going well. Inch by inch, 16-year-old Felipe Proaño was creating a new route up a 17,267-foot peak in Ecuador called Illiniza Norte. Then a hold broke. “I took a serious fall that [shattered] my right ankle in 14 places, lost most of my cartilage, ripped my Achilles tendon, and damaged several nerves,” says Proaño, now 33. “I was left severely hypothermic and lost a significant amount of blood.” After a grueling 12-hour rescue, doctors at the hospital told him he’d probably never walk straight again and to
