Yellow Pages
OAK HARBOR — The last time Jason Schilling saw fellow climber Steve Trent, Trent’s face was puffy, his leg was badly broken and the light had gone from his eyes.
Friday afternoon, five days after Trent’s harrowing accident on Mount Terror, in which he fell 60 feet and broke his femur, the two reunited.
The two had never met before hiking into the wilderness of the North Cascades.
“It was a total blind date,” Schilling, 33, said.
After Trent’s fall Sunday morning, Schilling stayed with Trent, 43, while two others climbed Mount Terror in the hope of catching a signal on Schilling’s cell phone.
The first rescue took nearly 10 hours from the fall until a helicopter plucked Trent from the mountain and off to a Bellingham Hospital on Sunday night.
But the weather turned quickly, and Schilling waited much longer, first on the sheer rock wall of Mount Terror, then later inside a tiny cave that provided shelter from the rain, wind and snow.
Schilling was rescued by helicopter Thursday.
On Friday, as the two relaxed on a couch in Trent’s living room, their smiles spoke volumes.
“The last time I saw him, he was a different person,” Schilling said of Trent. “His cheeks were sunken in, his cheek muscle was quivering, and he didn’t have much light in his eyes.”
With bright eyes and high hopes, Trent’s gaze shifted between his broken left leg to the mountains outside his picture window in Oak Harbor.
A wide swath of the North Cascade Range is visible from a couch in Trent’s living room, where he sat massaging his aching left leg. Binoculars sit on a nearby windowsill to bring him closer to the mountains he loves.
Out there, near Mount Baker, Trent can see his future.
Several people have already signed the cast that holds Trent’s broken right heel in place.
Among them is Trent’s roommate, Wade Bessett, whose signature records a goal that Trent intends to keep.
“He says he’s going to be climbing again within two months, so I had to document it,” Bessett said.
Trent pointed out his window toward the small peak he wants to ascend — the North Twin Sister-West Ridge, near Mount Baker.
“It’s a basic climb in the North Cascades that’s fun to do, and it takes a mountain bike in and a light hike and a good scramble,” Bessett said.
It will be at least three weeks before he can leave his wheelchair, Trent said, and at least a month before he returns to work as a Navy Prowler pilot.
While he likes to challenge himself on the mountainside, his future health — and getting back on the rock — is not something he wishes to risk by pushing himself too hard, too soon.
“Each day is one day closer to recovery,” he said while massaging his left leg. “Pushing yourself to try to rehab yourself is not a good idea.”
He plans to take it slow and easy to get back into shape. Doctors expect a full recovery, he said.
Schilling is relieved to see Trent’s health improving. Trent is grateful for his life.
The trip to Mount Terror with Trent, Steph Abegg and Donn Venema was Schilling’s first in what he intends to be a long summer of climbing.
After graduating from Oregon State University, Schilling placed all of his belongings in storage. He’s living out of the back of his truck for the summer and intends to roam the West in search of more peaks to climb. His next stop: camping in the Olympics with his girlfriend, Anna Cates.
Since Trent’s return, friends and family have rallied around him. Lumber to build a wheelchair ramp sits in a truckbed in the driveway of his home. People have brought over food and drink, visited for a spell, and conveyed their relief that Trent is home safe.
On Friday, Trent wore a yellow Skagit Mountain Rescue shirt, to which his father, John, affixed a “D” after the word “Rescue.”
• Kate Martin can be reached at 360-416-2145 or at .
Read more local news in the Skagit Valley Herald and the Anacortes American, or read it online in the E-edition
