger in area than El Capitan.

Cascade Saddle, New Zealand

If you want all those Lord of the Rings vistas, you have to travel to on New Zealand¡¯s South Island. But you might want to skip the route to the Cascade Saddle, an 11-mile, two-day trip through beech forest and alpine meadows. Despite the views, in the past few years at least 12 people have lost their lives in the saddle, mainly from falls while descending when the rock was wet and slippery. A German trekker fell to his death in July 2013, prompting the local coroner to demand that officials either close the path or reengineer it to make it safer.

Aonach Eagach Ridge, Scotland

is one of Scotland’s most iconic Highland scrambles. The four-mile route follows Glen Coe Valley, crosses two Munros (mountains), and offers some of the best views in the country. It also offers a knife-edge trail with steep scree and grassy slopes on either side, sections of technical scrambling, and no shortcuts off the ridge if the weather turns bad (which it’s apt to do).

That’s where most of the problems begin. Ridge walkers try to leave the ridge before reaching Sgorr nam Fiannaidh peak and the easy way down. Several accidents occur on the ridge every year, and there were two deaths in 2009. If you have a head for heights, you should be just fine dealing with the exposure¡ªas long as you don’t get stuck behind a group of less-able hikers.

Kalalau, Hawaii

The along the Na Pali Coast is Hawaii at its best¡ªisolated jungle, steep volcanic slopes, and a pristine undeveloped beach at the end. But the 22-mile round-trip hike through paradise can turn sour quickly. The path¡¯s three major stream crossings can swell rapidly during a rain, and falling rock, especially around waterfalls, is always a concern. Crawler¡¯s Ledge, three-quarters of the way through the trek, can turn into a dicey walk along its sheer ledge during the rain.

The trail has taken several lives and caused countless accidents, but the narrow path isn¡¯t the biggest danger. More than 100 people have met their end while swimming on the trail¡¯s remote beaches, and the transient community living on the shore can be rough. Two years ago, a drug addict threw a Japanese hiker off a cliff, setting off a four-month manhunt.

El Caminito del Rey, Spain

In the El Chorro Gorge in Spain¡¯s Malaga province, the ?(Little King¡¯s Path) hangs 100 feet up on sheer cliffs. The two-mile concrete and steel path was built more than 100 years ago to serve workers on a local hydroelectric plant, but over time it has become a destination for adventure seekers, especially as sections of the pathway have crumbled. Officially closed to the public, hikers still play Fear Factor on the route, which requires spidering over 10-foot sections of missing trail. Even if the state finishes a reconstruction of the path, the Caminito will still stay on the list of top vertigo-inducing trails.

Maroon Bells South Ridge, Colorado

The Maroon Bells boast some of the most scenic hiking in the country, and many people complete the route safely every year¡ªbut it¡¯s not to be taken for granted. The 12-mile round-trip hike to the summit of the South Ridge is fraught with loose rock fields, steep paths, gullies, and plenty of places to get lost. Oh yeah, and there¡¯s the mercurial weather.

The trail is relatively easy until you get above 11,000 feet on its east slope. From there, the climb gets rougher the higher you get. The Maroon Bells got their deadly reputation after eight people died in five separate incidents, earning them the nickname ¡°The Deadly Bells.¡± A U.S. Forest Service sign on the trail sums it up: ¡°The beautiful Maroon Bells ¡­ have claimed many lives in the past few years. They are not extreme technical climbs, but they are unbelievably deceptive. The rock is down sloping, rotten, loose, and unstable. It kills without warning. The snowfields are treacherous, poorly consolidated, and no place for a novice climber. ¡­ Expert climbers who did not know the proper routes have died on these peaks.¡±

Mist Trail, California

The 14.5-mile Mist Trail is one of the most popular routes up Yosemite National Park’s?Half Dome. Though up to 3,000 hikers escape the trail unscathed every day in the summer, there are a few tricky spots that could leave you seriously injured if you’re unprepared. According to a , more than 60 people have died on Half Dome and the trail leading up to it.

Steel cables assist climbers on the last 400 feet of the ascent, but this final assault still poses a challenge. You need to be in excellent shape to make it up, and rainfall makes the cables extremely slippery. If there’s any threat of lightning, the cables’ exposed position becomes extremely dangerous. Five people have died on Half Dome in the past nine years alone, and most of those accidents happened when the rock was wet.

Longs Peak, Colorado

One of Colorado’s most popular peaks is also one of the deadliest, thanks to high exposure, rock slides, frequent lightning strikes, and narrow ledges. An average of one person a year dies on the mountain, and with a difficulty rating of Class 3, it’s one of the most challenging standard routes up a 14er in the state.

The Longs Peak trail is tame until you reach a section known as the Keyhole. From there, hikers must scramble along narrow ledges, following painted bull’s-eyes to stay on course. It’s not technical climbing, but it’s easy for hikers to get in over their heads.

One of the more famous people to die on Longs Peak was mountaineer Agnes Vaille. After she and a companion successfully summited, Vaille fell 150 feet down a rock field. Exhausted, she told her friend that she would take a short nap before resuming the hike, but she froze to death by the time rescuers found her. Agnes Vaille Shelter, a small cabin on the trail, serves as a memorial to her.

Mount Pinatubo, Philippines

People come from all over the world to hike up to Mount Pinatubo¡¯s crater lake. But after 400 years of dormancy, this volcano suddenly erupted in 1991, killing 800 people. It erupted again in 1992, that time claiming 72 victims.

The Pinatubo eruption was the second largest of the century, ejecting at least 15 million tons of sulfur dioxide gas, which lowered temperatures on a global scale, temporarily accelerated depletion of the ozone layer, and brought lahars (showers of volcanic debris) raining down.

If you ignore the volcano¡¯s tendency to blow up suddenly, the hike itself is relatively easy and takes anywhere from 50 minutes to two hours. If you take a dip in the crater lake, beware of floating into the middle, where there are strong currents.

Angel’s Landing, Utah

This short hike in Zion National Park attracts thousands of people, many of whom take the half-mile trail for granted. Most of the hike is indeed quite tame, but the sheer number of hikers can lead to dangerous traffic jams at the upper point.

The route, an extension of the West Rim Trail, starts by following a narrow sandstone ridge with steep drop-offs. The final ascent is a steep stone staircase that climbs to the top of a sandstone fin. The path is just wide enough for one person¡ªif someone tries to pass you, you¡¯ll either have to scurry up the rock or step perilously close to the edge. Anchored chains support hikers on the final section. Some people opt out here, letting the more intrepid go on to the exposed platform.

Here¡¯s where things get dangerous. The National Park Service states that at least five people have fallen to their deaths on Angel¡¯s Landing, adding that it¡¯s an incomplete list. That also doesn¡¯t include the people who fall and are rescued, an occurrence that happens almost annually.

Bright Angel Trail, Arizona

So many people die or are injured on this trail that the park service created a scouting crew dedicated to helping distressed hikers. The 9.5-mile round-trip trail regularly reaches temperatures of 110 degrees, resulting in about 200 heat-related rescues each year.

Unlike some Grand Canyon trails, this one has rest stations with water sources along the way. However, many hikers are deceived by how easy this trail is to access, and the descent isn¡¯t too bad, either. They don¡¯t count on the fact that the way out is all uphill and can be oppressively hot as the canyon traps heat¡ªtemperatures can be 20 degrees hotter in the canyon than at the rim. Despite warnings posted on the trail in multiple languages, many people make rookie mistakes: They don¡¯t bring enough water, fail to rest enough throughout the hike, or start the hike too late in the day.

Mount Washington, New Hampshire

Naive hikers have started their treks here in shorts and T-shirts and suffered hypothermia halfway up when temperatures suddenly plummet. That¡¯s the nature of Mount Washington, a relatively small peak that nonetheless boasts extreme weather. (The Mount Washington Observatory claims to be ¡°Home of the World¡¯s Worst Weather.¡±)

More than a hundred people have died on the mountain, either from being blown off ridges, suffering hypothermia, or being swept away by an avalanche. The average annual temperature is 27.1 degrees, and the summit temperature has never topped 72 degrees. Plus, the mountain holds the world wind-speed record at 231 mph, recorded on the summit in 1934. Expect the ascent to be rocky, steep, and rugged.

¡°There are no guarantees that hikers will escape the mountain unscathed, so if absolute safety is what you require, then avoid a visit,¡± says Mount Washington State Park¡¯s website.

Via Ferrata, Italy and Austria

Europeans in the 15th century once scaled the Via Ferrata (Italian for ¡°iron way¡±) with ladders, and the route was later used during World War I by specialized troops. Today, routes through the Dolomites are much more accessible thanks to new steel cables, ropes, wooden walkways, and suspension bridges. See the problem?

The routes and cables are well maintained, but your safety hinges on snapping a specialized carabiner setup (called a via ferrata set) to the anchors on the cable supports.

Then, you’ll scale sheer faces and edge around tall ledges. Deaths have happened on routes of all difficulty levels under a variety of circumstances. In 2009, one British woman plunged to her death on an intermediate hike after slipping on snow and falling 600 feet. Another death in Austria happened because of a gear failure. On the other hand, pro mountain biker Harald Philipp was able to tackle the route on a mountain bike.

Rover’s Run Trail, Alaska

Rover’s Run, a leisurely trail in Anchorage’s Far North Bicentennial Park, doesn’t have any steep drop-offs, technical climbs, or extreme weather. Instead, it’s a favorite spot for brown bears, which flock to the area in the summer when the nearby river is bursting with salmon. There have been so many bear encounters¡ªincluding maulings¡ªthat city and park officials plan to divert the trail away from the creek this year.

Various signs warn of bear activity, and park authorities close the trail at times when the bruins are out en masse. And they’re not the only dangerous animals afoot. Moose, known to charge intruders, are also frequently spotted in the area.

Devil’s Path, New York

A deadly trail in New York? That¡¯s right, and it’s every bit as brutal as the name implies.

Devil’s Path is more than 24 miles long, but the eastern portion has the classic sections, including a six-mile round-trip hike up Indian Mountain. Inexperienced hikers or those with a fear of heights shouldn’t venture up this one. It’s a steep, unrelenting climb, with sections that require hikers to hoist themselves up by grabbing onto slippery roots. Another spot has a “chimney,” where hikers navigate a 10-foot cliff and shimmy around a fallen tree. In many spots, tripping and falling has deadly consequences. You’ll also have to contend with moss-covered rocks, deep mud, and water on the path.

According to officials, someone dies almost every year on Devil’s Path, whether from a fall or heart attack.

Pacaya Volcano, Guatemala

Active volcanoes typically aren’t top tourist attractions, but , located near the capital city, is different. Pacaya became active again in 1965. Since then, eruptions have killed a handful of people.<br< br=””> A 2010 eruption claimed three lives, and another eruption three years later sent lava flowing down one side of the mountain. Nearby villages were evacuated. Pacaya began spewing rocks, ash, and vapor again last March.

The climb can be dangerous even when the volcano isn’t erupting. Hikers have made it to the top of the mountain’s steep cinder cone, only to fall in thanks to the hot, crumbling ground.

The national park service closed the 8,000-foot peak to the public after the fatalities, but some stubborn trekkers are still reportedly accessing the volcano from nearby farms.</br<>

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The Best Getaways for You and Your Dog

For those of us who love the outdoors and our dogs, there seems like there are too few places to go adventuring with Fido. Most National Parks don’t allow dogs, city parks are borning, and dog parks can often lead to impromptu dog fights. But there are a few place for owners and dogs who want a little more out of their outdoor outings. Surfing with pooches in San Diego, hiking around lake Michigan, and scrambling in the mountains of Telluride top our list of favorite dog-friendly travel destinations.

Doggie Destinations: Beaches