Nightmare on the Mountain—Part Two

Mazeophobia is the scientific name for the fear of being lost. We all experience this emotional, worrying, and troublesome effect when finding ourselves in a maze where there seems to be no end. For this second episode of Nightmare on the Mountain, we are once again traveling to another palm tree paradise where the excitement and glory of a fun-filled business vacation turned rapidly into a nightmare. 

During a recent meeting with a convention-meeting planner who elaborated that the Nightmare on the Mountain was the most frightening and troublesome story in her convention planning career, a true narrative emerged, that for some, might be too scary to read.

The second episode in our narrative continues in Palm Springs California and atop the lofty San Jacinto Mountain where a business group traveled from all across America to arrive in Southern California. After the group of over four hundred conventioneers checked in at a major convention hotel, the festivities and activities for the upcoming weekend began to unfold.

Two buses brought a group of convention hikers to the bustling base of the famous cable car installation. After riding up to the summit and rising ten thousand feet above the desert floor, Kathy and Bob stepped off the tram and into the cool mountain air. All along the emerging rock and timber trails, were warning signs for hikers: “Stay on the designated trails.”

Kathy and Bob however - who were not romantically involved - decided that younger people who were in good physical condition need not worry about staying on the intended tourist tracks. After all, there were two buses of hikers, and Kathy and Bob wanted to explore the natural beauty without the distractions of the crowded trailheads.

After an afternoon of hiking along a maze of beautiful California mountain tails, Kathy and Bob realized they were lost on the mountain. No one missed them back at the hotel and a tour guide assigned to keep a headcount of the hikers called in sick.

On the first freezing night on the mountain, Kathy and Bob ate snow gathered from the trails between the pine trees. When the second day on the mountain dawned, the business colleagues became optimistic about their imminent rescue. They had been missing for eighteen hours and were certain the tour operators or the hotel staff would have sounded the alarm. When the sun rose higher and the freezing temperatures began to abate, the scruffy, hungry, and dehydrated hikers decided the best opportunity for rescue was if they could find an open area that would be visible from the air.

They were wrong. Back in the valley, the tour guides were still unaware the couple was missing, and no one at the resort or the group of four hundred realized Kathy and Bob did not return from the mountain.

Finally, in the early afternoon of the second day, with no helicopters and no sign of rescue on the way, the two lost hikers were privately on the verge of panic.

By late afternoon, the colleagues from Chicago came upon an opening in the heavy pines with a tiny valley exposed to the sky and the warm California sunshine. The couple hugged with excitement and began to shout because at the center of the desolate little valley was a camping tent beside a circle of stones gathered for a campfire.

After much shouting, with no response from the tent and the campsite, Kathy and Bob began a slow and difficult descent down a boulder strewn trail and arrived at the base of the little gorge.

The lost hikers were excited and very relieved that a rescue was at hand until Bob threw back the canvas opening of the tent. Then, with sunset about an hour away, and with the possibility of another night on the mountain looming large, Kathy and Bob to their horror saw a dead and mummified man in the fetal position inside the tent.

Unbeknownst to Kathy and Bob at the time, the dead camper in the tent had gone missing one year before. The shock and terror of finding the mummified corpse sent both of the Chicago colleagues over the emotional edge. They suddenly believed they were looking at their unescapable future.

After a fearsome and torturous half hour, with the sun and the temperature once again beginning to drop, a survival instinct emerged within the two Midwesterners and they begin to search the tent while carefully avoiding the human remains. The search was fruitful. Inside the tent, they found three canteens of water, a sealed cache of trail mix and granola bars, and a box of fireplace matches that were dry and functional.

Before another night of freezing darkness arrived, the distraught couple drank from the canteens, ate half of the mummified camper’s rations, and gathered enough wood to build a large fire.

The mood of the lost hikers was beginning to improve, until they began reading by firelight, the diary of the dead camper. The scrawling text revealed the mummified hiker never saw any sign of a rescue. On the last page of the tattered notebook was the forlorn camper’s address and a last will and testament.

Meanwhile, back at the valley resort on the last day of the convention, a hotel housekeeper began to ask questions about the two rooms that were still untouched. This inquiry led to more questions at the Sonny Bono International Airport where Kathy and Bob did not arrive for their flight back to Chicago.

After another night on the mountain, Kathy and Bob began piling evergreen branches on top of the fire that was now their most important job ever. By the time Kathy and Bob should have been at work – not arriving or calling in sick - a steady column of evergreen smoke was rising up from the forgotten valley floor.

With the sun once again rising toward noon, the lost couple began to hear the beat of helicopter blades and both broke into tears.

The rescue helicopter was one of three searching the mountain when the rescue pilots finally noticed the thin trail of smoke from the high-altitude campfire.

A cable with a rescue harness was lowered into the valley because it was determined from the helicopter that the boulder-strewn trail was too steep for anyone to climb out. 

The mummified camper came down the mountain in a second recovery mission and his remains returned to his family for burial.

When Kathy and Bob were safely back in civilization, they told their terrifying story at a meeting in Chicago to everyone who attended the convention. In their closing comments, they proclaimed loudly: “Do what the signs say, and don’t leave the designated path - where ever you are!”

Tom Williams is a Marco Islander and the author of two books: “Lost and Found” and “Surrounded by Thunder - The Story of Darrell Loan and the Rocket Men.” Both books are available on Kindle and Nook.