This is exactly the way I want to be found :-) Okay, maybe on a mountain.......

Ultra Marathon Runner found Dead

How about you?

I think everyone would want to be doing what they love doing when it came time for them to die. I think this was his time.
Where ever the mind goes the body will follow...follow your dreams. He followed his, running in the wilderness. This time on a short run, but without his best friend and companion. I believe he is at peace knowing he lived his life to the fullest. His best friend lost his best friend, but does not know he will not be coming back.

Well, it's nice he died doing what he enjoyed.

But 58 is a bit too early, in my book. Heck, I'd be gone already!

Steve, I have taken an obit to honor on the top 3 of the 4 times I have been there. I plan to take my dads up there this year.

Here is a morbidly-curious question for any Whitney historians:
has anyone dropped dead on the summit? Surely it must have happened. (falling off does not "count" for this question)

I almost did, does that count?

First time up, I had such a bad case of AMS, I could barely get back down. I didn't get to enjoy the summit in the least bit. The guy who took my picture had to walk over, get my camera, take the picture, then walk back and give it to me.

In a way, I'm glad it happened. I shall never repeat that mistake again. What a terrible, terrible feeling.

Does getting hit with lighting (inside or outside) the hut count?

Obviously, this lady doesn't want to be found on a mountain or she wouldn't have climbed so many AFTER a Heart Transplant!!!! Inspirational :-)

Climbing Mt Whitney after Heart Transplant

Lying peacefully on a boulder, hair spread out, holding a bouquet of columbine, polemonium, and tiger lilies, in a flowing white dress...

And then true love's kiss awakens me from slumber...

I was backpacking in the area this weekend. Got to the Gila Hot Spring Ranch and the word was going around that there was a SAR going on for a runner. The next morning when we got on the trail we ran into several teams looking for the runner, there were several teams on foot, on horses and a dog. They were working real hard to find the man, it was very pleasing to see how hard SARs work to find people. Each team made sure we were aware of the search.

The news of the body being found was sad.

> Here is a morbidly-curious question for any Whitney historians:
has anyone dropped dead on the summit? Surely it must have happened. (falling off does not "count" for this question)

I don't have any knowledge of the summit, but just in the past year, one fellow died of a heart attack on the trail. I think he was ~64, hiking with his son. Another died in October descending from the summit, of AMS.


...as for me.... I'd like to be found in my back yard on a sunny springtime afternoon, too old to hike anymore, but not too old to get around the yard and care for the flowers. On the day before I am no longer able to do that, I'd like to lie down and go to sleep forever.

And this thread brings to mind + @ti2d...

I received a notice that his father-in-law passed away, and memorial services are April 2. The online obituary is here: Joseph Nicolulis, Sr.

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The question is how do you want to be found dead but I think I would rather not be found at all. Die some where in the Sierra where no one will find you and then you can be left alone forever.

This thread may have some more, pardon the pun, life in it!
Here are two appropriate quotes on the subject:

When one is young and has been climbing only a few years, one's experience is limited and death is abstract. After having been around awhile, things are different.
Nicholas Clinch, A Walk in the Sky page viii


This one is fitting since Lincoln Hall died recently:

The longer you spend up high, the more likely you are to stay up there forever.
Lincoln Hall, Dead Lucky. Life After Death on Mount Everest, page 142

I've heard that it's best to die being shot by a jealous husband or angry father.

Thanks for those appropriate quotes, Harvey. Having been around death in the mountains quite a bit more than I would have liked, I've never found it to be particularly romantic; that's a nice sentiment, but somewhat divorced from reality.

Something like Steve's feelings on the topic, I'd much rather die at home, surrounded by loving family and friends. And perhaps high on one of those mercy-giving pain-killers. I feel truly sorry for those who die alone, even if they were doing something they love.

Having actually been around people who have died at home, surrounded by family and friends...I'll pass on that method. My grandfather was on so much morphine for his pain that IT was killing him, he begged in gibberish for us to just let him die...I'll take alone doing what I love in some remote place over that any day.

Well, like my grandfather, I'd prefer to go quietly in my sleep. Not screaming in terror like his passengers... .

Heh, heh. OK. Really old joke. Sorry!

g.

There's a TV show full of bad puns and dramatizations dedicated to this topic, "1000 ways to Die" most of which are stupid crooks perishing in unimaginable ways during a botched crime of some sort. The others seem like Darwin Award contenders. The show will give you a chuckle.

This wiki list goes way back over historic stories of this type.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_deaths