updated 11:24 a.m. ET Nov. 15, 2008

HOOD RIVER, Ore. - Shivering, weak and injured in a snow cave, on a mountain he and two climbing companions had tried to conquer, Kelly James managed to reach his wife on his cell phone.

"Hey baby," he said.

"Hi honey, I love you," Karen James said, fighting back tears from their home in faraway Dallas. Her husband hadn't been seen in days and she had feared he was dead, but now, hearing his voice, she wondered how long he could stay alive.

"You've got to be really strong," she said. "You've got to hold on."

She was on another line with the sheriff searching for the climbers. "It's going to take us awhile," he said. In the face of a blinding snowstorm that wouldn't quit, it would end up taking a week.

With her husband, Karen James tried to be reassuring and encouraging.

"The Christmas tree is all decorated, it's so pretty and I can't wait for you to see it," she said. "Stay awake, OK? I love you."

The conversation — six minutes, 42 seconds long — was their last.

Book released this week
Karen James spent more than a year reconstructing the disastrous December 2006 climb her husband made with Brian Hall and Jerry "Nikko" Cooke, and has written a book, "Holding Fast: The Untold Story of the Mount Hood Tragedy," which contains previously unreleased details and was released this week.

The climbers died after deciding to continue their attempt to reach the summit of 11,239-foot

Jessica Nunez / AP Kelly, left, and Karen James are seen in their Dallas home in this June 2006 photo, six months before Kelly and two other climbers died on Mount Hood.

Mount Hood, even as a winter storm packing wind gusts up to 130 mph began to move in. The search, which drew national attention, ended a few days after one body — James' — was recovered.

Karen James defends the climbers' decisions, saying the weather must have still looked good as they inched up the face of Oregon's tallest mountain.

"The guys were not stupid nor were they on a suicide mission," she wrote in the book.

They left behind some crucial gear at a hut so they could move more quickly: sleeping bags, snow shoes, and most of their food. They took only climbing essentials such as ropes, ice screws, ice axes and crampons.

Mistaken calculation
Leaving gear behind is not uncommon for experienced climbers who are making a quick ascent. But the three were mistaken in calculating they could make it to the summit and back down before the storm hit.

"All I can say is that they didn't prepare themselves for what did happen and that was that they would have to stay (on the mountain)," Hood River County Sheriff Joe Wampler, who led the search for the climbers, told The AP. "It was a matter of time and a lack of `just in case' preparation. That's my sadness."

Kelly James, a 48-year-old-Dallas landscaper, had made tougher climbs and had climbed with Hall for years. They and Cooke decided on Mount Hood after meeting on Mount Rainier in Washington a year earlier.

Hall, 37, was a personal trainer from Dallas. Cooke was a 36-year-old attorney from New York City.

They drove from Portland to a ski resort on Thursday, Dec. 7, and hiked to Tilly Jane cabin, at about the 5,700-foot level, where they spent the night. They had planned to camp higher up and start earlier but left a note saying a warm fire changed their minds.

The next day, they began the trudge up Eliot Glacier. At about 9,000 feet, they began the climb from the top of the glacier up the sheer north face.

With ropes and technical gear they headed up one of two steep couloirs, or gullies, that cleave the north face — a 2,500-foot vertical climb.

"The climb was designed to be an ice climb, so that's why they picked the gully," Wampler said. "There's rocks, snow, there's water. It is virtually a waterfall and it freezes up in the wintertime."

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