David Conroy from A Mountain Journey is very prideful and stubborn man, which ultimately leads to his own frozen death. Conroy is stubborn because he knows that it will become dark soon and that he needs to take a make a camp for the night, but he doesn’t because pride gets the best of him. His thoughts were that, “He should stop, make a fire, dry his hands and feet, change his socks and mittens.” But he changes his mind and thinks, “But it was late. It would mean siwashing for another night underneath a tree.”

Dave Conroy had a chance of surviving the trip to Hoodoo Mountain if he listened to his safer thoughts, rather than the thoughts pushing him to move on. Usually traits like prideful, ambitious, and determined are positive, but in this case they caused Conroy’s death.