The Death Trip
We huddled around the woodstove unable to control our shivering. It seemed it was taking forever to produce any heat to fight off the vicious cold. I looked around at my three companions: Mark, Joe, and Bill in the semi-circle we had formed around the valiant old heater. We were exhausted, soaked to the skin. We’d distributed the few dry clothes we had left. They hadn’t helped much. Already we had nearly died, but the danger was far from over. We were still afraid of falling to the enemy, hypothermia.
Our story started early that morning. The four of us had come to the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to do some spring fishing and backpacking. Attempting to beat the crowd and the bugs, we scheduled the trip at the park’s season openin
