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Put yourself for a moment in the snow boots of a young Max Low. Several years ago, he was

on an expedition with three of the world's most famous mountaineers, author John Crackauer,

professional snowboarder Jeremy Jones, and the leader of the North Face athlete team,

Conrad Anchor. There were three weeks into what many would consider the trip of a lifetime,

an assent of Denali, the tallest mountain in North America. But things had gone wrong,

and Max and the others found themselves caught in the middle of a thunderstorm.

That was one of those moments in life where I was like, I might die here. I might get

struck by lightning or if this storm intensifies, you know, we could all get stuck here in the

snow and freeze. Max hadn't been in an experience like this before, but he was with climbers

who had long resumes of expeditions to some of the planet's most forbidding peaks. Even

with all the combined skill and experience, it had become an extremely dicey situation.

This cloud had moved up around us and it was just dumping snow. And you couldn't see

the lightning, but you could feel it. You could hear the thunder, and you could feel the

electricity just pulsing through all the metal equipment on your harness, all of the

carabiners that we had on the edges of your skis, your ski poles, I mean all the stuff that

you have on your person is metal and reacting to the electricity.

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