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Russ Walling
Social climber
from Poofters Froth, Wyoming
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Apr 10, 2013 - 12:22am PT
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Just a couple quick adds here:
Edge: the Japanese on the Nose... The way it played out was the leader got to the anchor right near the top and was not involved in a fall nor was hanging in space. He clipped the anchor with his gear sling only and then slumped onto it. It was speculated that his partner, the one under the tarp (I'm pretty sure to positive there was no portaledge) may have even jugged up the line, inadvertently "hanging" his partner in the process. He was probably toast before the jugging is the thought on that one. Me and Bill Russell were the pluckers on that one, with Werner being cargo net guy.
Edit: It is all coming back to me now... his partner did jug all the way up to the leader, on his neck basically, and brought the tarp with him. They were both under it and died there. At the anchors below was the haul bag, with some less than adequate storm gear, but if I recall, in a dry location. They made a summit run and did not make it I guess.
I was on the Zodiac rescue portion of the deal above too and was the guy lowered down to the vics. There was no frostbite and they were bone dry when I got there and even offered me a bagel! I was lowered on twin lines, pretty far as I recall, maybe 700ft?. They jugged out and I cut the bags loose with a very sharp knife. Dill went nuts, but it seemed like the best thing to do at the time. F*#k hauling that sh#t out and being there all night pulling on a cord. The ranger Dan Dellinges (sp) was running the top scene and made me wear his exposure suit, just in case I could not get out by nightfall... so I'm jugging the line in this f*#king down suit with both ends of the fat static lines hanging on me... thought I was going to have a stroke. I think it was like 700ft of line X2 or something. F*#king heavy! We top out and then I think it was me and MCDevitt and maybe Billy that had to remove all the fixed lines that led back the the summit camp. We were postholing in snow and coiling ropes as we went back to the summit. We looked like rope covered Michelin men by the time we got to the summit camp, about midnight. What a gasser. We were totally spent, and all the dinner was gone, as were the sleeping bags and ensolite pads. Trail crew did not bring enough sh#t up there and we were out of luck. Billy Russell had a bivy sack and dug a hole in the snow and layed down in it. I had nothing and just layed down on the snow and called that a bivy. The next am is when we got the Japanese off the wall.
Another one Werner will remember: Some dudes(solo dude?) on the Prow are supposedly dying in a snow storm. Me and Dimitri honk it up the North Dome Gulley as the blitz team and I have an umbrella tucked in the back of my Hawaiian shirt for rain gear.... they decide the ship from Lemoore can fly and bring it in.... the helo guy does this insane one skid thing right on the tip of the Column and has like no clearance between trees in a high wind... we are hiding behind a rock figuring he is going to stuff the bird any second... anyway, rescue gets completed and we are waiting for the ride down. Weather has gotten worse... ship comes back in and for sure looks like it is going to crash this time. We are still hiding behind the big rock and get the wave to get on the ship... Werner says "no f*#kin way man!" and decides right then to go back down the North Dome Gully, in the snow, with like a cordalette and 3 nuts or something. No way I'm hiking down so we bail for the ship. I get like 3/4 of my mass in the door and the pilot peels away from the cliff at some insane angle and drops like a rock. My f*#king esophagus is now about 2 feet outside my mouth and I was sure we were all dead. He flattens out the drop and cruises back to the LZ. Holy sh#t, that one was desperate.
I bet The Chief has a ton of these as I think he was a Lemoore Navy guy BITD. Hell, might have been on some of these as the timeframe is just about right.
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WBraun
climber
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Apr 10, 2013 - 12:29am PT
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Yes Rick it was Ron.
Also Yabo was not there.
I didn't pick him. i picked everyone but him for some strange reason.
Yabo was so pissed at me for that for awhile.
Me and Ron flew first flight to the top to size up where we needed to lower from at the top.
We couldn't see sh!t because it was socked in with clouds.
So I just made an educated guess based on previous knowledge.
As you know we lowered one rope with no one on it and miraculously it made it right on top of them even though we were going visually blind due to the clouds .....
Edit: Russ .... that's some funny sh!t you wrote. LOL
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Rick A
climber
Boulder, Colorado
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Apr 10, 2013 - 01:09am PT
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Reilly,
I have no way to judge whether Hoover's conclusions about the causes of that particular accident and particular 1990s model of helicopter are well supported by the facts, subject to debate, or just wrong. He writes persuasively though, cites his sources, and you certainly cannot doubt that he was sincere.
Products liability cases like that are battles waged between experts, so I'll bet Hoover had listened to hours of expert opinion before he wrote the letter.
Regardless, the value of the letter to me is Hoover's remembrance of Bev Johnson, who I talked to only on that day up on Half Dome.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Apr 10, 2013 - 01:13am PT
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Best thread going on ST right now- and best thread in quite some time.
Roger Ebert gives it 5 stars.
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Leggs
Sport climber
Home away from Home
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Apr 10, 2013 - 01:26am PT
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Best thread going on ST right now- and best thread in quite some time.
Roger Ebert gives it 5 stars.
best thread... by far...
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BooDawg
Social climber
Butterfly Town
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Apr 10, 2013 - 03:23am PT
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What about the Pete Sprocher rescue off Sentinel Rock? Was that the first heli-assisted rescue? 1965 or '66. I think he and Joe Faint (?) were on the Steck-Salathe and a rock fell on Pete and pinned him beneath it. Joe used webbing, I think, to wrap around the rock and attached the slings to some anchors, bolts, I think, that he placed above Pete and the rock pinning him. Then Joe used his hammer as a turnbuckle to lift the rock off of Pete, meanwhile calling to the Valley below for help.
Was a chopper used to ferry the rescue team to the summit of Sentinel? I believed they lowered rescuers from the summit to reach Pete, and they winched him up from there. I wasn't involved in the rescue, but I did visit Pete in Lewis B. Memorial Hospital in the Valley where he had a compound fracture of one of his legs where the rock had landed on and pinned him.
Edit: Yes, Julia, you got that right. I hope you are looking forward to a great spring-summer season.
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hossjulia
Trad climber
Where the Hoback and the mighty Snake River meet
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Apr 10, 2013 - 08:40am PT
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Ah Boo Dawg, stayed up late to read the whole thing?
I could not and left it open on my browser to finish with my morning coffee.
Great thread. I remember reading about many of these accidents after the fact. Very cool to read about them first person.
I was working for Paul Ramer when the Ruby Mtn.s incident happened. Sobering. He had been telling me how great the skiing was in the Rubies.
Condolences to the departed friends and family's.
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BooDawg
Social climber
Butterfly Town
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Apr 10, 2013 - 11:45am PT
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You could be right, Kevin; obviously my memory has fogged up with the passage of time. Yes, it was quite a tale, especially the lifting of the rock with the makeshift turnbuckle. Very ingenious and resourceful. I hope someone else chimes in here to fill in the details.
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BooDawg
Social climber
Butterfly Town
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Apr 11, 2013 - 12:50am PT
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Perhaps Werner or John Dill or Jessie could search the YOSAR archives to see if there is any record of the Spoecker incident. Obviously, if they got down on their own, there might be no record at all.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Apr 11, 2013 - 01:18am PT
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I have to think that Tom Carter @ the Ruby Mtn operation will join in, but perhaps not. It was so painful and the legal debacle lingered over years such that one more word might be too much today. I think that this tale might have all been told in previous old threads here, as well.
I remember Pete Spoecker. (note the spelling) He was all gung ho at Indian Rock for a while and then like such types, got nearly killed on that climb. I think he had been climbing only three years, maybe even fewer. He was entranced with pitch difficulty too. Really hyper and compulsive, I should say. After, he quit, for all we knew. He was a friend of Steve Herrero. Steve later became some world expert on bears up in Canada/Alaska. At Berkeley, he was doing some research on THC.... I did Matterhorn Peak in the dead of winter with him and Dave Trantor. I was an adolescent then and these what seemed old geezers were thrilled to have me along. -15 F at night below the summit where we had a camp deep in the snow. For those who don't know, Joe Faint has left us some while ago.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Apr 11, 2013 - 01:44am PT
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Clint, there might have been a subsequent ascent. Spoecker was injured climbing. They were going for "time", as I recall. Ever so long ago, however.
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Dr.Sprock
Boulder climber
I'm James Brown, Bi-atch!
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Apr 11, 2013 - 04:31am PT
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any good car wrecks in the valley?
like a tour bus going off glacier or getting stuck in a Taft Point crevasse?
anybody remember the meat wagon that got stuck in the tree with the accident victim?
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Apr 11, 2013 - 05:29am PT
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Clint, there might have been a subsequent ascent. Spoecker was injured climbing.
Good point, Peter. Roper's Camp 4 has the accident date as 6/24/1965, so it was indeed 10 days after his ascent with Steve Herrero.
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John Duffield
Mountain climber
New York
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Apr 11, 2013 - 01:52pm PT
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I’ll never forget being ferried up, two passengers at a time, in the glass bubble cockpit of the Bell B-1, my first ride in a helicopter.
It was an “E-ticket ride” as the old saying went,
My first chopper ride was strapped into the wire basket outside of one of these. "E Ticket" (I'm old enough to have bought these) is right. I was trying not to drown in my own vomit.
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tom Carter
Social climber
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Apr 11, 2013 - 02:18pm PT
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Peter -
I actually wrote a few thoughts down yesterday. Reviewed them, and had second thoughts about posting the story. So many details.
It can all be reduced.... Life is simple, life is complex - and I don't know if the details would shed any light on the event. I do not feel more regs would prevent that particular accident. But that is solely my opinion.
On a more positive note - Can we turn this into a heli-rescue thread ?
How about getting FBIII (Frank Brown the 3rd) or anybody involved in his heli rescue from the Arrowhead Chimney to post up? That one had Frank white knuckled for sure - and a happy ending too!
TC
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Alan Rubin
climber
Amherst,MA.
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Apr 11, 2013 - 03:37pm PT
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Very good thread. The mentions of Pete Barton (and Peter Haan's great picture of him)bring back many fine memories of a summer spent with him in the Valley and great sadness at his loss. Even though I really only knew him that summer he was an all-around great guy---he became a good friend and I still miss him very much.
Earlier in the thread there was a query about the first helicopter rescue in the Valley. While I doubt it was the first, I remember a rescue on the East Buttress of El Cap during the summer of '72.I know that Bridwell got a group of us together and we went up to the base of the buttress prepared to do a ground-up rescue, but the chopper was able to winch the climber off without our assistance. I don't recall if the victim survived the accident.
Later that summer I had my only helicopter rides during the recovery of Roger Park's body from the upper part of the Salathe-Steck---another friend sadly lost doing our sport. We were ferried one at a time up to the top of Sentinel in the little Bell "bubble". The pilot made a one skid "touch landing" right at the edge of the north face and we had to get out quickly but gently so that the bird didn't wobble out of control. I remember being chided for too hasty an exit!!!Leaving was worse as the chopper didn't even really touch a skid and we had to get in--again quckly but gently--while it was hovering and before I had fully entered the cabin we were already over the Valley and headed down toward the meadow. I remember that Charlie Porter, and maybe others, elected to descend the gully rather than take the ride. It was an amazing flight but for the sadness of our mission.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Apr 11, 2013 - 04:03pm PT
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Yeah, Alan. Rescues can be the wildest combinations of emotions we experience as "people". They often are so exhausting psychologically even if the victim is not at all hurt and in desperate, desperate shape.
Let's not forget we had a Peter Barton thread some years back, by the way. The sister in law of Peter Barton, a LauraB set up a thread:
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1288723&msg=1293445#msg1293445
She opens it with:
Hi all! My husband is Peter Barton's youngest brother, who was 16 when Peter died. I am trying to find out information about the accident, how, when it happened. It sounds like from old posts that some of you were there! What can you tell me about the accident? About what Peter was like? Does anyone have pictures of Peter? Thanks for your help!! Laura
And the thread chugged along, got 17 posts and was a good effort by all. Poignant as hell that PB expired. Of all the people, he would have been the least likely to meet his maker back then. A quietly witty, reasonable, diligent young man doing his best in a very modest way.
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