A Short Walk to the Edge of Life: How My Simple Adventure Became a Dance with Death--and Taught Me What Really Matters

It was supposed to be a simple day hike. Scott Hubbartt was a military veteran with years of survival training. Everyone who knew him considered him an expert adventurer.

But Scott’s trek into the treacherous backcountry canyons of the Peruvian Andes turned into a desperate fight to survive after he became hopelessly lost. As his eight-hour hike lengthened into days, Scott faced dehydration, hunger, and exhaustion. And that’s when his true journey began.

Scott Hubbartt enlisted in the Air Force at the age of seventeen and later became a decorated combat veteran who rose to the highest enlisted rank. Hubbartt is a graduate of the Air Force Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) School and the U.S. Navy Senior Enlisted Academy at Newport, Rhode Island. He also holds a master’s degree in history and Latin American studies from American Public University. Hubbartt and his wife, Carolina, a native of Perú, have three daughters and live near San Antonio, Texas.