Angels in the Wilderness
The True Story of One Woman’s Survival Against All Odds

Amy Racina

Solo backpacker Amy Racina fell sixty feet onto solid granite near the remote Tehipite Valley in California’s Kings Canyon National Park in the Sierra Nevada during a 16-day solo hiking trip. In this gripping first-person account, Amy tells how she survived four days and nights in the wilderness with both legs badly broken and no one else around, clinging tenaciously to life, using all the spiritual tools and inner strengths she could muster. Battling pain, fear and exhaustion, she pulled herself along with her hands, and refused to give up even when her chances of salvation were remote.

The book chronicles her miraculous and timely rescue and describes her dramatic airlift out of the canyon, swinging helplessly from two straps, dangling fearfully beneath a helicopter high above the ravine where she had lain.

Racina recounts her struggles with multiple surgeries and extensive physical rehabilitation, as she fought to walk again despite her severe injuries. In flashbacks, Amy also tells of her rugged introduction to wilderness backpacking, her “trip of a lifetime” up to the day of her fall, and her dual passions for solo hiking and traveling light. She also describes the deeper reflections that shaped her life after the fall, and concludes with her triumphant return to the wilderness.

This amazing tale of despair, courage and hope speaks of incredible strength and heartbreaking weakness as Amy details what she believed might be the last days of her life. It is a memory of the darkest of times and an affirmation of miracles. Her story is a celebration of a life almost snatched away, of survival against the odds.

Now in paperback in its Second Edition!

This compelling true story of a life-threatening backpacking incident in 2003 is finally available in paperback. It includes an update on events since the book's 2005 publication. We believe every serious backpacker and hiker should read this riveting and important story of survival.

“A profound true story of human courage and the will to live.”
-Midwest Book Review

2005. 220 pages, 6-1/8" x 9-1/4", full-color dust jacket, 25 photographs, 2 maps.
Published by Elite Books. ISBN 0-9710888-9-6 hardcover

$24.95

Also available:

Angels in the Wilderness (paperback) for $15.95

2009, 224 pages, 6" x 9", full-color cover, 25 photographs, 2 maps, 2 page update from June 2009. Published by Elite Books.
ISBN 978-1-60070-066-8 trade paperback 

“Every day is a good day for Amy Racina. It wasn't always that way, but crashing 60 feet into a granite ravine changed her perspective.”
- San Francisco Chronicle

“Her story is by any measure a triumph of will.”
- Santa Rosa Press Democrat

“As a story of human courage and persistence, it is unparalleled. As a parable that challenges us to find the best within ourselves, it is remarkable. As an honest and beautifully written story, it is searing. And as a reminder that in the most desperate of circumstances, grace, humor, wisdom and the gentle touch of God’s spirit are available, it is profound.”
- Dawson Church, Publisher

“A profound true story of human courage and the will to live: especially fresh and absorbing.”
- Midwest Book Review

“Chock full of penetrating truth.”
- Aron Ralston, author of Between a Rock and a Hard Place

“This book is suffused with glowing honesty and wonder, bracing as mountain air.”
- Fearless Reviews

“This is the best book I have read in a very long time. Amy Racina is an exceptionally fine writer and story-teller.”
- Susan Campbell, author of Getting Real

“You will laugh, you will cry, but from the first page, this book will hold you, and not let you go. Searing and intense, this is an honest and beautifully written story.”
- Dawson Church, author of Soul Medicine

Here’s two brief excerpts:

The land itself is my friend. Nature speaks to me in a way that humankind cannot. As I walk, the simplicity of the trailside ways comforts me. The crisp clarity of the mountain air heals me; the high sweet light glistening on white slabs of granite lends me its radiance and restores to me the light of my own essence.

My spirit exults, bringing my body and soul into perfect focus. My heart expands. I am like my sleeping bag, stuffed too long in a sack, and let out at last. Up above timberline, single pine trees quiver in the relentless brightness, tall and strong, as I feel myself to be. The wilderness touches the pure high note that sings forth the harmony of my own spirit.

- from Chapter 15: “The Lure of the Solo Experience”

“We’ve rescued a lot of people,” says Debbie... the foremost rescue ranger in the National Park Service. “But rarely anyone as badly injured as Amy, and never anyone as happy.” Of course I am happy. I am going to live. I had not expected it to be so.

- from Chapter 21: “ Rescue ”

The Table of Contents:

1. The Fall
2. For Love of the Mountains
3. On the Trail of the Ancestors
4. The Trip of a Lifetime
5. Before the Fall
6. The Day of the Fall
7. In the Ravine
8. A Dozen Ways to Die
9. Talking to God
10. The Go-Lite Girl
11. The First Day
12. Pain
13. Longing for Life
14. The Second Day
15. The Lure of the Solo Experience
16. The Third Day
17. Two Toots of a Whistle
18. Contact
19. The Three Rescuers
20. The Fourth Day
21. Rescue
22. Dangling by a Thread
23. Repairing Amy
24. An Unknown Wilderness
25. Almira
26. Helping Amy
27. The Purple Ambulance
28. At Carla’s
29. Many Firsts
30. Many Heroes
31. Like a Junkyard Dog
32. The Questions
33. After the Fall
34. Gifts and Revelations
35. Spritual Tools for Physical Survival
36. Gratitude
37. Back to the Mountains