The Way Out: A True Story of Survival in the Heart of the Rockies

A harrowing, never-before-told story of death and endurance in the Colorado mountains--thirty hours that changed lives forever and ultimately reexamines the cost of adventure, by a star Outside Magazine writer.

"You wanna ski a lap?"

Fifteen-year-old Cole Walters-Schaler didn't hesitate. This was why they'd come to the backcountry, after all--three fathers and four teenage children together for a bonding weekend of off-track skiing 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 quick 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 fallout--an almost unbelievable event that shook a tight-knit mountain community, forced a reckoning, 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 one of the key eyewitnesses, 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 wilderness and the aftermath of trauma, and an unforgettable look at life at its very edge.

The Way Out includes 12-14 black-and-white personal photos throughout.