Dr. Bernhoff A. Dahl knows how lucky he is to be alive.
On Oct. 23, 1999, the retired pathologist from Winterport was trapped in a whiteout on New Hampshire’s Mount Washington that could have killed him. The story of how he got in such a dangerous situation and subsequently rescued is the subject of his new book, to be published in January by Morgan James Publishing. It’s called “What Better Place To Die.”
It’s a gripping tale of survival, rescue and hope for a future meaningful life.
The trouble for Dahl started that day, according to the book, when he reaches a place on the Tuckerman Ravine Trail where a tributary of the Cutler River crosses the trail. It’s a cloudy, rainy day and the stream is full and swift.
“It is so swollen with rapidly flowing rainwater that if I attempt to ford it and fall in, I will certainly be swept into the ravine. I am forced to stop,” he writes.
From there, he descends to a major trail intersection at Hermit Lake, at the base of the ravine, where he ponders his choices. He’s very familiar with the mountain, having made trips there since his youth. He has climbed other mountains around the world much higher than Mount Washington. He decides to take another trail, hoping to climb again to a point on the auto road where he can descend.
He hopes.
Instead, once he climbs up the Lion’s Head Trail above treeline, he runs smack dab into 60-mph winds and blowing snow. He hikes along the Alpine Garden Trail for about a mile, but visibility is eventually so poor that he can’t see the next cairn, a rock pile that marks the trail. He tries to walk ahead up the trail, searching for another cairn to no avail.
From there things get much worse.
“The only benchmark I have is a cairn, the last cairn that I could find. I can go no further without straying into the snow-covered wilderness and becoming lost,” Dahl writes. “All I can do is hunker down and wait.”
He makes himself as comfortable as possible, using a recently purchased emergency bivy sack to protect himself from the elements. He reaches for some food in his pack, when he finds his cell phone and makes a phone call to 911, requesting rescue.
That phone call figuratively starts another storm that continues today over cell phone use to call for help in the mountains. Dahl addresses that issue later in the book as well as all the controversy and criticisms inveighed on him since. Soon, the bivy sack blows away in the wind.
Dahl waits for his rescuers, led by Mike Pelchat, for six hours and feels like he’s dying.
“Stay awake, Bernie,” he writes. “In spite of my vigilance to stay awake, I have apparently dozed off for an unknown period. I am awaking slowly, wondering if I have, at last died.”
He thinks no one is coming, then, finally, the rescuers arrive.
“I mumble over and over again, ‘You guys are beautiful. I can’t believe you’re here,’” Dahl writes
The rescuers were five minutes from giving up. It’s after 10 o’clock that night and it’s one in the morning before Dahl reaches the base of the mountain, via snow cat.
Dahl is a masterful storyteller, sprinkling the account with memories and philosophies that led him throughout his ordeal and life in general. The Mount Washington account is part one of the three- part book. Parts two and three are about strategic personal planning and self-improvement; lessons he learned from the misadven-ture.
He has shared much in writing this book. As he states, “Let there be no doubt: I took risks and made mistakes on Mount Washington. This I continuously and consistently admitted from the moment my rescuers found me.”
To this day he contributes funds annually to the rescue service that saved his life. He does motivational speeches on how he survived for six hours unprotected on the mountain.
The story is all the more interesting because he was assaulted by criticism from ill-informed people who had no idea of his situation or his past mountaineering experience. One critic questioned whether he would have continued on up the mountain without the cell phone. There were other critics who suggested that maybe some-one should die to teach other mountaineers a lesson.
When Dahl was asked if the critics were fair, he responded, “Of course not, I was the only one on the mountain. I was the only one there. God forbid one of the rescuers would have died saving me. That would have been unacceptable. But I’m used to being dumped on.”
Dahl has written an insightful, thoughtful look at what motivates people to take the risks associated with climbing big mountains in extreme environments. The lessons he learned apply to everyone who undertakes a challenge that tests their limits.
In the time that has passed since the incident with Dahl on the mountain, the questions remain. Was Bernie Dahl irresponsible for taking a cell phone on a hike in severe conditions? Would it be irresponsible not to take a cell phone into the backcountry, just in case you need it? Read the book, then, decide for yourself.
To preorder “What Better Place to Die,” contact TrionicsUSA.com