Two summers ago, when I was deputy director of the CIA, a friend and I traversed the Olympic Mountain Range in Washington State, hiking 70 miles north to south. Snow in August, ice axes in hand, fording rivers with ropes and in the swift current nearly being carried downstream pack and all; watching with middle-aged sadistic pleasure as my much younger security escorts struggle up the trail.
Or the summer before, canoeing 50 mile long Ross Lake in Washington near the Canadian border in over-loaded canoes in a driving wind and rainstorm, foot high swells threatening to capsize us, wondering if we'd escape with our lives.
Then having the security guys, also struggling, paddle up alongside to report that they had a radio call from Washington ... and "could I get to a secure telephone?" This when I thought I might never even see the shore again.
But this message gave me a determination to survive ... if only to get pack to Washington and find out who had placed that call.
Part of a story by Robert Gate that appeared in Scouting (a publication of the BSA).