Messenger - Vol. 1, No. 3, Page 17 Spring 1992 Alumni Profile; Rescuer scales hill and dale The devastating effects of the '89 avalanche in the Breckenridge, Colo., ski area could be seen for miles. A wide swath of snow covered everything in the avalanche's path, including seven trapped skiers. Despite the poor weather conditions and the danger of a secondary snow slide, Sharon Robinson Dale, Delaware '82, and her co-workers set out to bring out the casualties. For eight years, Dale has been one of 25 year-round volunteers in the Vail Mountain Rescue Group. Trained to climb up the Colorado cliffs and down canyons and crevices to rescue lost hunters and skiers, injured mountain climbers and plane crash victims, the volunteers are on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Dale says the rescues sometimes involve four- to five-hour walks into the back country, sometimes through rain or snow. An accredited full-time ski instructor of adults and children in the winter months, Dale teaches disadvantaged youngsters from Chicago how to backpack in the summers. She traces her love of mountain climbing and backpacking to one of Delaware's Winter Session outdoor leadership courses, which she took while studying for her bachelor's degree in physical education. In her spare time, Dale likes to scale mountains. "Mountain climbing is a whole different experience," she says. "To reach the top gives me energy for the entire year." To train for a planned climb in February of the 26,000-foot-high Aconcagua Mountain in Argentina, the highest mountain in the Western hemisphere, Dale spent an hour every day, running up stairs with a pack on her back and working out with weights. "In mountain climbing, physical strength, not total aerobic fitness, is important," she says. -Cassandra Lassiter, Delaware '92