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L
climber
A chopper, baby...it's a chopper.
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Jul 24, 2008 - 01:32pm PT
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For those who don't do links:
Busy Weekend For SAR Volunteers
Written by Tom Woods
Monday, 21 July 2008
It was a busy weekend for Inyo County Search and Rescue.
A broken leg suffered on Mt. Whitney started out the weekend on Friday. The second call of the day was the search for an overdue fisherman in the Bishop Creek Drainage. SAR volunteers were sent up to search the creek near the Four Jefferies campground for signs of 75-year-old San Diego resident John Nelson. Nelson had gone fishing and not returned to camp by early evening.
Nelson was found deceased in the creek Friday evening and taken to the Brune Mortuary. Whether the man slipped and fell, or died of a medical condition then fell into the creek has not yet been determined, according to Leon Brune.
As that call wrapped up, the SAR volunteers headed to Mt. Whitney for a medical call on the trail. A ranger was walking the extremely cramped victim down the trail toward the trailhead. SAR team members put the sick man on oxygen, which helped him walk out. This mission was wrapped up by midnight.
Saturday, two hikers called 911 to report that they were stranded on a ledge high on University Peak above Independence. With daylight fading, the two were instructed to hang tight for the night. Three SAR volunteers started off before dawn to hike up to the men.
Early Sunday the rescuers spotted the two men from San Diego on a ledge between University Pass and University peak. The two had hiked to the top of University Peak, but took a different and incorrect path down from the peak.
Amid serious rock fall, the SAR volunteers climbed about 400 feet of fifth class rock to the men. After a refresher on rappelling techniques, the rescuers and the stranded men rappelled to the base of the peak and walked home via Robinson Lake. All were happy to be alive.
Thanks again, Tom, for all that you and the other SAR volunteers go through on behalf of helping people in need.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
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Jul 24, 2008 - 04:17pm PT
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"stranded"
why didn't they just plan on backtracking in the morning?
I know, monday morning quarter backing...
I'm just curious.
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tom woods
Gym climber
Bishop, CA
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Jul 24, 2008 - 06:58pm PT
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Besides almost dying, those guys were a pleasure to rescue. Real friendly and knowledgeable. They made a bone head move to get to where they were, but were smart to stay put in just about the only safe place around.
Like they said, big stuff was coming down on both side regularly. It was real scary. I don't know what lesson to take from the adventure. I get the shivers when I think about what could have been.
Powder and gravel was flowing pretty constantly down this chute above. We crossed right under the chute. The first spot we thought we'd climb we were chased out of by bad rock and marble sized rockfall.
We found a place to go up that was more sheltered and better rock. There we huddled in as a wave of baseball sized stuff shot down the chute.
I was ready to bag it right there, but was convinced to get climbing. We got up 150 feet or so when the microwave and fridge sized stuff started to come down. Very impressive to see stuff that size fly through air, landing hundreds of feet down the scree.
One team member huddled in a hole at the toe of the buttress. Damn I was glad when he finally yelled back that he was okay. There were a couple of more like that. Had they occurred 15 minutes earlier, who knows what would have happened.
The timing was real dangerous, because after the baseball stuff, came down we thought our rope up spot was pretty sheltered. We could have been wiped clean off.
I really don't know what lesson to take from this. We have to pass through rock fall areas all the time. I guess I've never seen anything like this before, but that talus has to come from somewhere.
Had we seen the big rock fall first, we would have called the chopper and left these guys to the timing of the choppers, which is unpredictable for many reason up to and including the weather and darkness.
We saw the smaller stuff, and while I didn't like it, we thought we could mitigate the hazard. Apparently we were right, but not by skill or reasoning, simply by luck.
Places we should not have been I guess, but how do you avoid them?
Happy to be breathing
Tom
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whatmeworry
Mountain climber
Pasadena, CA
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Jul 24, 2008 - 07:09pm PT
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What was causing that kind of rockfall?
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tom woods
Gym climber
Bishop, CA
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Jul 24, 2008 - 07:55pm PT
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Beyond Gravity and shitty rock, your guess is as good as mine. There have been some heavy rains sort of recently, but that was part of the problem, how were we supposed to know how bad it was going to be?
That being said, the two guys on the ledge tried to warn us, but I had no idea what their idea of huge was. After we got up to them and spoke to them, I realized they have been around the mountains quite a bit and knew what they were talking about. In fact the constant rock fall and fear of death is one of the major reasons they were ledged out.
Tom
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Jul 24, 2008 - 08:03pm PT
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Damn, Tom, glad everyone made it out o.k. That must've been pretty gripping.
Too bad about the old guy in the creek, I guess if he could have chose a place to go, that would have been it. Death always sucks though.
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kunlun_shan
Mountain climber
SF, CA
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Jul 24, 2008 - 08:29pm PT
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Tom, we climbed University Pass Friday, 2 days before your rescue, and traversed the S slope (below the S Ridge) of University to the summit. Basically did what these guys were trying to descend, but we came up the safe correct route. Blocks were dropping off the SE face all day long. Big crashes which left plumes of dust drifting up higher than the summit. As you say, some of those pieces were huge. Very continuous rockfall. I can't imagine going up or down that side with it like that. We dropped into Center Basin from there.
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