We had cigarette lighters, and could easily have lit a fire, but there was very little combustible material on the mountain. We burned all the paper money we had—almost $7,500 went up in smoke—and we found enough scrap wood in the plane to fuel two or three small fires, but these fires burned themselves out quickly, and the brief luxury of warmth only made the cold seem worse when the flames had died. For the most part, our best defense against the cold was to huddle together on the loose seat cushions we’d scattered over the aircraft’s floor and draw our flimsy blankets around us, hoping to
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