Unbroken

One day in February 2017, Matt Horner, then 47, was using crampons and a pair of axes to pick his way up Rhiannon, an Adirondack ice-climbing route on the cliffs that form the far side of Chapel Pond. The pond is a small, calm body of water beside Route 73 at the foot of the Great Range. As far as ice climbs go, its cliffs are best known for Chouinard’s Gully, first climbed by Yvon Chouinard, the man known for starting the clothing company Patagonia and the equipment company Black Diamond.

It’s more common for ice climbs to be named by their first climbers, rather than for them. As for Rhiannon, maybe some climbers in 1987 had a thing for Fleetwood Mac. Thirty years later, Matt, a professional guide, was leading his way up the route for a longtime client. She belayed him as he went. At the top, he would get situated and then guide her up. The climb is about 200 feet, and Matt knew he could do it in one push; he had climbed it many times before.

But not that day. When he was about 120 feet off the ground, for some reason, he blacked out. “I woke up a second later,” he recounts, “and I was upside down, facing away from