Where You’ll Find Me

Risk, Decisions, and the Last Climb of Kate Matrosova

On February 15, 2015, Kate Matrosova, an avid mountaineer, set off before sunrise for a traverse of the Northern Presidential Range in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Late the following day, rescuers carried her frozen body out of the mountains amid some of the worst weather ever recorded on these deceptively rugged slopes.

At 32, she was ultra-fit and healthy and had already summited much larger mountains on several continents. Her gear included a rescue beacon and a satellite phone. Yet, despite their best efforts, forty-two expert search and rescue personnel, a New Hampshire Army National Guard Blackhawk helicopter, and a Civil Air Patrol Cessna airplane could not reach her in time to save her.

What went wrong? Where You’ll Find Me offers possible answers to that question, demonstrating why Matrosova’s story – what we know and what we will never know – represents such an intriguing and informative case study in risk analysis and decision-making.

Ty Gagne is chief executive officer of New Hampshire Public Risk Management Exchange (Primex3), a public entity risk pool serving local governments in New Hampshire. He is a certified wilderness first responder, and serves on the Androscoggin Valley Search and Rescue Team and Board of Directors. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife.

The book includes a foreword by Caroline Alexander, renowned author of The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition, and The Bounty: The True Story of Mutiny on the Bounty.

Where You’ll Find Me is a must read for anyone interested in mountaineering and extreme weather and offers lessons in decision-making for us all.