Alaska Mountain Wilderness Race Rafting Fatality

That is truly tragic- particularly as the article says he was cautious and had deliberately gone out of his way to walk past the worst of the water. RIP.

I lost a lot of sleep over this last night.

I met Rob briefly before and after the '11 and '12 races, and count myself fortunate to have done so. Modern wilderness recreation is a great microcosm of lifes difficulties, and the Classic even moreso. Rob was an exemplar of how we all hope we will respond to adveristy both in and out of woods; with humor, grace, humility, and generosity.

I'm also assuming his death is a good reminder of how you can be deliberate, do everything right, and still have bad luck and end up dead. In the woods or out.

I'd encourage everyone to have a beer for Rob tonight, then have another for yourself and the important people still in your life.

How tragic. The people I've met who participate in the AWC are universally highly skilled, greatly experienced and very understated about their exploits. This reminds me of Dick Cook's death in 2001 while canoeing in the Tatonduk River after 3 decades of Bush living documented in John McPhee's, ''Coming Into the Country.'' Alaska is a wild place and bad things can happen to good, skilled people.