Last week, there was a lot of buzz in the major news outlets about the disappearance of James Kim - an editor at the popular CNET.com - and his family in Oregon. I was tracking the news much before it appeared on CNN.com because it was being talked about in all the tech blogs much before it became mainstream news. The family of four got lost in the snow in Oregon and got stranded in the middle of nowhere. They stayed put for almost eight days in their car, before James decided to venture out and try to find help. Sadly, it was not a happy ending for the family. Rescue teams found the James' wifes and kids near the car, but by the time they got to him, he had already died, apparently of exhaustion and possibly hypothermia.

This brought back memories of the time, when we got lost in the snow in New Hampshire. About 10 of us were hiking up to Mt. Washington in the White Mountains area. It was some time in October 2001 and there was a lot of snow on the trail. The trail was really treacherous, very icy and slippery. We started a little late in the day and by the time we reached the top, it was already getting dark. As we slowly made our way down it become completely dark and we had just the moon-light guiding us. The trail markings were no longer visible and got lost in the mountains. We realized we were not on the trail anymore, because we were treading on snow which was very soft and things didn't look familiar. Not one of us had a cellphone then. It was decided to continue on the path we were on, because we were atleast headed down the mountain. At some point we were talking through what felt like a stream. We literally started walking down on the stream, because it had to do down. At some point we saw the lake, which was near the parking lot and we just started jumping and rolling down the mountain slopes till we reached the base.

Luckily for us, we ended up on the road very close to the parking lot. Some of us shouted partly in joy and partly in relief on touching the hard road. But the 45 mins that we were lost on the slopes it was very scary. Hardly anybody else knew where we were, we had no food or water supplies and no way to get in touch with anybody to call for help. Its an experience, I will never forget... Anybody from that trip, remember your experience?