The Way Out
The Way Out: A True Story of Survival in the Heart of the Rockies by Devon O’Neil recounts a thirty-hour ordeal in Colorado’s backcountry and the lives it changed forever. This hardcover combines a gripping true survival story with a thoughtful examination of the cost of adventure, the aftermath of trauma, and a mountain community’s search for understanding.
A short ski outing becomes a fight for survival
In January 2017, three fathers and four teenage children gathered for a bonding alpine getaway outside Salida, Colorado. When fifteen-year-old Cole Walters-Schaler and Brett Beasley, a longtime Forest Service ranger and expert outdoorsman in his mid-forties, left their cabin for a quick ski lap, they expected to return in about half an hour. An unforgiving blizzard turned their outing into a thirty-hour ordeal that ended in tragedy as the community raced to find them.
Beyond the rescue effort
Drawing on firsthand interviews with those closest to the tragedy, including the key eyewitness, O’Neil reconstructs the events and their aftermath. This previously untold account explores life and death, guilt and redemption, and the enduring pull of the wilderness. It asks why people return to mountains that can kill, how a community forgives survivors, and how survivors begin to forgive themselves.
Written with the gripping intensity of outdoor narratives such as Into Thin Air and Touching the Void, The Way Out offers an unforgettable look at life at its edge. It is a compelling choice for readers drawn to true wilderness accounts that consider not only what happened, but what comes afterward.
Book details
- Title: The Way Out
- Subtitle: A True Story of Survival in the Heart of the Rockies
- Author: Devon O’Neil
- Format: Hardcover
- Subject: Biography & Autobiography / Survival
- Setting: Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, outside Salida
- Illustrations: 12 black-and-white personal photographs throughout
The Way Out: A True Story of Survival in the Heart of the Rockies by Devon O’Neil recounts a thirty-hour ordeal in Colorado’s backcountry and the lives it changed forever. This hardcover combines a gripping true survival story with a thoughtful examination of the cost of adventure, the aftermath of trauma, and a mountain community’s search for understanding.
A short ski outing becomes a fight for survival
In January 2017, three fathers and four teenage children gathered for a bonding alpine getaway outside Salida, Colorado. When fifteen-year-old Cole Walters-Schaler and Brett Beasley, a longtime Forest Service ranger and expert outdoorsman in his mid-forties, left their cabin for a quick ski lap, they expected to return in about half an hour. An unforgiving blizzard turned their outing into a thirty-hour ordeal that ended in tragedy as the community raced to find them.
Beyond the rescue effort
Drawing on firsthand interviews with those closest to the tragedy, including the key eyewitness, O’Neil reconstructs the events and their aftermath. This previously untold account explores life and death, guilt and redemption, and the enduring pull of the wilderness. It asks why people return to mountains that can kill, how a community forgives survivors, and how survivors begin to forgive themselves.
Written with the gripping intensity of outdoor narratives such as Into Thin Air and Touching the Void, The Way Out offers an unforgettable look at life at its edge. It is a compelling choice for readers drawn to true wilderness accounts that consider not only what happened, but what comes afterward.
Book details
- Title: The Way Out
- Subtitle: A True Story of Survival in the Heart of the Rockies
- Author: Devon O’Neil
- Format: Hardcover
- Subject: Biography & Autobiography / Survival
- Setting: Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, outside Salida
- Illustrations: 12 black-and-white personal photographs throughout