Extreme Survivors: 60 of the World’s Most Extreme Survival Stories. Collins Maps
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the time he was four, Norman had skied every black run at Mammoth. On his first birthday, his dad had him strapped to his back in a canvas papoose and took him surfing. Reckless, perhaps, but it had given the boy an indomitable spirit. Eleven-year-old Norman hugged his dad for the last time then tracked back across the slope to see what he could salvage from the wreckage.
There were no ice axes or tools, but he did find a rug. He took it and scrabbled back to Sandra. She couldn’t move. Somehow he got her under the ragged remains of the plane’s wing and they wrapped themselves in the rug and fell into an exhausted sleep.
Norman was woken around noon by a helicopter. He leapt up, trying to catch the crew’s attention. They came very, very close but somehow didn’t see him.
They were going to have to get off this mountain themselves. A brief lull in the storm gave them a sudden view. The slope continued beneath their feet, sickeningly sheer, for hundreds of feet. Then lower down there were woods and the gully levelled a little before a massive ridgeline rose again. Beyond that lay a flatter meadow of snow and, at the edge of the world, a cabin.
Sandra wanted to stay put. She was ranting about waiting for the rescuers. For a moment Norman nearly lay down beside her and drifted off to sleep. The he heard a voice saying ‘GO’. He crawled to a tree and snapped off a couple of limbs to make improvised ice axes and led Sandra out from under the wing.
They stepped and slid down the icy slope an inch at a time. Norman kicked holes with the toes of his trainers and dug the stick in as best he could. Sandra followed behind, her feet half on the snow, half on Norman’s shoulders, her arm still hanging uselessly.
The slope slanted across as well as down, drawing them towards an even steeper and icier funnel section of the gulley. Norman tried to keep away from this lethal chute. He looked back up the mountain. They had only gone 9 m (30 ft). They would never make it at this pace.
‘We need to go faster.’ And he turned round to encourage Sandra, only to see her slipping into the insane drop of the funnel. Her hand, her arm, her hip and then her whole body were gone. Norman pushed himself in after her.
Momentum took them right across the funnel and Norman caught her as they clattered into jagged rocks on the far side. Bone smashed onto stone as they scrabbled furiously with sticks, fingers, feet – anything to get a grip. Bouncing like a pinball between the boulders they finally came to a stop.
Norman’s knuckles were shredded to the bone. But he was too cold to feel any pain. Sandra moaned and started talking about God. There was nothing to do but inch on down the endless chute.
Ontario Peak, San Gabriel Mountains.
They rested by a tree at the base of a rock wall. Night was only a couple of hours away and they were still thousands of feet above the meadow. Norman didn’t know how they were going to get down. He turned to check on Sandra and suddenly she was gone, tumbling into the icy funnel.
‘An insatiable spirit, he was crazy for the storm. And it saved my life.’
Norman Ollestad, of his father.
From Crazy for the Storm by Norman Ollestad.
At first he cursed himself for not staying close to her. Then he ate some snow to pacify his savage thirst and kept going down.
There was blood on the snow. Lots of it. So much he could follow it like a trail, right down the throat of the funnel.
The blood smear ended at a tree. Norman called out. Nothing. He moved past the tree and saw blood again. His chest felt empty. He struggled towards a tree at the edge of the gully and threw his arms around it. He needed to hold something, any living thing.
Calmer again, he looked out to see he was sandwiched below the cloud and above the fog. There was no way the helicopter would see him here. The cabin was nearer, but he was still too far above it and night was getting closer. He had to keep going. He plucked another couple of limbs from a tree. The pine scent thrilled his senses. He was alive.
Norman half walked, half skidded down the slope until eventually it began to widen and the gradient relaxed. He found Sandra a little further down, tall spruces surrounding the patch of snow where she lay. Norman’s seat from the plane was just above her. Her eyes were open but she was stiff and dead. He covered her body with twigs then moved on.
Now that the slope was shallow enough for him to control his descent, he slid on his bottom down the apron for at least 300 m (1,000 ft). He made his way down into a narrow and twisted gulch in front of the huge ridge he had seen earlier. Carefully he avoided the ice-covered stream that snaked below him. Get wet, you get hypothermia, you die.
Norman slid down a 30 cm (12 inches) wide bench of snow beside the creek on his hip until he reached a rock bowl. At the far side, the stream emptied over an icy waterfall on to sharp rocks 15 m (50 ft) below. Somehow he used cracks to worm his way down from rocky crease to icy blister.
The slope wasn’t steep here, but Norman had to traverse giant shale boulders. His stomach was chewing itself and exhaustion tore at him like an animal. He staggered woozily on until looked up and saw the meadow of snow 180 m (600 ft) down slope.
But the mountain still wasn’t done with him. Now the enemy was a snarling mass of buckthorn, which lurked below a thin layer of snow. He dropped into it and stuck deep in the well formed by the jagged branches, unable to climb out.
A plane passed high above. He yelled and waved. It circled. It had seen him. No. It sailed over the massive ridgeline.
‘I never gave up. My dad taught me to never give up.’
From Crazy for the Storm by Norman Ollestad.
With the last ounces of his strength, Norman scrabbled and slithered out of the nest of buckthorn. With a flush of euphoria he found he had made it to the oasis of the snow meadow. It was tempting to sit down and celebrate, but he knew he might never get up again. He had to push on. But how would he get out? The vines wove a dense forest on the other side of the meadow.
Then, he found some footprints. They were fresh. Norman followed them. After a few minutes, he realized the boot tracks made a circle. Was he delirious? Panic flooded his system.
Then: ‘Hello! Anybody there?’
Norman screamed his lungs out. A teenage boy and his dog appeared out of the thickening gloom.
‘You from the crash?’
‘Yes.’
‘Anyone else?’
One of the aeroplane seats that Norman found upon his return to the mountain.
Norman couldn’t bring himself to say that his father was dead.
A few minutes later he was sitting in front of a stove sipping hot chocolate.
A little after that he was in hospital. Doctors stitched a savage gash in his chin, the punctures in his cheeks and put a cast on his broken hand. Norman drank a chocolate milkshake.
Twenty-seven years later
It wasn’t until 2006 that Norman had the courage to look up the National Transportation Safety Board’s Accident Report for the crash and read the transcription of the pilot’s radio conversation with air traffic control.
They had been doomed almost from takeoff. The pilot was using an underpowered plane with insufficient instruments on a rough day. He didn’t get a weather