LOVELAND — Sheila Townsend finally hiked to the top of Long's Peak Sunday — her third try for the summit.

But her exhilaration quickly turned into an ordeal when she fell and broke her ankle and had to spend the night at about 13,000 feet shivering in near freezing temperatures until help came Monday morning.

Along the way she learned an important lesson: "I will never be climbing a mountain like this alone ever again," the 48-year-old Tulsa, Okla., woman said Tuesday from her hospital bed at the Medical Center of the Rockies.

Her left cheek was swollen and broken. Her shoulder and neck were sore. There was a big knot on her right kneecap. She has five stitches in her head and doctors Tuesday inserted pins to hold her left ankle together.

But overall, Townsend counts herself lucky to be alive.

"God was watching over me. He sent lots of angels," she said, choking up a bit. "I had lots of people praying for me, people I don't even know."

She remembers most everything that happened.

She had come to Rocky Mountain National Park specifically to hike Long's Peak, a goal that had eluded her in two previous years when snow and fatigue slowed her progress.

"It was something I wanted to accomplish in my life before I got too old to do it," Townsend said, describing herself as an "outdoorsy person."

"That is the closest you can get to the heavens," she said.

This time, however, with some advice from people along the way, she reached the top. She took pictures and tried to write her name on the summit register. But she couldn't open the metal container, so about 4 p.m., she headed back down. By then, she was the last hiker on the mountain.

She was sidestepping down an area with some loose rock. First she started to slide and then she began to roll and then she blacked out.

She came to about 30 minutes later and noticed her blood trickling down the side of the mountain. Had she rolled another 500 feet, Townsend said, she would have gone flying off a ledge.

She tried to call 911 on her cellphone but there was no signal. She looked around and realized she was going to have to spend the night alone on the mountain.

"I guess my Girl Scout instincts were kicking in," she recalled.

Townsend was wearing a hiking shirt, pants and a hooded sweatshirt, but did not have much else in the way of gear other than a light, some toilet paper and two water bottles.

So for the next 30 minutes she began crawling on her hands and knees toward a two-foot-tall niche that she spotted.

Townsend said she felt a moment of panic when she realized she would be alone overnight.

"But then I remembered the No. 1 thing they tell you. Do not panic. Everything will be fine," she said.

Fearing that she might have a concussion, Townsend said she stayed awake all night. It wasn't hard to do, given how cold it was, she said.

Meanwhile, her boyfriend grew concerned when she failed to check in by phone. He alerted her family and park rangers, who launched a search early Monday morning.

Townsend heard voices around dawn and shouted twice to a group of searchers who came to her aid, piled on additional clothing and stood around her to keep her warm.

She expects to be released from the hospital Wednesday and after staying with a friend in Fort Collins, she hopes to fly home to Tulsa within a few days.

Park Spokeswoman Kyle Patterson said about 75 percent of the accidents on Long's Peak last year involved day hikers like Townsend. Another 12 percent involved technical climbers.

Patterson said the Park Service does not charge for such rescues. However, Townsend will be responsible for the cost of the helicopter that air-lifted her to the hospital.

Before the chopper took off, one of the searcher snapped a photo of Townsend in the basket that was to carry her away. In the photograph, she is smiling.

"They said smile, so I smiled," she explained. "I was so happy at that point to see somebody."

ensslinj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5291

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