A Short Walk to the Edge of Life: How My Simple Adventure Became a Dance with Death--and Taught Me What Really Matters - Softcover

Hubbartt, Scott

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1601426046 ISBN 13: 9781601426048

Publisher: PRH Christian Publishing, 2014

Synopsis

Chronicling the failures and miracles of a remarkable physical and spiritual passage, A Short Walk to the Edge of Life is the gripping, true story of a man who had to come to the end of himself before he could find his way home.

How could he possibly make it out alive? It was supposed to be a simple day hike. Scott Hubbartt was a military veteran with years of survival training. Everyone who knew him considered him an expert adventurer. But Scott's trek into the treacherous backcountry canyons of the Peruvian Andes turned into a desperate fight to survive after he became hopelessly lost. As his eight-hour hike lengthened into days, Scott faced dehydration, hunger, and exhaustion. And that's when his true journey began.

About this title

About the Author

Scott Hubbartt enlisted in the Air Force at the age of seventeen and later became a decorated combat veteran who rose to the highest enlisted rank. Hubbartt is a graduate of the Air Force Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) School and the U.S. Navy Senior Enlisted Academy at Newport, Rhode Island. He also holds a master's degree in history and Latin American studies from American Public University. Hubbartt and his wife, Carolina, a native of Peru, have three daughters and live near San Antonio, Texas.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

A Short Walk to the Edge of Life

How My Simple Adventure Became a Dance with Death--and Taught Me What Really Matters

By Scott Hubbartt, Tom Blase

The Crown Publishing Group

Copyright © 2014 Scott Hubbartt
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-60142-604-8

And So It Begins

If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.
—James 1:5–6

Wednesday, 2 November 2011, 1950 Hours,
Casa Barrera, Trujillo, Perú
(8º 06’37.05” S, 79º 01’19.36” W—Elevation 130’)

Journal note that I left at my bedside in the Barrera house the day before my departure:

2 Nov. 2011, 1950 hours—Trujillo

On the eve of my long-awaited adventure to Cerro Pingullo in the western Andes. I am searching for the hamlet of Chepén and Las Minas Casualidad, which are mentioned in my wife’s grandfather’s [Felipe’s] will.

As a gringo in Peru, I am an anomaly. A stranger. I have many handicaps—the inability to fluently speak the language not the least of them. Still, I go. There are more intrepid souls, but I figure myself about middle of the road. Still, I go into the unknown in the lower Altiplano of the middle-western Andes. My destination tomorrow is Salpo. From there I hope to explore Carabamba and the hamlet of Chepén. In a day or two I will attempt the descent to Poroto.

Felipe did it, who knows how many times. I want to tell my grandchildren about his exploits from firsthand experience.
They say I’m crazy. That’s OK. I’m just curious and determined.

Hubbartt

I’m just a regular guy. I balance bills, pay a mortgage, and try to be the best father I can be to my three grown daughters as well as an acceptable husband to the perfect wife. But in a nutshell, during a week of November 2011, I messed up big time.

This is my story.

It all started when I went for a walk in the Peruvian puna, which some call the Altiplano and others the Alto Pampa. It’s the high desert region of the Andes mountains characterized by dry, barren, windswept, and rocky terrain—where only the hardiest of living things can exist. It was supposed to be an eight- to ten-mile hike along what I expected
would be an established, easy-to-follow trail. Instead, I became hopelessly lost and almost died.

After my fifteen visits to Peru, many people regarded me as a kind of expert on travel in that country. I was often complimented on my tales about my adventures in this wonderful land, which is twice the size of Texas. But that’s the danger of flattery: over time you start to believe it. It has been many months since my little expedition, and I am still
trying to fully appreciate the gift I was given—more than life itself, which we too often take for granted. I now know that God has at least two plans for my life: One is that I was supposed to survive in that desert. Second, I am to share my story with anyone who will listen.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from A Short Walk to the Edge of Life by Scott Hubbartt, Tom Blase. Copyright © 2014 Scott Hubbartt. Excerpted by permission of The Crown Publishing Group.
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Edition details

• Publisher: PRH Christian Publishing
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1601426046
• ISBN 13: 9781601426048
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 176