[dude]

"I was hiking in Goat Rocks Wilderness up in Central Washington, an area known for its sheer cliffs and thousand-foot drop-offs. It is not a stretch for the timid or the altitudinally-challenged. As its name implies---and the mountain goats attest---it is a rocky, precarious stretch and for whatever reason, the region often invites huge dosages of dreadful weather. Fog, rain, clouds and wind are often the norm. Anyway, it was mid-afternoon and I was alone and making my way along a steeply exposed ridge when a blanket fog descended upon me. I lost the trail in visibility so bad I was unable to see my hands, and more significantly, my feet.


Within a matter of minutes it had become a life and death situation and to be sure, things were leaning heavily in favor of death. I began prodding my way forward with my trustworthy trekking stick. (My REI guaranteed-for-life aluminum alloy poles had long since met their maker.) Soon, though, I reached a point where I could no longer feel anything but thin air in front of me. I figured I must've missed a bend in the ridge so I turned back to retrace my steps, but then I could feel nothing but thin air behind me either. I poked to the right---nothing; poked to the left---nothing. I didn't dare make a move. I just stood in the same damn spot for five hours until the fog had lifted, and then discovered that my stick had broken."

http://chuckiev.blogspot.com/