On an April evening in 2017, a small single-engine plane disappeared into the mountains of Washington State.

Somewhere near 5,000 feet on the snow-covered face of Mount Jupiter in Olympic National Park, metal met rock.

A distress call cracked across the emergency frequency — faint, urgent, alive.

High above the Pacific Northwest, a Delta flight en route from Seattle to Shanghai heard it. The pilots relayed the call. A Navy search-and-rescue crew lifted off from Whidbey Island in an MH-60 helicopter.

By 6 p.m., rescuerson that ]steep, frozen, unforgiving.

Two men were pulled from the wreckage. One of them was Mike Mequio.

Mike was in serious condition. There was substantial damage to the plane. But that was just the beginning of this story.

Sometimes the mountains that almost take your life become the very place that can give it back.

Mike is a survivor.

A man who faced a mountainside once in chaos and fear but chose to return to the mountains on purpose.

Not in a cockpit.

Not in an emergency.

But step by step.

Finding his Everest.

This story is about survival, healing and rediscovering who you are when you choose to KEEP CLIMBING.