Remembering a fall in the mountains

The death of an Illinois man caught my attention last week. Chase Shott, 26, died in a fall near Mystic Lake in the Beartooth Mountains.

It was one of those “There, but for the grace of God goes me,” moments.

I took a fall there years ago.

It was early October 1973 and I was working for Hiland Guide Service in Cooke City as a cook and wrangler. My friend Bill Butler was guiding a hunter who’d drawn a sheep tag, and the three of us backpacked in to a spike camp at the far end of Mystic Lake.

There wasn’t much to do in camp so I tagged along on the first day of the hunt. At dawn we crossed the c...