Four very fit-looking septuagenarian retirees in gleaming white sneakers were overheard at a Eureka Springs motel buffet talking about three mountain climbers who froze to death on Mount Hood in 2006.

  "They were said to be expert climbers. Why were they up there at the most dangerous time of the year?" a lady wondered. Then the conversation shifted to another topic of the moment.

  Extreme sport is self-defining, but, elusive. Until the "Oh God" door swings open, it's mostly about practice. You kayak a couple of miles up and down Lake Leatherwood to keep your calluses hard so they'll be ready when the Kings River floods and rearranges all its obstacles.

  You set sail out of Starkey Marina, 1,120 feet above sea level, once a week all winter. Sure, it's cold but the winds are the year's best. You remind yourself, "There's no such thing as bad weather; only poor clothing."

  Maybe you remind yourself not to forget that life's a gamble. Make enough passes with the dice and, sooner or later, you'll roll snake eyes. If you sail every week, once every year or so you may get in over your head. That's what all the training is about. It's about being as prepared as possible for the unexpected. It's about seeking out the unexpected.

Boredom and terror

  Like life, extreme sports are best characterized as long periods of relative boredom punctuated by incidents of utter terror. That's what some extreme-sports addicts seek. You can buy most anything now'days in the way of diversion, but if you've got a lick of sense you won't try to buy life-or-death thrills. Those you have to earn by seeking conditions equal to, or beyond, your skill.

  The sensation of being unplugged, off the grid or one-on-one with the force of being just another animal on the planet -- that's the juice that drives some extreme sports junkies. Walking into a Buffalo River valley three days after seeing your last human, some vestigial sense tweaks an aroma of bears -- monsters which can eat you. Funny feeling, not being confident about snacking at the top of the food chain.

Hedge your bets

  Alone in a kayak as the unforecast, torrential downpour's lightening strikes spin green aureoli in the Kings River around you -- the nearest gravel bar is your only haven. Squatting, wet in swim trunks, trying to hedge your bets against death by electrocution, you can't afford to think about all your rational associates who will barely notice the sudden autumn storm. Snug beneath their roofs, making their own weather with wall-mounted thermostats, they are deaf to your life-and-death moment while you hunker down, trying to make your body as small as possible as limbs and trees explode from damn-close lightening strikes.

  Being very still, and very alone, as if to die honorably and not in futile panic, the rain chills your bare skin. Two-hundred feet upstream, a doe inches her muzzle out of a sodden cane-break.

  Looking up and down the rain-shrouded river, she pauses before leading two fawns across the river. The rising current skews their crossing downstream until they are poised to touch the western bank where you squat. As they are about to step on you, you shake your head, radiating tendrils of rain into a mad aura. Alarmed, she eyes you with a withering look, spins and spooks her family into a hasty charge for cover.

  She has to be there. You chose to be there. There you are.

A world out of control

  The circumstances you share with wild animals go a long way toward insulating you from the hurly-burly of inconsequential distractions which clamor for attention only scant miles away, back in the unreal world of civilization. You shrink, shriveling into accepted submission, with only wits, experience, stamina and spirit to sustain you through a world obviously beyond your control.

  The Oregon climbers chose to live or die there.

  As the Montezuma, Colo. Mountain Gazette's motto advises, "When in doubt, go higher."