Mother Nature, the supreme artist that she is, painted the mountain tops with a glistening white powder.  From afar it was a masterpiece that made the blood run with pleasure.  It was a seductress that invited the spirit to come among her midst and explore her mysterious ways.
We accepted her invitation to climb up to her peaks and manage her dangerous slopes.  We did it willingly as our adrenalin pushed us up ahead.
Then it happened.  The calm sunny day that we chose to climb the mountain turned out to be our nemesis.  Mother Nature turned her back and exposed her ugly dark side to us.  She was merciless as she unleashed her fury.  It was like we stirred up an angry beast from its den.
The blizzard grew more in strength as each moment passed by.  The blinding snow made it impossible to see what direction we were headed.  Where was down, where was up, east, west?   We were just walking aimlessly through the brush.
Our cell phones were working, so we called our wives and told them to send a helicopter out to rescue us.  We didn’t know our exact location.  All we could say was, “Somewhere on the mountain.”
Finally we huddled under a pine tree and hoped for the storm to subside.  We found some dead wood to make a fire and try to get warm.  My friend had a cigarette lighter, thank God, but we had nothing to kindle the wood with.  The snow covered up most of the brush.  What was left was wet. We even had to burn our money, our hard earned money, but that didn’t work.  All we could do was huddle together and tell jokes to lift our spirits, but after a while they weren’t funny anymore.
When the sun came up the next morning, it was like the eyes of God came to comfort us.  Now we could move out into the open so the helicopter could see us with our bright red parkas on.  That night we had to move back under the tree again and try to sleep.  The next morning my feet finally felt warm, so I reached down but couldn’t feel them.  My friend couldn’t feel his either.  We couldn’t walk, so we had to crawl back into the opening again. With all our hope drained out of us, we just lay there praying and getting ready to meet our creator.  Our voices were getting fainter every minute.
Then we heard the most beautiful sound from the propeller blades on the helicopter hovering over us.  What a glorious sight to behold. The rescuers spotted our bright red parkas.  We both lost our feet and some of our fingers from the frostbite, but at least we didn’t lose our lives.  As beautiful as Mother Nature is, so deadly she can be.