Monday, May 5, 2003 | 10:03 a.m.
AT A GLANCE
What: U.S. National Wrestling Championships
Where: Las Vegas Convention Center
When: Wednesday (11 a.m.-10 p.m.); Thursday (11a.m.-10 p.m.); Friday (9 a.m.-10 p.m.); Saturday (9 a.m.-3 p.m., Finals begin at 6 p.m.).
Tickets: Four-day passes are $150 (VIP), $65 (preferred), $45 (general admission) and $20 (students 6-17) -- call 866-418-0372 or 360-3739. Daily tickets, available at the door, are $35 (preferred), $25 (general admission) and $15 (students). Admission to Saturday night's finals are $25 (preferred), $20 (general admission) and $10 (students).
In February, Rulon Gardner returned to stare down a devil that, to his incredible fortune, had taken only a toe from him a year earlier.
"It was absolutely nasty," Gardner said. "The worst place I've ever been to, snowmobiling. This treacherous land, this place, it's just ... human beings shouldn't be able to go into there, that's how bad it was.
"It was so dark and negative, almost evil."
Gardner, a 2000 Olympic Greco-Roman heavyweight gold medalist, will participate in his most important event since Sydney at the U.S. National Wrestling Championships Wednesday-Saturday at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
"I look at it as one of the most important tournaments of my life, not just in wrestling," Gardner said. "I've come back from death, the other side, to where I am now, to be able to walk after losing one toe to amputation. I'm not quite 100 percent, but I've come back a long ways.
"I don't think there's anything bigger, especially in a first step. Maybe it's my last step. I've had a lot of pain and hurt in my feet, but they feel great compared to what I've been through. I have no complaints."
Returning to Mount Wagner was no choice for him.
Officially, that's the name of the 10,745-foot peak in the Bridger-Teton National Forest along the West-central edge of Wyoming, where Gardner drifted from a small party and was forced to spend a chilling night in February 2002.
Gardner calls it Wagner Mountain. What is unanimous is that humans do not belong there. Guides don't tout it, brochures don't glamorize a trail to it and postcards don't flaunt it. An exhaustive search on the Internet produced only a rough topographical map.
It has been Gardner's Wagner Sanction.
Seventeen hours after losing his way and enduring temperatures that bottomed out at minus 25 degrees, Gardner was rescued 15 months ago. Frostbite claimed the middle toe of his right foot, and he keeps it in a jar of formaldehyde at his parents home in Afton, Wyo.
Upon greeting visitors, he usually asks if they want to see his toe.
He is lucky to be alive. During the ordeal, Gardner tried desperately not to fall asleep, thinking that would lead to the big sleep. But he did drift off, into an epiphany.
Gardner recounts a vivid scene in which he saw God, Jesus and his late brother Ronald beneath him. In 1979, Rulon's older brother died at age 14 from aplastic anemia.
"It took every strength, every energy I had," Gardner said recently on his cell phone en route to the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. "The hand of the Lord gave me the power to survive that night. Personally, I didn't do anything great that night.
"It's the same way with wrestling. The Lord gives me everything. I made it out alive. I had that vision. I saw the other side, and I came back. They allowed me to live. I saw Ronald, and I knew everything was fine. I just asked for my life, to let me finish the dream."
Nobody has questioned his claim or doubted the validity of his vision. At least, not to his face.
"It's not for me or them to judge," Gardner said. "I saw what I saw. If people don't believe, just wait. Reality is coming. Fate is there. If people don't believe me, I have no problem with that. I know what I saw. Hey ... in the big scope of things, you're nothing."
Gardner says he's nothing but a farm boy from Wyoming who still is amazed by the celebrity windfall that followed his stunning performance in Australia. That came from a work ethic whose foundation is a relentless ability to rebound.
In his initial attempt to make an Olympic team, in 1996, Gardner failed. A year later, in his first match against Alexander Karelin, Gardner didn't score a point against the Russian legend.
He settled both scores in 2000, making the U.S. National Wrestling Team and then defeating Karelin, the three-time Olympic champion, for gold.
After the mishap that nearly killed him a year earlier, Wagner served as the next target on Gardner's to-do list three months ago.
Because of loose snow, Gardner and his pals could not follow the same path as they had hoped a year earlier. This time, there was no packed snow base, so snow slides could easily become avalanches.
"It was really, really, really dangerous," Gardner said. "But we went in to conquer the mountain and ended up being successful."
He paused, then retracted a word or two.
"I don't know if it was conquering. I don't think you can conquer Mother Nature," Gardner said. "In life, you go in and start a job, and you want to finish it."
He spent nearly two weeks in a hospital following his ordeal, ultimately losing the tips of both big toes, too. Pigskin was initially applied to his remaining toes, then skin grafts from a thigh. Every other day, went the routine, he'd change bandages and pluck dead tissue with tweezers.
On the mat, it is more difficult for him to get from Point A to Point B, and his range of motion is poor. The fine line between stretching the skin tissue on his feet and breaking ligaments in and around his toes is a constant challenge.
"I have to be careful," Gardner said. "I have to remember that my feet are hurting. I have to move a different way. I have to be better at positioning, at attacking, at almost everything ... that's the scary part."
Good friend Dremiel Byers, a 28-year-old North Carolina native in the U.S. Army who won the super heavyweight division at the 2002 World Championships in Moscow, is a possible foe at the convention center.
The two have spent hours upon hours studying videotape of other wrestlers, discussing strategy and planning schemes before big events. There will be no time for small talk this week.
"The question is, who will step up and take the challenge, who will stick to his game plan better and who's in better shape," Gardner said. "We have such a history of battles. The victor will be the one who doesn't make the extra mistake, or even one mistake.
"He's the returning world champion, but you can throw all the numbers out the side of the door. Numbers don't matter a lick."
The top seven placers this week advance to the U.S. World Team Trials in Indianapolis next month. Defending his Olympic gold in Athens next year would be a lofty achievement for Gardner, considering all he has been through.
Then again, so was returning to Wagner and finally standing on top of the mountain.
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