Free Up by Patricia Ellis Herr Page B

without clear visibility, it’s easy to lose one’s sense of direction. Up abovethe ice climb, in the region known as Mount Washington’s Alpine Garden, they had only their eyesight to depend on. In the moment, this didn’t seem like too much of a problem. They weren’t trying to go all the way to the top, after all. Just a few minutes of hiking, maybe a few tenths of a mile at most. The risk appeared minimal.
    â€œIt was a cold and snowy day, and while we were walking, the wind became so strong that it almost knocked us over.”
    Sage and Alex’s eyes grow wide.
    â€œWe decided to turn around—”
    â€œGood thinking, Papa,” Alex interrupts. She and Sage both look relieved. Odd, how the minds of children work. It’s as though they expect him to tell us that all turned out well, that they came back down, went to a coffee shop, and drank some hot tea. Even as Hugh sits there with the bottom part of his sweatpants empty and dangling toward the floor.
    â€œBut we got into trouble,” Hugh begins, and his voice becomes even more measured. “When we turned around, the wind was so bad that it blew snow all around us. We couldn’t see where we were going. We almost couldn’t see each other, even though we were walking side by side. We thought we went the right way, but we didn’t. We ended up going down the wrong side of the mountain by accident.”
    Sage looks horrified. Tears well up in her eyes, and she asks in a very shaky voice, “Did you die, Papa?”
    Hugh smiles reassuringly at her and answers, “No, honey.”
    Both girls relax a bit as they look their father over and verify that yes, he is right in front of them, and no, he did not die on that miserable winter day.
    â€œHow did you get back?” Alex asks.
    â€œWe didn’t,” Hugh says. “My friend and I were lost for three and a half days out in the cold woods. The temperatures were below zero—”
    â€œIs that cold?” Alex asks.
    â€œYes, it’s very cold. When it’s that cold out, we don’t let you play outside.”
    The girls look amazed. We almost never keep them indoors. On the contrary, they’re usually the only kids in the neighborhood playing in the yard when the temperature dips below the freezing point.
    â€œThe snow went up to our waists and we didn’t have any food or water with us.”
    â€œWhat about a tent?” Alex asks.
    â€œNo. We had left our backpacks at the bottom of the ice climb, since we thought we would come right back down. We didn’t have anything with us.”
    â€œWere you scared?” Sage asks in a small voice.
    â€œYes,” Hugh answers. “We were both terrified.”
    Hugh and Jeff had turned around within minutes of trying to walk toward the summit. However, in the very short amount of time it took for them to walk a couple of tenths of a mile, the wind speed had increased enough to create whiteout conditions. Theycould not see more than five feet in front of them, and they had to keep hold of each other so as not to become separated in the blinding, blowing snow. In Hugh’s decade-plus of experience, he had never been on such a flat expanse while ascending a mountain. The whiteout conditions were impossible to navigate. Without the aid of a map or compass, the two boys did what most lost hikers tend to do: they turned their backs to the wind and began walking downward, toward where they thought they had ascended.
    Their path of descent felt right at first, for the immediate gulley seemed similar in shape to the one they had climbed earlier. However, once below tree line, it was obvious they had gone the wrong way. Going back up was out of the question, however—they would most likely have ended up wandering about blindly in the whiteout with no idea of which direction to go, and the windchill would have quickly brought on frostbite and hypothermia. No, they had to keep