Huddled inside plastic tubes, three novice climbers spent a miserable September night on a rainy wooded slope in Washington’s Olympic Mountains. Each of them remembered his nice, warm bed where he’d expected to be by that time. Thoughts of hypothermia flashed by. Sleep came and went with thoughts of worried families back home.
I was one novice climber who thought I’d never have to bivouac in the mountains. That was only for ace mountaineers on the big climbs, but here I was actually forced to spend the night on a relatively easy mountain. All each of us had for protection against the elements was a survival kit containing a plastic tube, sugar cubes, a whistle, a candle, and matches. Without those kits the night would have been much more miserable, and the possibility of hypothermia would have been greatly increased.
It began when my friends, Dave and Jorg, and I…