The falling season

"Hal Clifford, a seasoned veteran of Aspen's rescue team, reveals the behind-the-scenes story of more than a dozen harrowing rescues. He takes us inside the minds of the volunteers; their motivations and their fears as they dangle from helicopters, probe avalanches, and hang off rock faces inching a stretcher-bound hiker out from a gorge: "We were getting banged around a lot. The litter was flying. Scott was exhausted and couldn't hold the litter anymore. We went up a little further and I saw Ray Peritz on the second line. I was like, 'Ray, we need your help. Scott is shot.' Then we started going up toward the scree. They were uphauling fast and I had my radio in a pouch. I'm trying to pull the litter out, but a big root gets her in the side, and she starts screaming. We see it, but they keep pulling and it's impaling her in the side. I can't get to my radio fast enough because I'm trying to pull her out, so I'm screaming for it to stop. . . . Scott can't hold anymore, I'm getting exhausted. . . . Ray's trying to maneuver . . . rocks are dropping on her, we're trying to cover her up, we're getting pelted with rocks." This is just one event in a series of previously untold stories of the men and women who volunteer for mountain rescue." "Clifford takes us through the arduous training and every step of a rescue. The team members wear emergency pagers around the clock; they leave their families and jobs at all hours, in all weather, and in some of the harshest mountain terrain imaginable - seeking injured climbers, lost hikers, and missing planes. Their work is sometimes tedious, sometimes perilous; and sometimes they are the ones who die. Their only reward lies in knowing they saved another life."--BOOK JACKET.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.