Real Survival Stories - Glissading Gone Wrong: Into the Abyss

Episode Date: August 12, 2026

On a remote mountain, the sun glints brilliantly off the snow. Two specks are visible on the slope - two men. One stationary, the other moving at speed. The second man is Dan Wenker. He’s sliding down the mountain, over the pristine white powder. But in mere moments he’ll be 60 feet under the ice, staring up at just a slither of daylight. How did he get here, and how on earth will he get out?… A Noiser podcast production. Hosted by John Hopkins. Written by Rhys Bevan | Produced by Ed Baranski | Assistant Producer: Luke Lonergan | Exec produced by Joel Duddell | Sound design by Matt Peaty | Assembly edit by Carla Flores, Dorry Macaulay | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Cian Ryan-Morgan. For more on this story read Dan’s book Staying on Guard. For ad-free listening, bonus material and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Click the subscription banner at the top of the feed to get started. Or go to noiser.com/subscriptions If you have an amazing survival story of your own that you’d like to put forward for the show, let us know. Drop us an email at [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The 2006 Chevrolet Equinox, awarded the most dependable compact SUV in the U.S. by J.D. Power, is designed for your everyday. And with available all-wheel drive, you can handle your to-do list with total confidence. Start your build at Chevrolet.ca. Details at J.D.Power.com. It's late morning on the 30th of June 2022. On the lower slopes of the Grand Teton, the tallest peak in the Teton mountain range in Wyoming, the sun reflects brilliantly of bright white snow. This rugged landscape that sits just 10 miles south of Yellowstone Park is famous for its breathtaking climbs. Today, it's living up to the hype.

The air is clear and crisp, and the peaks tower imperiously into an impressive blue sky. A blustery wind whips across the glacial cori, the only sound in an otherwise vast and silent expanse. Up here, in the summer months, the craggy rock formations, crazy. little pockets of snow, like water cupped in a giant's hand. In one gully sits an immaculate snowfield, its smooth surface glistening invitingly. On to this pristine white powder crunch two pairs of boots as a duo of hikers pick their way down the mountain. Suddenly they stop. Rosie-cheeked and breathing hard, the two men gazed down the slope, a look of an

anticipation growing across their faces. They glanced each other and exchanged small, excited smiles. The conditions are perfect. For the next section of their descent, these two climbers aren't going to walk. They're going to slide. Glissading is something that mountaineers do, and you glissade on snow so you can descend very quickly,

and it involves just sitting on your butt, your legs are out. You take an ice axe off to your side, you press it down to control your speed, and it's a whole lot more fun than hiking. And you just slide down, and you can slide down sometimes a thousand feet or so. The two men sit positioning their walking poles across their torsos like miniature paddles, ready to dig into the ice and anchor them should they lose control. They turn to each other. Someone needs to go first. Slowly, with an awkward shuffle, the taller of the two men begins the descent.

Soon he's in full toboggan mode, sledding down the hill on his backside, grinning from ear to ear. After a fair distance, he stops and gestures to his friend that it's safe. The second climber follows with equally childlike glee. They repeat this pattern until the taller man glissades down to a rocky outcrop and stops. As before, his friend watches from above and sees his partner give the high sign to say it's safe. Or at least he thinks he does. Immediately, the second hiker is picking up speed. It's steeper here. His walking poles aren't slowing him down. He is hurtling towards his friend, losing control with every meter.

Snow kicks up around him in white, dusty bursts. Just as it looks like he's going to slam into the rock and come to a painful stop, he flies clean through a small gap in the outcrop and disappears. The taller man, a Washingtonian in his 60s by the name of Jim Zingerman, watches in horror as his friend, 62-year-old Dan Wenker, slides right past him and plunges off the edge of a cliff. From Jim's point of view, I disappeared. From my point of view, went over there, screamed something out, and started falling. It's like when you fall, when you're in a dream, where you're falling and you really don't know where you're going to land. I'm in pretty big trouble here. Ever wondered what you would do when disaster strikes?

If your life depended on your next decision, could you make the right choice? Welcome to real survival stories. These are the astonishing tales of ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations. people suddenly forced to fight for their lives. In this episode, we meet 62-year-old amateur mountaineer Dan Wenker. In June 2022, a small group of friends are taking on the Grand Teton in Wyoming, when adverse weather conditions forced Dan and his buddy Jim to abandon plans for the summit and head back down the mountain.

Having hiked a fair way, the pair decided to slide down a snowy stretch of slope. As Dan skids towards his friend, he loses control. and plunges into a deep glacial ravine carved by a waterfall and known as an ice moat. I got the wind knocked out of me when I hit that wall on the ice, and when I was starting to dropping, started banging around a little bit and got knocked unconscious. Plummeting into icy darkness, survival from here will be miraculous. And when Dan comes too and takes in his surroundings, it's clear the fall was just the start. pitch black. There's a raging waterfall on the right of me. I can feel an ice wall behind me.

This sheer rock wall is in front of me. And as I looked up, I could see a small dot, which is the sunlight. There is no way I'm making it out of here. I'm John Hopkins. From the Noiser Podcast Network, this is real survival stories. It's June the 28th, 2022. Beneath the white underbellies passenger planes taking off into the expensive Utah skies, a car sidles into the short stay drop-off at Salt Lake City Airport. Sixty-two-year-old Dan Wenker parks the car, climbs out, and heads to the back to fetch his wife's luggage. It's just a quick goodbye this morning. They'll see each other soon. They've been in town for a wedding, their daughter Caroline's no less, and now Dan's wife is heading home. But not Dan. He's staying on just for a few days to partake in one of his favorite

pastimes. Dan hands his wife her suitcase. And as he does, his expression changes. I don't usually have this conversation with her, but looked at her and said, you know, if anything happens to me on this client, don't call Caroline and Anthony on their honeymoon. A committed family man, Dan doesn't want to bother or concern his daughter during such a special time, even if he runs into trouble on his upcoming climb. Despite this slightly nervy comment to his wife, there is no particular reason to think things will go wrong. Dan is careful, skilled, and won't be tackling the climb alone. Plus, it promises to be a doozy. The Grand Teton, if you've ever been to Wyoming, I equated to the Mona Lisa. When you're out there, you feel

is that the mountain is looking at you from every angle. You know, it's an epic peak, and it's something that's on most climbers' to-do list. Dan is an ardent amateur mountaineer, and as luck would have it, his daughter arranged her wedding within striking distance of a peak that he's always wanted to climb.

The Grand Teton in Wyoming stands at nearly 14,000 feet tall, soaring above the Teton mountain range just near the town of Jackson. It's a formidable ascent. It's difficult. It involves, contrary to what our other mountaineering experiences were where you could just hike up your own safety ropes. This involved a lot of technical climbing too for a thousand feet up, and so it was a whole new experience.

Having kissed his wife goodbye, Dan drives straight from the airport up through Jackson to the base of the Grand Teton to meet the team. The buccaneering adventurers heading into the mountain this morning are Dan, his two friends. Jim Zingerman and Mark McGuire, and Mark's son, Nicholas. Today, Dan will have to rely on the experience of his fellow climbers, Mark and Nicholas in particular. Because it was a technical climb at the top, like the last thousand feet is a peak that goes straight up. And so Mark McGuire and his son were very good technical climbers.

He had been climbing since he was in his teens. Jim and I were not, and so it was a good team of people. Not only do Mark and Nicholas have the expertise, they've also got the gear, including something that will have great significance later on. Mark and his son had two climbing ropes. Because there were four of us, they prefer to, when you do technical climbing, to only have three people maximum on the rope. And so because there were four of us, Mark and his son brought two rope.

instead of one. Dan greets his fellow climbers in the shadow of the mountains. Giant, fang-like peaks surround them, angular, white and gray labyrinths that grow endlessly upwards to the clouds. The men check over their packs once more, steal a quick glance up at these snowy behemoths above, and share an excited grin. Nearly 14,000 foot up, there's their target, the top of the Grand Teton. There's four of us, and off the trail we went. Your summer travels deserve an upgrade. With select Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, and Cadillac vehicles connected by OnStar,

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At Real Canadian Superstore, when you're ready, we're ready, with a whole world and more. The day begins with a hike up through the verdant lower section of the mountain. The four men are surrounded by summer greenery and vibrant wildflowers. Glacial streams trickle happily pass a steady tramp, and up Up ahead, a streak of spiky brown and green pine trees resembles a layer of earth from which the majestic snow-capped summit seem to grow. Their destination towers above them, drawing them on. And though the four walkers chat amiably, they keep their wits about them, checking the path for signs of bison, elk and moose, as well as more pertinently, bears and wolves. They're entering the wild, a place where it pays to keep your wits about you.

especially given this is where they're going to sleep for the night. It's about a six-mile, 6,000 vertical foot gain to get up to this area called the Lower Saddle. We were going to camp there overnight. The weather looked great. We had bought a permit and built in an extra day just in case something happened. It's what most people will do.

They'll sleep at the lower saddle, wake up early in the morning, go up the mountain, come back down, then hey back. And that was the plan. The group makes it to the lower saddle in good time. It's a curved, rock-strewn mountain pass. They pitch their tents, eat dinner, and prepare to hunker down for the night. Just as they're settling in, however, Jim makes an admission.

He is exhausted. He has recently been unwell and has lost ground on his training. The six-mile hike, coupled with the altitude, has taken it out of him. He doesn't think he'll make it any first. brother. We said, okay, we'll just make the decision when we wake up. So we woke up the next day, and although the day was partly cloudy, you know, it was doable, but Nicholas looked on the weather app on his phone, and there were threatening thunderstorms in the area that day. What you don't want to do is be on the top of a 13,700-foot peak with lightning going off, because then you're just a human

lightning rod. So we decided that because we had the extra day built in, that we would just going to hang around camp that day, and then we would wake up the following day. By this point, that was the 29th. On the 30th, we would wake up at about 4 in the morning, and we would climb. So the four men potter about for a day in the lower saddle, before settling down once more for a short sleep before the big hike. But Jim has now totally ruled himself out of tomorrow's climb. He still doesn't feel right.

The others agree. it's no good continuing if something is off. This is a treacherous and grueling climb. They've trained for it, yes, but they have varied levels of experience, and none of the three friends is getting any younger. Not that Dan would have done anything like this as a young man. In the grand scheme of his life, mountaineering has been a relatively late discovery.

Dan grew up in Philadelphia, the second largest city on the eastern seaboard. He was born into a high school. hardworking Protestant family, his father a carpenter, his mother a nurse. In the 60s and 70s, Philly was a city marred by urban decay and criminality, but shot through with blue-collar pride and strong communal and artistic spirit. With all its noise, smoke and bustle, it was a far cry from the mountains of the American Northwest. I grew up in the city, and so I was a city guy pretty much my whole life. Really was a

Boy Scout dropout, quite frankly, only lasted two weeks in the Boy Scouts. In his adult life, a series of job opportunities took Dan up north, and he and his family settled in the town of Yakima in Washington State. Despite an active, sporty childhood, Dan's work in food sales and marketing had resulted in a sedentary adulthood. In 2010, as a big birthday loomed on the horizon, he resolved to make a change. when I was turning 50, decided that I needed to do something to stay in decent condition. When you live in the northwest, you know, all the mountains are there, Mount Rainier, Mount Hood, Mount Adams,

and they're all 12 to 14.5,000-foot mountain peaks that are snow-covered all year round. One day, when I was driving from our town in Yakima over to the city of Seattle, which is about a two-and-a-half, three-hour drive, looked over at a... looked over at Mount Rainier on a clear day and thought, you know, what if I could climb that mountain? It was a question that Dan was not qualified to answer. So he took it to a colleague who was. Went and talked to a guy in our office, said, you know, here's what I'm thinking of doing.

I don't even know if this is possible or not, but what do I need to do and what's involved? And he said, you know, first of all, he said, it's doable. you know, for a guy like you, he said it's going to be the toughest thing you've ever done. A climber himself, Dan's colleague Pete, didn't mince his words. But seeing that Dan was serious, he agreed to help him train. The next six months consisted of grueling hikes in the hills around Yakima. By the end, Dan was 30 pounds lighter and in the best shape he'd been in years.

He was ready to climb Mount Rainier. The problem was, when he eventually got to the top, He wanted to do it again. You know, the deal with Mount Rainier was supposed to be one and done. That was going to be the thing that would shock my system to get into good shape. From there, I'd figure out something else. But what happened instead when I got to the top of the mountain had the largest impact up until that point in my life? You know, other than the birth of my children and the marriage to my wife, you know, climbing Mount Rainier dramatically changed my life.

After a chance encounter with a neighbor, Dan joined a church climbing group, and soon he was spending his weekends, traversing ridges and scrambling up his scarpments. It wasn't just the exercise that appealed to him. He had found a community and was making new friends. Even when he and his family relocated to Atlanta, he stayed in touch with his fellow enthusiasts. It was on one of their regular skiing holidays that Dan was chatting to two of his climber friends. friends, Jim Zingerman and Mark McGuire and an idea formed. When we were skiing in Montana, we were talking at our ski trip and started to say, you know, we ought to climb the Grand Teton in Wyoming. And so I thought, well, this will be awesome.

Dan told his buddies that he was in. It worked out well, he said. His daughter was getting married in Salt Lake City in June, a short drive from the Teton Mountain Range. Everything was lining up nicely. Right now, though, in his tent pitched in the lower saddle for the second night in a row, Dan is struggling to sleep. There was a little increase in wind as they were all going to bed, no more than expected.

But this, this is something else. During the night, the wind started to increase. The first time I heard it, I was like, there must be a plane or a jet, you know, that's coming over here. I heard this noise. And then the noise started to get louder and louder and louder. It gradually increased and increased and increased to the point where it was the strongest winds I had ever experienced. At this point on the mountain, there is almost no foliage to speak of.

The four men are hopelessly exposed to the howling gale. Gusts reach 50 miles an hour. Dan has pegged his tent firmly into the ground and piled rocks on the canvas to anchor it. But even so, he lies tense listening. Suddenly something tears. His tent stays have snapped in two. If he doesn't fix them, the canvas itself might rip. Dan fumbles around for his headlap. I couldn't stand up because the winds were so strong, so on my hands and my knees with my headlight, retying the tent stays. And so gradually throughout the night I had to go out and retie every one.

The wind got so strong at one point, I was concerned my tent was going to explode and blow down the hill. And so I sat up on the side of the tent and would lean against the side and it would actually blow me over. And so at about 3 o'clock, the wind died down a little bit. At 4 o'clock in the morning when Mark and Nicholas came by my tent, you know, after getting zero sleep and said, come on, Dan, we're going. Yeah, I said, I'm not...

I'm done. It was due to be the most technical climb Dan had ever done. It was always going to be a challenge, even well-rested. Dan tells Mark and Nicholas he doesn't want to be a liability. Like Jim, he is going to sit it out.

So the two remaining climbers set off in the 4 a.m. gloom headed for the summit. Almost as an afterthought, they drop something they've been carrying. They won't need it now. Now was the two of them. You know, we had talked about the extra climbing rope. And so they were going to take one rope.

They were going to leave the other rope in the base camp. When Jim wakes, he's surprised to find Dan still in camp. But he agrees last night's weather was brutal. He understands Dan's decision to back out. The two men make some breakfast and wait to hear from the climbers. A text comes through. Mark and Nicholas have reached. the summit, but the winds are making it going tough. It'll be a while before they're back.

Dan and Jim should head down on their own. The two men pack up, but just as they're preparing to leave, they notice an extra item of kit lying forlorn in the middle of the camp. So you need to realize that our packs are probably loaded with tent and all our gear and everything are probably about 40 pounds, and we're going to be hiking down to six miles, 6,000 vertical feet. So at some points it's kind of steep. So I'm looking at that rope. It's a 70 meter rope that weighs about 10 pounds. So imagine you're going to put 10 more pounds in your pack. And I'm looking at the rope. Jim's kind of looking at the rope. And I'm thinking to myself, I really don't want to carry that rope. And so Jim, you know, Jim Zingerman is probably, he's one of those guys. Everybody has a

buddy that's the nicest guy in the world. And Jim is that guy. And so at that point, he goes, I'll carry the rope. Jim packs the rope, and they're ready to go. But just before they set off, they spot someone nearing them on the rocky slopes. It's a park ranger passing on patrol. The ranger stops and asks Dan and Jim if they're planning on glissading during their descent, on sliding down segments of the slopes. They look at one another.

We said we might be, and he said, well, if you're going to glissay, make sure you you can see where you're going and make sure you control your speed and you're polite to him but jim and i've been you know we've been climbing for about 16 years now we're like yes you know we know what we're doing there are two ways down from the lower saddle on grand titan you can either scale a steep wall known as the head wall or clamber down a narrow shoot about 150 feet long and 50 feet wide with rocks on both sides Dan and Jim opt for the chute, as there's a bit of snow for their crampons to bite into underfoot. The chute is fairly steep, however,

and the danger of slipping carries particular jeopardy. If you trip coming down there and slide with crampons on, you could very easily break your leg just because the crampons the way the grip could get cut. As it turns out, the chute presents no problems. and as they descend further, the going gets easier. The two men pack away their ice axes and crampons. The weather is so nice they even take off their coats.

They're making good time. The beauty of the downhill hike in the glorious summer sunshine is more than making up for the disappointment of not reaching the summit. Suddenly, Dan stops and points off to their right. A little below them is a pristine snowfield. I said, you know, we really should be glissading down there instead of hiking down this rocky trail. Made our way out to the snow field, with snow is soft and everything.

It was a beautiful day, so we didn't unpack our ice axes, and we thought, well, we've seen people just glissade with hiking poles, and so we retracted the poles, and we figured we'll use those. Stretching out beneath them is a gorgeous, glittering slide of perfect snow, an ideal surface to speedily skid their way down the slope. Jim goes first, sitting and shimmying down the powder with ease. His hiking pole provides a rudimentary breaking system should he need it. Jim slides a short way down the slope before stopping and signaling back to his friend that it's safe.

Dan follows, eventually stopping next to Jim and allowing him to go ahead again. And like this, the two men descend the Grand Teton on their back. sides. It was a phenomenal day. We were laughing, we're high-fiving, we're out in the wilderness, doing what we loved, you're with your buddy. At that time, two 62-year-old guys that were acting young, you know, and the crystal-clear blue skies, it was awesome. The day continues in this enjoyable fashion, and the men make good progress. They're steadily making their way down the mountain. They reach another downward incline of pure white. About 150 feet away, the pair spot a rocky outcrop, a collection of large boulders,

and decide to head that way. Dan watches as Jim glissades down the slope. He reaches the rocks, stops, and takes his pack off, perhaps taking a break. Dan peers down at his friend in the distance and waits patiently for the all-clear. Jim turns and signals. And I thought he gave me the high sign that it was all good. So off I wait. In fact, Jim is not signaling that everything is fine.

There has been a serious misunderstanding. And now it's too late. Dan is already on his way. He rapidly picks up speed. He's going faster here than on his previous slides. He digs his walking pole into the ice, frozen particles flurrying around him. It doesn't slow him down. And about halfway to three quarters of the way to where Jim

was between these boulders realized that I wasn't going to stop. But I'm going to hit one of these boulders. This is really going to hurt. Dan grits his teeth, braces for impact, and then he spots something. I noticed that there's a little pathway between the rocks. And so I'm thinking, okay, I'm going to bounce off one of those rocks, and this gravel will at least stop my fall as well. Well, when I got to the rocks, that didn't happen.

And what happened instead is, is I actually accelerated through the rocks. When I passed by gym, I realized at that point that he was standing on the edge of a cliff. Real Canadian Superstore has everything you need this back-to-school season. Save on lunchbox savers like Zinke's sliced deli-mee products for always 375. And get life brand pure Vita shampoo or conditioner for $8 each. At Real Canadian Superstore, when you're ready, we're ready, with a whole world and more. This August on the Noiser Podcast Network, Jane Austen's stories returns. This time Dame Julie Andrews will be reading another beloved classic Emma.

Step into the village of Highbury, home to the handsome and clever Emma Woodhouse. Witness the delicate art of matchmaking, where appearances can deceive, and true affections are not always easily guessed. On short history off, we're herring around the world with the ground-breaking journalist Nellie Bly and grappling with the surreal with Salvador Dali. On real survival stories, we're in the shark-filled waters off the coast of Florida and trundling down the Birdsville track

deep in the Australian bush. And in Sherlock Holmes short stories, Holmes investigates the disappearance of a missing star rugby player in The Adventure of the Missing Three Quarter. Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus. It's the 30th of June 2022. At the base of a snowfield on the side of the Grand Teton Mountain in Wyoming, there is a moment of suspense. A 62-year-old Dan Wenker's body begins to free fall.

The grounding of snow and ice gives way to thin air as Dan glissades over the lip of a cliff and plunges into the dark chasm below. There is a cry of shock, followed by a short, sharp thud. Screamed something out, banged into one side of the ice hole wall, and started to drop. I got the wind knocked down to me when I hit that wall in the ice. Started banging around a little bit and got knocked unconscious. Dan blacks out, and for a moment he plunges into nothingness. When he comes around, he blinks in the darkness, trying to make sense of the sights and sounds of this new underworld. There is one striking, peculiar feature, the sound of raging water tumbling nearby.

This waterfall, you know, it's so loud down there and anybody that's been done any hiking or whatever, the waterfalls are so loud, I couldn't hear anything but the waterfall. Dan has fallen into a hole carved into the side of a glacier by the rushing waterfall. It's known as an ice moat. So the snow will cover an area, but as the thaw comes in the springtime, the waterfall will gradually eat away at the snow underneath the ice. And so I had fallen through at that hole and later would find out that I dropped 60 feet. As he tumbled, Dan hit the ice wall on one side of the hole, knocking him out before

he plummeted further, slamming into rock and ice as he went. Coming to, he finds himself perched perilously on a ledge three feet wide and ten feet long. There is a wall of ice behind him, another to his left. In front of him is a sheer rock wall, and to his right, the waterfall. Dan looks down at his body. Aside from the pounding in his head and sharp pain in his hip and lower leg, he seems relatively unscathed. No blood, nothing visibly broken. It's extraordinary. Dan lifts his eyes to the small point of light above. He begins to shout Jim's name, listening for a response. Hearing nothing but the roar of the waterfall, Dan scours his surroundings. He needs a plan, because already time is running out. He has survived the fall,

but something else is now a much more present and deadly threat. I'm gradually getting wetter and wetter by this glacial-fed waterfall with the water tempest is probably about, you know, 33, 34 degrees. It's dark, it's cold, I'm starting to shiver and start to think, you know, I'm in pretty big trouble here. The water splashing over him is punishingly cold, half a degree Celsius. It isn't long before he's wet through. Dan touches the rock wall in front of him, searching for finger holes. It's slick with water, slippery to the touch. Dan hugs himself.

His body's shaking vigorously. He breathes steeply, trying to stay calm. Shivering uncontrollably, I'm thinking that if there's any chance of getting out of here, I'm going to need my hands. So I'm putting my hands in my mouth, left and right. In the back of my mind, I start to hear, you know, remain calm.

Breathe easy. And the worst thing that can happen is for you to lose control, start freaking out. And then in the back of my mind, I hear a voice that says, today is not your day to die. And while it was comforting at the time, I'm thinking to myself, there is no way I'm making it out of here. And so I'm looking at this wall. I'm trying to feel for any kind of grip I can get to climb out of there. and it's all slippery, it's straight up, there's nothing I could grab and started to think this is

kind of where it ends. And right about that time, in the dark, next to this raging waterfall, I feel a tap on my right shoulder. The last 20 minutes have not been easy on Jim Zingaman. From his perspective, he just saw his friend die, plunging over an icy cliff right in front of him.

There's no way he could have survived. But then he heard a tiny voice below calling out his name. The first thing that went through his mind is, you know, my life is going to dramatically change. He said, I just watched my buddy die before my very eyes. But after a short period of time, after Jim had given up hope, then he hears my voice. And he starts to think to himself, oh, great, he's alive. And then Jim, because he's a physician, starts to think to himself, no, this is bad. He's down there.

He's next to this waterfall, he's under this ice, and he started to think, now I'm going to have to listen to him, call my name as he dies of hypothermia. Jim calls back to his friend, but can't cut through the thunder of the fallen water. He fumbles in his pocket for his phone and tries 911. There's no signal. As he shoves his phone away with a tortured grimace, he scours his surroundings for anyone, anything that could help. Nothing.

Jim needs his forehead with his knuckles. Unable to contain his despair, he calls out, not to Dan down below, but rather someone up above. In a plea, he screams out in the wilderness and says, God, I need you now. And what a lot of people, you know, people pray a lot of time. They say, you know, I hope for this, I hope for that. But, you know, Jim's prayer, you would tell me later was it was a demanding prayer. You know, saying, I need something, and I don't really have a whole lot of time. And so in the back of his mind, after he screams out that prayer, what Jim would describe is to say that he heard the word rope.

Jim scrambles to open his backpack. With all the adrenaline coursing through his body, the shock of seeing his friend disappear and the hurried desperation of trying to help, he had completely forgotten the extra climbing rope that Mark and Nicholas left behind. Jim yanks it out of his bag, the rope that only hours before he'd kindly agreed to carry instead of Dan. Hands trembling, breath misting in the crisp, clean air, Jim throws one end of the rope over the edge and down into the hole. Only for it to be blown back out by the waterfall. Adapting, Jim takes a different approach, tacking round and teasing the rope over the edge, away from the water like a fishing line. And slowly, patiently, he lowers it into the void.

I feel a tap on my right shoulder. And I reach around, because of that ledge was so precarious, I really didn't want to move very much, because next to me it was that waterfall, and all I could see was a dark abyss. Next to me that went down, it disappeared to where I didn't know where I had. And so I reached around slowly with my left hand to my right shoulder, and when I did, realize there was a climbing rope tapping me on the shoulder.

Dan grabs this precious gift and holds on tight. He yanks three times on the rope, and his above-ground helper gives him a little more slack. Still, shaking violently, teeth chattering, Dan wraps the rope around his middle and leans back. Once he's in position, Dan tugs on the rope two more times and waits to be pulled to safety. By this point I was thinking that, okay, Jim's got a rescue party up there. Things are going to be okay. Tied it around my waist and then leaned back, pulled on it a couple times, expecting somebody to start pulling me up.

Nothing happened. So I'm thinking, well, if I'm going to get out of here, I got to figure this out on my own. Jim has offered his friend a literal lifeline, but Dan's troubles are far from over. He takes a breath in through his nose and out through his mouth, steadies himself and prepares to climb. Dan has practiced this only recently, as the Grand Teton was supposed to have a technical climbing element at the top. But this is not practice.

Dan is about to put his new skills to the test while his life hangs in the balance. He places his two feet on the rock wall, loops the rope around his hands, and begins to inch upwards, pulling himself up on the rope and walking his feet up the wall. Dan grips the line tight.

He cannot afford to fall again. I was so afraid that the rope might come off my waist, the rope might come off my hands, and then I'd fall back down, and if I was afraid that if I landed on that ledge again, it was going to break off. With every hard one inch that Dan climbs, he has further to fall.

A stomach churning plunge lies below. The roar of the waterfall intermingles with the pounding of his heart. As he strains every sinew to slowly and painfully haul himself towards the light, his jaw is set in concentration. Shivering and soaked, Dan creeps higher and higher inch by inch towards salvation. Luckily, he is not the only one working on his survival. And what I noticed is while I'm climbing, The slack is being pulled in a little bit.

So I'm scaling up this wall. And when I got about halfway, the ice wall behind me kind of leaned in a little bit to the rock wall in front of me. So I could wedge my shoulders against the ice wall. I could press my legs against the rock wall and could gradually kind of work my way up to that little hole that I could see. Work my way up to the hole. Pop my head out.

And there sits Jim. He's got his knees off. up to his chest. He's kind of crunched down. He's got that rope wrapped around his waist. And the first thing he says, which I'll never forget my life, is, Dan, it's so good to see your face. Dan scales the 15 or so feet between the mouth of the hole and where Jim is sat, anchoring his climb. The two men face each other, almost nose to nose, but Dan is still on a slope, clinging on precarious. He asks his pal where he should go. Jim tells him, just jump on top of them.

And so, Dan leaps onto his friend, and the two men collapse in a heap of relieved laughter and hoots of adrenalized joy. Both men's faces run with tears, split through by the broadest of grins. But as Jim looks more closely at Dan, his smile fades. Dan's skin gleams grotesquely, unnaturally pale in the sunlight. You survived the fall, survived the climb, but it may all be too late. From the time I went in to the time I got out was about 45 minutes to an hour. A hypothermia sets in about an hour, hour and 15 minutes. My skin was as white as it goes to white as a sheaf, what he said,

and my skin temperature was he said it was cold as ice. This August on the Noiser Podcast Network, Jane Austen Stories returns. This time Dame Julie Andrews will be reading another beloved classic, Emma. Step into the village of Highbury, home to the handsome and clever Emma Woodhouse. Witness the delicate art of matchmaking, where appearances can deceive, and true affections are not always easily guessed. On short history of, we're herring around the world with the groundbreaking journalist

Nellie Bly and grappling with the surreal with Salvador Dali. On real survival stories, we're in the shark-filled waters off the coast of Florida and trundling down the Birdsville track deep in the Australian bush. And in Sherlock Holmes short stories, Holmes investigates the disappearance of a missing star rugby player in The Adventure of the Missing Three Quarter. Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus. On the 30th of June 2022, two men lie at the edge of a snowfield, seemingly basking in the bright summer sun. But Dan and Jim are not relaxing. They're exhausted. Their chests heave and tear tracks stain their cheeks.

Dan is wet through with freezing glacial water. His body is gripped by cold. And there's more bad news. Jim tells Dan that no one is coming. He's tried 911 already, but he doesn't have a signal. Dan's shoulders slump. But Jim isn't giving up. He leaps to his feet, acting fast.

He ties Dan off to a nearby rock and drapes the heavier of his coats around his friend's trembling shoulders. Then Jim climbs higher to search for more signal and try to attract attention. While he's climbing up, he's screaming for help and blow in a rescue whistle,

which, you know, we had laughed about it before about carrying this whistle. He said, what are you going to do, call a cab later? And yet, as the whistle echoes around the vast slopes of the Teton range, it does help to attract. attention. Incredibly, a mountain ranger passing on the trail above, hears Jim and swiftly makes his way down to see what's happening. When he arrives, Jim points him towards his stricken

friend. The ranger hurries over and kneels down next to Dan. You know, it gives me kind of a bit of an evaluation, you know, a field evaluation to see what's gone on. I told him I was knocked unconscious. And he said, well, you know, because you were knocked unconscious, and I can't tell if there's any bleeding or anything. he said, I'm going to call for a rescue helicopter. So that sounds like a great idea. Dan's whole body seems to unstiffen. Help is on its way.

There is a caveat, however. The helicopter is currently busy fighting a fire in the valley. It won't arrive for 45 minutes. Dan's jaw clenches again. The shivering intensifies, and he resumes his deep, steadying breaths. The ranger quizzes him. about his life, his family, keeping him talking. Then Dan does a double take.

I told him about, you know, my daughter and was up there for the wedding, and he had two small children, so we're kind of talking that way. And I'm looking at him. And all of a sudden I realize this is the same ranger that we ran into earlier that day when we left the lower saddle. It's the same man who only hours earlier had warned them about the dangers of glissading. But there is no scolding, no, I told you so. He says he's just glad Dan is alive.

The Ranger keeps talking to him, keeps him awake, and tries to take his mind off the cold, snaking its way through his bones. Until finally, Dan turns his head skyward as the rhythmic sound of a helicopter buzzes into earshot. I could hear it coming down the valley, which is the most phenomenal sound in the world, considering what all is happening.

and they did what's described as a short-haul rescue. What they have is this basket dangling underneath the helicopter, so it never lands, it's just there, comes down a little ways. By this point, there are a bunch of other rangers there. They wrap me up, put me in this basket. Dan is carried dangling from the rescue helicopter, back down to where they'd started on the trail and where an ambulance is now waiting.

As he rides in the emergency vehicle, Dan is told something he's already heard twice before. The mountain ranger that found them, said it, and the ranger that traveled with him under the helicopter said it. And now the EMT and the ambulance is saying it too. He said the same thing. He goes, I understand that you climbed your way out of there while your buddy pulled up the slack. I said, yeah, I did.

He said, man, you're pretty lucky. And I said, yeah, I think I'm pretty lucky. You know, at this point three people had said, and I was kind of sent it to him, you know, in a bit of a light way, and he kind of scolded me and he said, no, you don't understand. He said, there had been three other climbers that have slid into ice modes about where you went in over the past three years. You're the first rescue that we've had. The other three were body recoveries because they died in that ice mode.

Dan exhales. The EMT's revelation silences him. He gazes thoughtfully out of the window of the speeding ambulance. He really has been extraordinarily fortunate. The fact that Jim carried the rope that day, You know, I found out later when I got to the hospital, I had actually broken my leg. And so if I would have broken my hands or my shoulder, wouldn't have been able to climb out of there. And then finally, the fact that, you know, that park ranger was walking by right at the right time. So I feel very fortunate to be alive at this point.

And that's kind of the story. For a long time, Dan struggled to talk about his experience without crying. When he eventually wrote it down in a book, he shared tears. while he wrote, and every night after he'd written, he'd slept like he'd relieved a great burden. Now Dan counts his ordeal as one of ultimately positive transformation. He advises people to live a life of what if, to still be open to trying new things even later in life, exactly as he did when he drove past Mount Rainier that day in 2010. He also urges those adventuring in the wild to pay attention, in more ways than one.

You know, the old quote of nothing bad happens on a beautiful day. But, you know, for people that are out in the wilderness at all that to just stay on guard, things can happen in an instant that can kill you. That's one piece of wisdom. The other is, you know, for people that hike and are outside, you know, when I started to climb, you get to the top, that's the goal. And we would do that. And on our way down, we would start thinking about our other climbs, planning our next trip.

And so now I don't do that. I take it all in, enjoy the trail, don't just blow through the hike. As for Jim Zingerman, there is a special dedication of the start of Dan's book, where, in lieu of the right words to thank his friend, Dan turns to the Bible, John 1513. Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. Thanks, Jim, Dan writes, for not giving up. This was a kind of a bad event that could have had a really horrible ending. It's the best thing that's happened to me.

Because, you know, I wake up now, I wiggle my toes, I'm alive, and then I pray and thank God that I survived. Next time on real survival stories, we had ventured deep into South Australia's desolate and dangerous outback. In 2014, 30-year-old Brendan Cook takes a trip with his partner and their two friends along the legendary Byrdesville track, one of Australia's most isolated and untravelled roads. But an unusual series of events results in their car becoming stuck fast in silt and mud, resisting all efforts to be freed and sinking further with every attempt to extract it.

Stranded in the fierce heat and surrounded by sinister wildlife, Brendan and his companions must find a way of freeing their car before their dwindling food and water supplies run out entirely. But as the hours and days pass without success, their only remaining options appear drastic and filled with danger. That's next time on real survival stories. Listen right now without waiting and without ads by joining Noiser Plus. Your summer travels deserve an upgrade. With select Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, and Cadillac vehicles connected by OnStar, you can stream, game, and more on the go. Whether you're headed to a music festival or a cottage getaway, you can access hundreds of apps on.

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