Alpine Adventure: First Date on a Mountain

Rachel and Jeremy head to Switzerland to explore a notorious peak in the Alps. They’ve planned meticulously... but Mother Nature has other ideas. Marooned 3,000 metres up, they are at the mercy of lightning, snow and howling gales. With the weather too extreme to coordinate a rescue, this first date threatens to become their last day… A Noiser production, written by Nicole Edmunds. For ad-free listening, bonus material and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Click the subscription banner at the top of the feed to get started. Or go to noiser.com/subscriptions If you have an amazing survival story of your own that you’d like to put forward for the show, let us know. Drop us an email at [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:03John Hopkins?

  It's October the 4th, 2003. Four thousand meters above sea level, on the Swiss-Italian border, sits one of the highest peaks in the Alps, Pise Badil.

• 1:16John Hopkins?

  Rising from the rocky ground into the clouds, the mountain is an awe-inspiring spectacle. It's also something of a pilgrimage site for adventurers, who dream of scaling its slopes and reaching the summit's dizzying heights.

• 1:32John Hopkins?

  Today, however, on this autumn afternoon, conditions on the mountain are treacherous.

• 1:39John Hopkins?

  A devastating storm has broken out. Lightning flashes above the peaks as thunder echoes through the valleys below. Biting winds swirl around the ice-capped rocks, and snow falls in heavy flakes.

• 1:53John Hopkins?

  The sky alters from blue to gray as moody clouds deposit a thick, impenetrable mist.

• 2:01John Hopkins?

  And within this mayhem, cloaked in a blanket of fog and almost buried in the snow, are two individuals. Thirty-four-year-old Rachel Kelsey and her date, Jeremy.

• 2:18John Hopkins?

  As far as first aids go, this one's been bumpy. Caught out by the alpine weather, the mountaineers are fighting for their lives.

• 2:26Speaker 03

  I can see, you know, there's this man who is so big and so strong. And he's now being just blurting around like a sort of a little ping pong ball on water. And it's almost as if this mountain has now unleashed itself. It's like a huge, huge animal. And we're just so tiny and insignificant. It just makes you realize the force and power of nature is just so much greater than we are.

• 2:57John Hopkins?

  As she stumbles through ankle-deep snow, Rachel's head torch flickers, casting transient strobe-like beams onto the dark ground. She keeps her hood up and her head down, focusing on her own careful steps. One slip or wobble and a deadly fall awaits. Rachel pauses, steadying herself. A few feet away, she watches as Jeremy carefully abseils down one of the steepest sections of rock.

• 3:27John Hopkins?

  Meticulously, he descends, using his frost-coated climbing rope. His lifeline stretches above, squeaking under his weight.

• 3:38John Hopkins?

  And then it gets caught on a large boulder above him, tangled around a coffee-table-sized lump of rock. Jeremy does what he can to flick his rope free, to extricate himself. Rachel looks from the boulder to Jeremy, then back to the boulder again. And as she does, she sees it wobble.

• 4:00Speaker 03

  And as I see Jeremy flicking this rope and flicking this rope, I shout to him, I shout, "Don't flick your rope, don't flick your rope." But it's too late, he can't hear me, and he just gives it this violent tug.

• 4:12John Hopkins?

  Rachel can only watch on in horror as the boulder shifts, then starts to tumble, careening down the slope.

• 4:21Speaker 03

  This boulder comes off, and I had to close my eyes. It was an awful moment because I realized that the likelihood of him being struck by that boulder was so real, and I really didn't want to open my eyes.

• 4:40John Hopkins?

  Ever wondered what you would do when disaster strikes? If your life depended on your next decision, could you make the right choice? Welcome to Real Survival Stories. These are the astonishing tales of ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations. People suddenly forced to fight for their lives.

• 5:02John Hopkins?

  In this episode, we meet Rachel Kelsey, a climber and adventure enthusiast whose life is thrown into the balance during a first date for the ages.

• 5:12John Hopkins?

  In October 2003, Rachel is asked out by fellow climber Jeremy. But rather than dinner and a movie, they're off to Switzerland.

• 5:22John Hopkins?

  And as they ascend a notorious alpine peak, the weather takes a terrible turn. The pair will find themselves 3,000 meters high at the mercy of lightning, snow, and twisting gales.

• 5:38Speaker 03

  Right near the summit of this mountain. And suddenly, the wind picks up and the clouds just come from nowhere. And they just cut our view of this valley off completely. You feel like you're in a completely different world, in a very isolated space.

• 5:58John Hopkins?

  With no shelter on the mountainside and the weather too extreme to coordinate a rescue, this first date threatens to become their last day.

• 6:08Speaker 03

  You have to be really logical and calm about your approach. Because if you lose it, if you become panicked, you will make an error which could cost your life or could cost your partner's life.

• 6:22John Hopkins?

  I'm John Hopkins. From the Noiser Podcast Network, this is Real Survival Stories.

• 6:55John Hopkins?

  It's 4:30 AM on October 4, 2003.

• 7:00John Hopkins?

  At the bottom of the north-facing slope of Pizbadil Mountain, dawn is starting to break. Elegant yellow streaks pierce the navy-blue sky. A light wind stirs the evergreen trees.

• 7:14John Hopkins?

  On the hard, rocky ground, 34-year-old Rachel Kelsey and her date Jeremy are preparing to climb. They've packed lightly for the long hours ahead, prioritising speed over comfort. Backpack resting on her shoulders, Rachel stares up as the first gleams of sunlight dance on the blemish-free slopes.

• 7:36John Hopkins?

  The enormous natural titan looms above, at once breathtaking and stomach-churning.

• 7:44Speaker 03

  You will look at the mountain and as dawn approaches, you can start to see more of it. And then you'll probably stop for a few minutes. And then you work out. You've looked at these guidebooks, you've looked at photographs. Now you can see the actual mountain in front of you. And it's exciting but terrifying as well.

• 8:03John Hopkins?

  Rachel's nerves don't come from a lack of experience, though. A love of the wilderness and a thirst for excitement have always run through her adventurous veins.

• 8:13Speaker 03

  I'm a British-South African. My parents were both British. They'd met in Zambia. My mother was a sunshine nurse many years ago. And she met my father, who was in the game department. And so my first experiences of life were growing up in a little reed hut on the Okavango Delta. We'd go out in the canoe. And at night, my father would be taking clients on night journeys to view game. And the lions would literally come so close, my mother said that the ground would shake as she cradled me in her arms.

• 8:49John Hopkins?

  When it was time for her to start school, Rachel and her parents moved thousands of kilometres south to South Africa. And while her weekdays were centred on classrooms, every second of her free time was occupied by nature.

• 9:05John Hopkins?

  School holidays were spent on safari, learning how to track animal prints, trace the direction of the wind, and find her way through the wild.

• 9:14Speaker 03

  I think what that did was give me an understanding of being in wilderness areas, but also feel very much at home there. I never felt frightened being out in a wild place by myself. It was just part of where I was. And you just felt like you were kind of in touch or akin with your environment.

• 9:40John Hopkins?

  Later, while studying at the University of Johannesburg, Rachel joined the climbing club. As an activity, it demanded not only physical strength and fitness, but a certain amount of fearlessness, too.

• 9:52John Hopkins?

  It was clear from her first climb that Rachel had a talent for the sport. And before long, she was travelling all over the country, competing in university and national competitions.

• 10:03John Hopkins?

  However, climbing wasn't quite enough to scratch her adventurous itch. So, after graduating from university, Rachel threw herself into a new challenge, completing a rigorous military training programme overseen by the British Army's Special Air Service, the SAS.

• 10:23Speaker 03

  I didn't have a military background. I had a climbing background. And I found that the discipline required was on another level, which was amazing because I think that it taught me so much. The ability to just keep on and to be instructed to do something and then not know what the end result's going to be, and then be instructed to do something else and something else. So you're doing this incredibly demanding physical training through the day, through the night, and you just learn to get on with it. You learn to go a lot, lot further than you actually dreamed was possible.

• 11:05John Hopkins?

  Though she valued the training, especially being one of only a handful of women to do it, Rachel had other, non-military goals to achieve, back in the world of climbing. She eventually hung up her uniform, exchanging her camouflage and beret for carabiners and belays. Choosing to stay in the UK, she gained a qualification as a climbing instructor and set up her own business. It was aimed at adults who spent their weekdays working long hours in the city and yearned for a taste of adventure. Every weekend, Rachel led small groups to the mountains of Europe and showed them the ropes, literally. It was during this chapter of her life that Rachel discovered climbing could provide something more than adventure and adrenaline.

• 11:48John Hopkins?

  It could also provide romance.

• 11:52Speaker 03

  I knew about Jeremy before I actually met him because he was a very, very good climber. He was one of South Africa's top climbers and he'd led routes which had never been climbed, which were very difficult on high mountains. And he also competed and I met him at one of the competitions. And I think he joked about my prize because the men tended to get nice surprises. They got sleeping bags and climbing shoes and I got a handbag.

• 12:25John Hopkins?

  Rachel and Jeremy spent more time with one another, chatting as they scaled climbing walls around the UK. They have a lot in common. Not only are they the top athletes in their categories, but they're also both South African-British. Before long, their budding friendship develops into something more. And one day, Jeremy presents Rachel with an idea.

• 12:48Speaker 03

  He invited me and he sort of said, "Well, you know, there's this route, the Pizbadeel, the north face of the Pizbadeel. It's one of these six big north faces, you know, would you like to come and do this with me?" So it was kind of a date, but I mean, a bit of a weird sort of date, I guess. I mean, for a climber, it was great. Most people probably would have prepared to go for a movie and a walk, you know? But no, I was, I thought this was exciting, so.

• 13:21John Hopkins?

  Pismo deil's reputation precedes it. It's one of the most famous mountains in the Swiss Alps.

• 13:27John Hopkins?

  Its name, translating as "shovel", is derived from its characteristic spade-shaped peak, which looms 3,300 meters, or 10,800 feet into the sky. It's considered one of the six great north faces of the Alps.

• 13:46John Hopkins?

  The mountain has been a popular destination for climbers ever since the first adventurer scaled its slopes in 1867. But it has also been the site of numerous casualties over the decades.

• 13:59John Hopkins?

  Nevertheless, for Rachel, Pismo deil represents a new challenge to conquer. She hastily agrees to the unorthodox invitation.

• 14:08Speaker 03

  We had a fairly busy schedule and we wanted to climb the mountain quite fast as well because we wanted to climb it in a style known as Alpine climbing. You're climbing fast and light. You're not taking a huge amount of equipment, which would weigh you down. And so we anticipated it was going to take us, I think, about three or four days to get there, climb it, get back, fly back home to London. So, yeah, that was the plan. I was going with someone that I knew was a good, competent climber and I thought it was an appropriate challenge. You know, it wasn't out of our ballpark at all.

• 14:45John Hopkins?

  Plane tickets booked, route mapped, bags packed. The final thing they do before setting off is check the weather. By analyzing charts from previous years, they're able to understand seasonal Alpine weather patterns. The charts suggest no reason to be worried. Blue skies, mild temperatures, light winds. In short, perfect climbing conditions.

• 15:15John Hopkins?

  Minutes before dawn on October 4, 2003, Rachel and Jeremy stand at the bottom of Pisbadil's north face.

• 15:24John Hopkins?

  As the first rays of sunshine spill over the mountain, the colossal jagged skeleton is illuminated. A ridge extends all the way up from the base to the mountain's distant summit. The path is winding and narrow, traversing rocky ledges, tight gaps, and flat rock faces. To the left and right of the paths are sheer granite walls. Rachel takes a deep breath, inhaling the frosty mountain air. Then she takes a step forward, and their expedition begins.

• 15:58Speaker 03

  As you get going, as you walk up to the base of this mountain, the sky starts to become lighter. And it's just incredible because you have this huge dark hulk of a mountain. And then slowly, as the sun pops over the mountain on the opposite side, you can see these spires lighting up on this long ridge line. And it's just very beautiful. It's like a huge sleeping dragon with this tail coming down towards you. And the air at that time is very fresh. It's this very sharp alpine air. The wind blows off the glaciers and all that ice and snow.

• 16:40Speaker 03

  And so it hits your lungs with this sort of sharpness. And it just makes you feel completely invigorated and alive. And just incredible, beautiful environment.

• 16:57Speaker 00

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• 18:02John Hopkins?

  In the early light, Rachel and Jeremy make solid progress, using their ropes to scale the mountain's walls, supporting each other across vertical rock faces, and working together to lay new pitches.

• 18:15John Hopkins?

  It's hard work, but they're a good team. And as the hours pass and morning melts into afternoon, they climb higher and higher up the mountain.

• 18:25Speaker 03

  And then we got to a trickier section, we started pitching it. So that's one person climbing and then creating a belay, bringing the other person up, and then that person leading on. And I've sort of dashed my way through the snow, make a belay around a boulder, bring Jeremy up, and then we carry on the next bit of it. And finally, we get really, really close to the summit.

• 18:52John Hopkins?

  It's been a full day of effort, athleticism, and problem solving, just the way they like it. And with the autumn sun now sitting low on the horizon and the air thinning with every breath, they're almost there.

• 19:07John Hopkins?

  The summit looms, 20 meters above, its familiar spade-like peak jutting into the cobalt sky. Just one more push, a final burst of effort, and they'll be at the top.

• 19:21John Hopkins?

  But there is a problem.

• 19:24John Hopkins?

  A thin layer of ice covers the summit, making it too slippery to climb up with their hands. They'll have to use screws and ropes to continue, costing more time and energy.

• 19:37John Hopkins?

  Sighing in frustration, they lay out their lines. As they do so, Rachel steals a glance at the panoramic scene below.

• 19:47John Hopkins?

  Trees look like minuscule dots. The picturesque neighboring villages are no more than tiny stains on the landscape. Frozen glaciers shimmer in the late afternoon sun, while stomach-twisting drops border every side.

• 20:03John Hopkins?

  It's an appropriately grand setting as they prepare to scramble to the summit.

• 20:09John Hopkins?

  And then, nature intervenes.

• 20:14Speaker 03

  Suddenly, the wind picks up and the clouds just come from nowhere. And they just cut our view of this valley off completely. So we can't see any of these beautiful glaciers anymore. You feel like you're in a completely different world, in a very isolated space. The plains behind, where the hot air rises off the plains, and it rises up and then creates these very large cumulus clouds, which then all push towards the mountain area. And it literally came out of nowhere, just huge clouds.

• 20:55John Hopkins?

  The impeccable blue sky fades to black, and a ferocious blizzard whips through the air. Snow comes down like a waterfall, and high up in the sky dance electric flashes of lightning. In a moment, the game has changed.

• 21:11John Hopkins?

  The pair have enough experience to know it would be suicide to try and reach the summit in conditions like these. They need to get to safer ground as soon as possible.

• 21:21John Hopkins?

  Rachel and Jeremy hastily gather their ropes and head back towards the trail to begin their descent.

• 21:28John Hopkins?

  Jeremy leads the way, abseiling down the first pitch as Rachel feeds the rope through the belay.

• 21:35John Hopkins?

  As she does, there's a sharp fizzle in the air and a strange noise.

• 21:42John Hopkins?

  She stops.

• 21:46Speaker 03

  And I'm just concentrating, you know, feet mustn't slip. Don't let your feet slip. Hold on to the rope, don't get blown over. And then I hear the sound in my head, you know, the sort of high-pitched humming sound.

• 21:58Speaker 03

  And it gets louder and louder and louder. And then there's a huge crash of thunder.

• 22:06Speaker 03

  And the lightning just lights up the sky, it's eerie at night because the contrast of having pitch black and then just everything light and it's for a few seconds at a time in this very ghostly tallering it sort of washes a lot of the colour out. Yeah, it's terrifying. There's just thunder and lightning and the sparks coming out of our clothing. I'm so scared. And it was a wake-up moment that the end is nigh. You know, you just think this is as close as you're going to get without actually being struck.

• 22:49John Hopkins?

  With every passing minute, the storm worsens. A flurry of white is now falling thick and fast with high-speed winds swirling.

• 22:58John Hopkins?

  As she shimmies downwards, Rachel's head torch flickers on and off, on and off. The fluorescent beams that light her path grow weaker, then suddenly burn stronger. The electrical storm is causing havoc, interfering with their gear.

• 23:17John Hopkins?

  At times, the lights totally die, meaning the mountaineers are tackling the most perilous descent of their lives in near-total darkness.

• 23:28John Hopkins?

  Rachel squints through the night as they pass snow-covered trees, frozen rivers and boulders.

• 23:35John Hopkins?

  On they battle, until Jeremy reaches yet another slope to navigate. And it's here that things go from bad to worse.

• 23:46John Hopkins?

  Jeremy begins to slide carefully down the steep jumble of icy rocks. His rope stretches out above him as he lowers himself. And then, with Rachel watching on a few feet away, his progress is suddenly halted.

• 24:02John Hopkins?

  His rope is stuck.

• 24:06Speaker 03

  Jeremy's just setting off in an ebb sail and his rope slips behind this boulder. And it's quite a large boulder. The wind's so strong, you know, that you can't really communicate with each other. It's just this howling, howling gale. And it's whining and moaning and howling and snow. And so Jeremy's rope gets stuck and I'm shouting to him, "Jeremy, your rope." And he then realises and he tries to flick his rope.

• 24:34John Hopkins?

  But as Jeremy attempts to pull the line free, the boulder wobbles. With every tug of the rope, its position shifts, threatening to come unstuck. Rachel cries out, but her desperate shouts of warning are swallowed by the storm. Jeremy, totally focused on his descent, is oblivious to the danger. He flicks the rope once, twice. And then, with a third determined tug, the boulder starts to move.

• 25:04John Hopkins?

  It rolls downwards, smacking into ice and scree. With every rotation, it picks up speed, morphing into a deadly snowball. The juggernaut heads directly towards Jeremy.

• 25:17Speaker 03

  This boulder comes off and I had to close my eyes. It was an awful moment because I realised that the likelihood of him being struck by that boulder was so real and I really didn't want to open my eyes.

• 25:33Speaker 03

  But you have to, you have to confront what's there in front of you and so I did. Jeremy was still there.

• 25:45John Hopkins?

  Relief washes over her as she signals to Jeremy just how close he came to disaster.

• 25:50Speaker 03

  And you're shaking, you literally are shaking, but you have to continue. So we continue on down the mountain and just trying to really keep focused on doing everything right. And you have to keep so focused and we carry on and on and on.

• 26:08John Hopkins?

  Carry on they do, with renewed caution.

• 26:14John Hopkins?

  But before long, they're facing another major obstacle.

• 26:18Speaker 03

  There comes a point at which we land up on what's known as a hanging stance. It's essentially a vertical piece of rock, and this vertical face has its undercut underneath it.

• 26:36John Hopkins?

  The rock face disappears into a mass of billowing fog and snow. It's hard to perceive the length of the drop, or the best route down, or if it's safe to abseil at all.

• 26:49John Hopkins?

  But exhaustion and desperation force the pair into action, into rapid decision-making.

• 26:58John Hopkins?

  Quickly, they fasten their ropes and ease themselves over the cliff edge.

• 27:03John Hopkins?

  Jeremy goes on ahead, as Rachel watches him inch downwards, engulfed in the vaporous void.

• 27:13Speaker 03

  The last thing I remember seeing was his red hood and his head torch, and then he was gone, and I was hanging on this rock face in the middle of the night. Well, now it's completely frozen, so it's an ice face in the middle of the night. And it was an extremely lonely, scary place to be.

• 27:37John Hopkins?

  Rachel keeps an eye on Jeremy's rope. She waits for it to slacken, confirmation that he has reached a ledge below.

• 27:46John Hopkins?

  But nothing changes. It remains taut.

• 27:51John Hopkins?

  What's happened? Why hasn't he reached flatter ground? Why is his weight still fully on the rope?

• 27:59John Hopkins?

  Frozen particles cling to Rachel as she is swarmed by snow.

• 28:04Speaker 03

  This is partly where, you know, that military training I had was so beneficial because it kicked in all the way down, you know, from being logical and following procedure right the way to this where it was almost like, you know, sort of in officer training they do, right, the scenarios, option one, option two, option three. So I thought, right, what are the options here and what am I going to do in each case? And the one option was obviously that he could have been struck by a boulder and just be unconscious. The other option was that he'd actually gone the wrong way and he was trying to find a way out. And then the third option was quite possible, probable, he could have been struck by lightning. So again, on the end of the road.

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• 30:18Speaker 00

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• 30:52John Hopkins?

  The minutes tick past and the storm rages on. The air grows even colder.

• 30:59John Hopkins?

  An hour passes, and still nothing.

• 31:03John Hopkins?

  She'll give Jeremy fifteen more minutes before she goes looking for him. Until then, Rachel needs a distraction.

• 31:12John Hopkins?

  Softly, she begins humming, then singing out loud. The lyrics to "Born Free" come tumbling out. A song that conjures images of the wilderness of South Africa where she grew up.

• 31:27John Hopkins?

  But then, something happens which wrestles her out of this daydream. Up above, the lightning is becoming faster, brighter, more intense. Neon electric scars crackle in the sky, moving closer and closer.

• 31:48Speaker 03

  Sort of like a white or a pink light. And as I look up, this lightning's flashing and it lights up this whole face which is now frozen. And it is absolutely beautiful. Because all the ice crystals sparkle as my head torch looks around. And as the lightning strikes, it all makes it light up. And the snow is in sort of spin drift, swirling around, all these flakes of snow. And it's almost as if they're dancing in the light. It was such a surreal experience. I was actually grateful because I thought, you know, this is unbelievable, how many people get to see this kind of thing?

• 32:33Speaker 03

  How many people get to be in the middle of an electric storm and to actually see what it's like? And if this is the last sight that I see, then wow, what an amazing sight it is.

• 32:47John Hopkins?

  But as she stares, mouth agape, at the terrifying, beautiful lightning, Rachel spots something else.

• 32:55John Hopkins?

  A different stream of light, moving in a strange way. It isn't a flash or a bolt. It's a beam, moving upwards towards her.

• 33:06John Hopkins?

  It's Jeremy's hair torch. He's alive, and he's scrambling his way back up the icy face.

• 33:14Speaker 03

  I don't think I've ever been so excited to see someone in my life. I just wrap our arms around him and give him a huge hug.

• 33:22John Hopkins?

  The relief is short-lived. Numb with cold, they're still at the mercy of the elements.

• 33:29John Hopkins?

  It's clear now that there is no chance of completing the descent in weather this savage, so the priority switches to finding shelter.

• 33:38John Hopkins?

  As they turn an icy corner, they spot a small ledge jutting out. It's minuscule, maybe five feet long. Even squeezed together, it's barely big enough for them both.

• 33:52John Hopkins?

  But right now, it's the only option they have.

• 33:56Speaker 03

  And this ledge is tiny. I mean, it's just, it's probably no more than, I don't know, maybe a meter and a half long, maybe a meter wide. And it has these couple of rocks, big boulders in front, and then this rock face behind which we've tied ourselves to. And this is the point, all you want to do is take a break. That's what you want to do. But you know that that isn't going to help you because your body becomes cold very quickly. You become hypothermic, you become sleepy, and you fall asleep. You just go to sleep and you never wake up.

• 34:40John Hopkins?

  They construct their small survival shelter above their heads. With the flimsy ground sheet wrapped around them, Rachel and Jeremy focus all their energy on staying awake and alert.

• 34:51John Hopkins?

  Their first plan is to eat something. But a quick check of their supplies shows they're almost out of food. As for the carbohydrate drinks, they're frozen solid.

• 35:03John Hopkins?

  All they have is a small packet of peanuts. A last-minute snack they picked up at the gas station. They'll have to ration them.

• 35:13John Hopkins?

  The pair agree that for every two hours they survive, they'll reward themselves with two peanuts each.

• 35:21John Hopkins?

  Rachel leans back into the ledge in a futile attempt to get comfortable for the long night ahead. But as she does so, something small and hard digs into her back.

• 35:34John Hopkins?

  With frozen hands, she undoes the zipper on her pocket and reaches in.

• 35:40John Hopkins?

  It's her mobile phone.

• 35:43Speaker 03

  We suddenly had this brilliant idea, which nowadays seems so obvious. But at the time, it really wasn't. We decided to send a text message to five of our most reliable friends.

• 36:00Speaker 03

  So it was the first time a text message had been sent internationally asking for a rescue off a mountain. So we composed this text message. Very hard thing to do because you obviously need to alert people, but you don't want to alarm them into panic. But at the same time, you've got to keep it brief. And so we wrote, "Need heli-rescue, north face, Pizbadoil."

• 36:23John Hopkins?

  They send the distress text to five of their closest friends who they trust to take their pleas seriously.

• 36:30John Hopkins?

  Then they turn off the phone to save its battery, agreeing to check it again in four hours. But with a grueling night on the mountain ahead, it's far from guaranteed that they'll make it that long.

• 36:50John Hopkins?

  The hours crawl by, each one indistinguishable from the last, as snow and wind buffet the couple huddling on the ledge.

• 37:00John Hopkins?

  The opaque skies, punctuated by strikes of lightning. Thick clouds absorb any moonlight.

• 37:09John Hopkins?

  Rachel and Jeremy keep each other awake by sharing stories from previous adventures, counting the minutes until they can snack on their next two peanuts. In a way, they are getting to know each other over dinner after all.

• 37:24John Hopkins?

  Eventually, Rachel looks at her watch and confirms four hours have passed. It's time to check the phone.

• 37:32Speaker 03

  After four hours, we turn the phone on,

• 37:36Speaker 03

  and we see we've got a message, and it's from Avery. And he was a very good friend of mine, a journalist, and I switched on tap, and he says, "I'm on the case." And I was just so elated.

• 37:53John Hopkins?

  Immediately, they send a response, relaying a more precise account of their location. Avery replies within seconds, assuring them that he'll get hold of the Swiss air rescue team and attempt to coordinate a retrieval.

• 38:08John Hopkins?

  Once again, all Rachel and Jeremy can do is hunker down.

• 38:13John Hopkins?

  Eventually, the sky begins to brighten as the first rays of sunshine crawl over the horizon, bleaching it a milky blue.

• 38:24John Hopkins?

  And then, finally, midway through the morning, the whir of helicopter blades breaks through the rumbling thunder and howling wind. Their rescuers have arrived.

• 38:37John Hopkins?

  Overcome with excitement, the pair throw the ground sheet off their backs and stand up on the ledge. Ignoring the precipitous drops around them, they use their final dregs of energy to wave at the helicopter.

• 38:50Speaker 03

  And so, when we're really close, we jump out and Jeremy stands there with his hands up in the international sound for distress and I've got this survival shelter in my hands and I'm waving it and I'm jumping up and down because I'm thinking, yes, we've done it. We're out of it now. And then we see this helicopter being buffeted a bit by the wind and it moves around and it circles us and it moves off. And they send us a message saying, wind too strong, we'll try again later.

• 39:26John Hopkins?

  Just like that, the mission is aborted. Conditions are simply too extreme and their location too precarious.

• 39:34John Hopkins?

  Turns out, the mountain isn't done with them yet.

• 39:40John Hopkins?

  As they shuffle back beneath the shelter, despair looms over them. Even when the chopper returns later that afternoon, Rachel can't muster the strength to wave it down.

• 39:52John Hopkins?

  It's not a surprise when the sound of its blades fades again into the distance, a second rescue attempt abandoned. The sky turns black once more and their second night on Piz Badil begins.

• 40:08Speaker 03

  We knew that it was highly improbable we would actually be able to survive another night like that because of how cold we were, because of lack of sustenance and just sheer exhaustion. You know, we were completely and utterly exhausted. We'd used every ounce of effort, not just climbing the mountain but in the descent and then staying awake right through that first night and the next day. That night was incredibly difficult. At one point, I said to Jeremy, I think we need to say a prayer. I don't know if there are many people who are in a position of literally praying for their lives, but it is the most humbling experience.

• 40:49Speaker 03

  You just realise how fragile your life is and that it can be just taken just like that. And that we weren't ready for that.

• 41:01John Hopkins?

  Rachel and Jeremy say a prayer for their rescuers too, aware of the enormous risks they're taking.

• 41:08John Hopkins?

  Darkness encroaches, and a strange, hazy torment grips the stranded mountaineers.

• 41:17Speaker 03

  It was absolutely the most horrendous night of my life. I was stepping between consciousness and another space. I was shivering so much. I was holding on to the survival sheet. I was shaking and moving backwards and forwards and making a noise. It was almost as if it wasn't me in my body.

• 41:42John Hopkins?

  As the black and the cold squeeze ever tighter, they resolve to send another message to their friend Avery.

• 41:49Speaker 03

  So we sent him this message. And we say, if we are not off this mountain in the next 12 hours, we stand little chance of survival. And his response was, shall I call your family? He was willing to phone up our family and basically tell them and say goodbye. And it gave me such power to think that someone was there and they were prepared to do that. It just gave me courage to keep going. I thought, wow, we can't let him down. We actually have to keep going. It was incredibly motivating. We sent a message back saying, no, don't call our family. We planned to survive.

• 42:34John Hopkins?

  Rachel and Jeremy battle through the night, rubbing each other's hands and feet to keep frostbite at bay.

• 42:42John Hopkins?

  At long last, the yellow of dawn creeps over the mountain again. The clouds dissolve, leaving behind a clear sky.

• 42:52John Hopkins?

  Better yet, the air is quiet. The rumbling thunder that's been vibrating for hours is replaced by a crisp mountain breeze. The rescue is back on.

• 43:07John Hopkins?

  Rachel checks her phone. There's enough battery to make one more call to search and rescue.

• 43:13Speaker 03

  I spoke to a gentleman on the fanies. I said, "Hello, it's Rachel, and we're alive." Because I thought, I wanted them to come soon. And then he said, "You're alive." And that made me realize that they really didn't think that we would survive.

• 43:32John Hopkins?

  Time passes in a blur as Rachel and Jeremy sway in and out of consciousness.

• 43:41John Hopkins?

  Then, the now familiar sound of helicopter blades shakes the pair out of their frozen stupor.

• 43:49John Hopkins?

  Muscles stiff with cold, they heave themselves up on the narrow ledge, waving frantically as the chopper hovers above. The pilot signals to assure them they've been seen. Moments later, the door opens and a member of the Swiss air rescue team appears.

• 44:07John Hopkins?

  This is it. Slowly, steadily, the rescuer is winched down on a wire, dangling high in the air above glittering glaciers and rocky chasms.

• 44:19John Hopkins?

  Then his boots hit rock. He signals to Rachel, she's first. He straps her in, and the winch is reeled up towards the safety of the chopper. Then, it's Jeremy's turn.

• 44:34John Hopkins?

  Finally, finally, they are safe.

• 44:42Speaker 00

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• 45:43John Hopkins?

  Swaddled in blankets, the climbers are flown over the snowy expanse of Pizbadil to a local hospital.

• 45:50John Hopkins?

  They are treated for frostbite and undergo a series of tests. But remarkably, they are showing no major ill effects from their ordeal.

• 45:59John Hopkins?

  Swiss Air Rescue offer them a night's stay in a comfortable hotel. But Rachel and Jeremy ask to be taken back to their car instead. They just want to get to the airport and head home.

• 46:11Speaker 03

  I guess we'd have enough, so we asked them if they could please just fly us back to where our car was parked.

• 46:20Speaker 03

  Which we probably wouldn't. We probably still had frozen brain syndrome at the time or something.

• 46:29John Hopkins?

  Rachel and Jeremy land safely back in London the next day, where news of their Alpine adventure has already started to spread.

• 46:37John Hopkins?

  But Rachel doesn't want to sit still. Rather than take time to recover, she almost immediately heads off again to complete another climbing mission.

• 46:46Speaker 03

  I actually was due to go on another expedition, which was to the Himalayas, and that was about two weeks after this.

• 46:57John Hopkins?

  This time, it's a trip of an entirely different nature. Rachel's task is to lead a paraplegic climber up through the Himalayas. The explorer, Glenn Shaw, a wheelchair user, is determined to see Everest with his own eyes, despite suffering from brittle bone disease. Rachel is part of the team that helps bring Glenn's dream to life by using harnesses and ropes to maneuver him 5,300 meters up the mountain. It's an astonishing achievement for everyone involved.

• 47:35John Hopkins?

  When Rachel lands back in London days later, she is greeted unexpectedly by Jeremy, waiting for her in arrivals. He has a bouquet of flowers in one hand and an envelope in the other.

• 47:49Speaker 03

  And I was just bowled over. He had a bunch of yellow roses and a card for me. And I opened the card and then out dropped these plane tickets. And he said, "Yeah, I think we should take a flight and we'll go fly to Venice." And I was thinking, "Wow, no one's ever done this before. This is quite something." And then he said, "And we'll hire a car and we'll go up to the Pizbadeel and then we can walk around in the snow and then we can check it out for next season."

• 48:26John Hopkins?

  Charmed by his spontaneity, Rachel agrees to the trip. And when they eventually arrive back at Pizbadeel, the mountain once again has a few surprises in store.

• 48:38Speaker 03

  We went for a walk and it was in the morning. And we crossed over a little bridge. It was so beautiful because there was snow all on the bridge and the water was still flowing through the stream beneath, but there was snow on the rocks and all the trees. And it looked so wonderful. Then little, almost like sort of confetti snow falling down from the sky. And in the middle of the bridge, I heard his footsteps stop. And I turned around and he was on one knee. And he said, "Will you marry me?" I didn't think too much. I just said, "Yes."

• 49:19John Hopkins?

  Not long after, Rachel and Jeremy become Mr. and Mrs. Colenza.

• 49:24John Hopkins?

  It's a fairy tale ending for the pair, for whom Pizbadil holds so much meaning. The site of their first date, their shared survival experience, and their impromptu engagement. The scene of their highest highs and lowest lows.

• 49:40John Hopkins?

  And the mountain teaches them crucial lessons, lessons which, years later, Rachel and Jeremy have passed on to their two daughters.

• 49:48Speaker 03

  Make the most of every day because there's so much in life, so much opportunity, and you know, just go and do it and take the courage. Don't be timid to step forward. Just have the courage. What enabled us to survive wasn't one singular thing. It was really a composition of different elements together. But probably one of the greatest things was working together with Jeremy as part of a team. And when there are difficulties, I think, I do often reflect because, you know, life is never an easy course. There's always ups and downs. And so I do look back and I think, wow, well, we were able to do it then and,

• 50:32Speaker 03

  you know, just let's do one step at a time. And by working consistently and methodically, you can get through great adversities.

• 50:52John Hopkins?

  Next time on Real Survival Stories, we meet Matt Ream.

• 50:59John Hopkins?

  On a foggy winter's night in 2023, Matt is driving home along a deserted freeway when quite suddenly disaster strikes. As his truck swerves off the road, he plunges into a ravine beneath an interstate bridge. Pinned within a twisted mass of metal and glass, Matt is injured and helpless, listening to the steady flow of traffic overhead. The drivers are just meters away, but unable to see or hear him.

• 51:30John Hopkins?

  Over the course of days, Matt will have to fight on as his attempts to free himself from the wreckage become increasingly drastic.

• 51:43John Hopkins?

  That's next time, on Real Survival Stories. Listen to Matt's story today without waiting a week by subscribing to Noiser Plus. Hit the subscription banner at the top of the feed, or go to noiser.com/subscriptions.