Reading a lot today. Here's a remarkable one (it probably deserves better company that the sperm donor and the finger-tip hoax).

Injured Colo. Skier Rescued a Week Later
April 26

DENVER - Charles Horton, a massage therapist and experienced outdoorsman, broke his leg April 17 on what was to have been a one-day ski trip. Eight days, later authorities found him cold, hungry - and very much alive.

Horton spent the time alone in the wilderness near Steamboat Springs, about 100 miles northwest of Denver, sleeping under snowcapped trees and in rudimentary shelters. On day No. 3, the experienced outdoorsman began using his elbows to drag himself across the frozen ground in an attempt to get to his car 3 miles away.

It wasn't until Sunday that longtime friend and landlord Johnny Walker returned from a vacation and found Horton's cat was unfed, his plants needed water and there was a slew of phone messages wondering why Horton had missed massage appointments.

"My heart just sank," Walker said. "It was going to be a horrible loss."

Walker called the Rio Blanco County Sheriff's Office. After a one-hour search, rescue workers found Horton early Monday morning on a snow-covered road used by the U.S. Forest Service not far from town.

Horton, 55, of Steamboat Springs, was dehydrated and suffering from minor frostbite and mild hypothermia. He was hospitalized in fair condition Tuesday, authorities said.

"His skills and knowledge, his gear and his will to live are what kept him alive," said Sgt. Anthony Mazzola of the Rio Blanco County Sheriff's Office. "This is stuff books are written about."

Horton hadn't told anyone when he expected to return, and almost everyone who knew him was out of town, his friend Mary O'Brien said.

"His co-workers were gone, I was gone, his girlfriend was gone. We were all missing the fact that he was missing," she said. "It was a mad mess."

O'Brien said Horton spent the first two nights under a tree, sleeping on boughs and building a fire to keep warm. Temperatures dipped into the 20s at midweek when a cold front moved through, but little snow fell, National Weather Service meteorologist Dave Nadler said.

On Tuesday, he decided to start toward his car. Crawling on his back, supporting himself with his elbows and dragging his broken leg behind, he covered about 200 yards in 10 hours, O'Brien said.

"He decided it was taking too much energy to move, so he decide he was staying put," she said.

Rescuers found him about two miles from their command center, barely able to speak. Searchers on snowmobiles would periodically stop, shut down their engines and blow whistles. On one stop, they heard Horton blowing his whistle in response.

"We all said that if anybody could (survive), it would be him," O'Brien said. "He had the personality and the skill. He's not the type that would panic."