The Way Out by Devon O'neil

The Way Out by Devon O'neil

* READING THE WEST BOOK AWARD WINNER * COLORADO BOOK AWARD WINNER *

"On par with Into the Wild... Fast-paced, yet thoughtful and empathetic, all the way to its devastating conclusion, this psychological thriller will haunt me whenever I step off the pavement into the woods. I couldn't stop reading it, and I can't stop thinking about it." -- Bill Gifford, #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of Outlive

A harrowing, never-before-told story of life and death in the Colorado mountains--thirty hours that changed lives forever and forced a reckoning about the cost of adventure.

"You wanna ski a lap?"

Fifteen-year-old Cole Walters-Schaler couldn't resist. This was why they'd come to the backcountry, after all--three fathers and four teenage children together for a bonding alpine getaway outside Salida, Colorado, in January 2017.

Within minutes, Cole and Brett Beasley, a longtime Forest Service ranger and expert outdoorsman in his mid-forties, had pushed off from their cabin, expecting to be gone for a half hour or so. But an unforgiving blizzard transformed their quick jaunt into a thirty-hour ordeal that would end in tragedy, as the community raced to find them.

The Way Out is the story of those ensuing hours and their aftermath--an almost unbelievable event that shook a tight-knit mountain community and raised difficult questions about life and death, guilt and redemption, and the pursuit of adventure. Why, when we know that the wilderness can kill, can't we stay away? When the unthinkable happens, how does a community forgive the survivors? And how do the survivors forgive themselves?

Drawing on firsthand interviews with those closest to the tragedy, including the key eyewitness, and written with the gripping intensity of classics such as Into Thin Air and Touching the Void, O'Neil recreates that fateful day. The Way Out is a thoughtful investigation of the allure of the mountains and the aftermath of trauma, and an unforgettable look at life at its very edge.

The Way Out includes 12 black-and-white personal photos throughout.

Rainer Hertrich is a skier and snowcat driver at Copper Mountain, Colorado, where he has lived for 33 years. He was born in D�sseldorf, Germany, and grew up in Estes Park, Colorado, at the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park. From 2003 to 2012, he skied every day for 2,993 consecutive days, beating the longest streak on record by more than seven years. Coauthor Devon O'Neil is a freelance journalist in Breckenridge, Colorado. His work appears regularly in Outside, SKI, Powder, and Backcountry magazines, as well as on ESPN.com.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780063375543
ISBN 10	0063375540
Title	The Way Out
Author	Devon O'neil
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	HarperCollins Publishers Inc
Year published	2025-11-11
Number of pages	288
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.