Captain...or Skully

It took a Boise Fire Department rescue team at least 45 minutes to carefully walk the climber out of the ravine he fell into Tuesday, Capt. Randy Barnack told reporters.

Firefighters and medics responded to a ravine in the Black Cliffs along Highway 21, about a half-mile east of the diversion dam, after a noon call to dispatchers.

The 56-year-old “was climbing up there with a partner, and something went wrong and he ended up taking a fall,” Barnack said.

At first, it was tricky to find the man’s location, he said: “There’s a lot of Black Cliffs along Highway 21 so we had a little confusion which section he was on.”

Led by a Boise Fire technical team, rescuers hiked about 15 minutes up to the man’s location, loaded him into a stretcher and began the slow trek back.

“This is an extremely dangerous area to walk down carrying someone who's already injured,” Barnack said. “So not only are we trying to take care of the person who was hurt, but we’re trying to make sure the rescuers don't get hurt. The trail the first-responders used is no more than 2 feet wide in many places, meaning the six people carrying the stretcher (with help from a larger team) were walking on rocks. At one point, the route grew so steep that they had to secure the stretcher with a rope.

At the bottom, they brought the stretcher across one side of the highway, through the median to a waiting air ambulance that flew the man to a nearby hospital.

Barnack wasn’t sure how far the climber fell. He appeared to have a head injury; Barnack said he was “obviously injured” but awake and talking.

His name and condition were not immediately available Tuesday.

130 footer ripper!!!