Freeman

some of us who do rescue take it very seriously. On a good year (when we have the funding) our little unit does a week of Rigging for Rescue on our crags, a weekend of level 2 avy training, at least two or three rigging sessions, a self rescue practice, and several white board discussions. When we were doing long line we would train once a month with the helo. Throw in manditory BBP, helo ground school and first aid. And I consider every day that I'm climbing to be a form of training.... and we get tested when the phone rings in the middle of the night

Training bad habits only reinforces bad habits. In a recent self (partner) rescue "training" session the instructor condensed everything in Fasulo into three simple proceedures (escape the belay, assend the rope, counterbalanced rappel). We practice those frequently (even in the gym). I think I could help my partner if I had to. Freeman (29 years in mountain rescue - starting to grasp the basics)

Lowell, PM me your snail mail address and I'll send it to you. Ironically I had given the author your name as someone to contact about writing this article Freeman

Thats it. I ordered my standard street shoe/running shoe/ boot size and they fit perfectly.

I bought a pair last year primarily for water and glacier ice and they preformed well (at least I can't blame my boots). But I've started wearing them for alpine climbs too - wore them on on a three day peak bagging trip this weekend and had no problems. I can't hike very far in my plastics and I can hike all day in these. Warm enough, light enough, dry enought - what more can I say? There are two models and I have the stiffer one - I think that is the XT

Jens, altho I've been doing rescue in the central cascades for more than 25 years, I have real mixed feelings about this. The following are my personal opinions and do not represent any official position of my group. First, the most important thing that you and your buddies can do is to learn some "self rescue" technique (really "partner rescue"). The normal stuff from Fasulo's book - excape the belay, ascend to your injured parnter, rappel with her, pass knots - basically get yourselves as much out of trouble as possible. How many of us can do this? How many of us practice these techniques? How many of us actually have a plan of what we will do if things do turn to stink? Your choice of Stuart is interesting as there have been several "broken ankle" type accidents there the past couple of years. One involved a frequent poster here - he simply got himself off the mountain. Another involved a fall on Cascadian where the climber's partners carried and assisted her to a LZ where she was evacuated. One on the north side involved a pair of climbers who were two pitches up and the injured one had to be lowered two rope lenghts (passing a knot) to the glacier where the helo made a pick up. And as you know, one a few weeks ago that involved a couple of helicopters and several rescue volunteers. I'll talk about that one from the standpoint of the rescue dudes.... When we got the call the reported injuries where lacerations to the ankle, but that the victim was being helped down by her party from about the level of Long John Tower. We were air lifted by a military helicopter and winched to scree below LJT - the pilot had been given working ceiling of 8000 feet. We took in a paramedic, two volunteer rescue people, and had five more standing by in case we had to do a ground evacuation. We took a fairly complete medical kit, break apart litter, 300 foot static line, "lowering kit", and the normal sort of climbing gear. As it turned out none of that was really necessary - but we had it anyway. It turned out that the climber did have a non displaced fracture of the tibia and some fairly significant wounds. With air support (two helicopters) we were in and out in a few hours (and went cragging that afternoon). For a ground carry from the West Ridge I would have wanted 12 people minimum - 6 on the litter and 6 more ready to take over (or to pass the litter over obstructions). Think about carrying a litter from 8000 feet on the lower West Ridge thru Ingalls Lake and up to the pass where you could finally put a wheel on it for the trip down to the parking lot - is that something your buddies could do? The helo had a cutoff hour of 1200 and we just made that, otherwise we were going to press every climber and fisherman at Ingalls into being a litter bearer. On a recent mission on the North side of the mountain two military helicopters attempted to reach the climbers in deteriorating weather. Four people went in on the ground and three more were enroute. The ground party had litter, 300 foot static rope, etc. Three more were standing by to be lifted as high on the mountain as possible - they included an ER doc, and had another litter, medical kit, "hot pot" hypothermia device, 300 ft rope, and food. The climbers were able to get down with assistance, but again, would your buddies have access to the kind of gear that was available that day? I guess my thoughts on this is that if your buddies were volunteer members of their local SAR unit they could help you if needed with the training and equipment to really do some good. When they can fly helicopters can make the missions so much easier, but as we have discussed in other threads, they frequently are at their limits in the mountain environment. And granted, some of the SAR folks you will meet are pretty pathetic, but only by climbers joining and contributing their time and talents will we have a good pool of people to help. Last, and in summary, in our little area, the rescue dudes are the local climbers, so it doesn't matter whether I call my wife or the IC thru the sheriff - the same people will be coming. But if I call it thru the sheriff I will have the infrastructure to make it happen right. Either way I know that if I'm injured that the people who are coming to get me are trained and equipped. I'll probably recognize them when they get there. They ARE my buddies.

Thank you, Nick I'm glad you are both OK - I was one of the people who was on standby hoping to be airlifted as high on the mtn as possible on monday afternoon or tuesday. It may have seemed like nothing was happening but there were several different things going on to help you guys. One of the things we really have to work on is our collection of data from the reporting parties and our triage. We have a new emergency call center in Chelan and Douglas counties, but as you found out, they don't know anything about our mountains. Couple that with the fact that our sheriff has lost some of his best people to coordinate rescue efforts (altho you had one of the best as IC on yours) has made the work of the volunteers much more difficult. In addition, the military pilots are a wonderful asset but they don't know our mountains either. For example, we have an established LZ at about 7200 feet on the south side but they didn't know its coordinates. We're always trying to improve and appreciate your feedback. Freeman One of the first times I climbed that route in about 1980 my partner was hit in the head by rockfall at the sandy ledges and, without communications to the real world, we had to get over the top and down the south side. Fortunately his injuries were not severe and the weather was good. I can only imagine what you guys were going thru with your weather.

An old TR from over at Eric's Basecamp Eric's Golden Horn / Tower Mtn Link

Ten mile hike up the PCT from Rainy Pass. Golden Horn is a scramble (slightly exposed at top), Tower is 5.fun. I've done Golden Horn in a long day from Wenatchee, altho the little lakes below (Snow Lakes on the map) would be a wonderful camp. Follow a trail that leaves the PCT at a horse camp.

Nick, I'm going to play devils advocate. If you did not have a cell phone how would that have changed your thinking and actions?

You are welcome. And thanks for the offer of help. To put the whole helicopter limitation thing in perspective as you know there was a fatal crash in the alpine lakes on wednesday. It sounds (and I'm getting this strictly thru the news) that the pilot was long lineing some supplies to fire fighters on the ground when the tail rotor hit a snag. My understanding is that a 205 (Huey) is a hard ship to fly vertical reference solo - most of the time they would have a spotter. That is one of the things that makes the whole winch operation so much more difficult - the winch operator is giving the pilot instructions on where to move the ship - the pilot is looking straight forward out the window. Amazing stuff when it all works...

You get the best part of the West Ridge (from the notch) without all the loose ledges. I don't remember any 5.8 when we did it many years ago. go get it and post a TR

I was involved in a rescue on Razorback two years ago. One of the climbers said that this thread was part of their decision to climb it. It is interesting that I was also one of the posters on the thread recommending the climb. I still recommend the climb....

West Ridge rescue thread

Josh, as others have said the warmer air is less dense (as it is as you get higher) so the helicopter has less lift. In addition, it takes a lot more power to hover than to fly forward. The pilot does an "altitude density" check before he takes off - calculates his gross weight, the amount of power he will have to hover, etc. He may fly around a bit to burn off fuel before going into hover. Also if you watch mountain pilots when they take off they will hover close to the ground "in ground effect" where they get lift off the air cushion below them, then start flying forward as quickly as possible. Its pretty spectacular to dive off a ridge to get air speed but its being done for a reason. The military likes to winch people in and out of the helicopter but that means they are in hover for long periods of time, usually close to the rocks where they are dealing with funky winds and rotor clearance. Many rescue teams use "long line short haul" to minimize the time in hover. Sno County, Parks Canada, and many others use this technique to insert and remove rescue people and victims. Our avy dogs and handlers are even trained to fly on the end of a 100 foot rope. These helicopters are wonderful machines and they completely change the dynamics of rescue but they have some very big limitations. I was watching the pilot's hands as he held hover with the wind blowing up his tailpipe while we were being winched in and let me tell you - that guy rocked! sorry about the thread drift....

Steve, the MAST people were given a working altitude of 7000 feet on saturday. They requested and were give permission to go to 8, but couldn't get close enough for a pick off. They actually did a little work saturday evening with NVG's but it was determined that the victim needed to be brought down to either a landing zone or a safe winch location. Mountain rescue was activated late saturday night and had a paramedic to the victim sunday morning, with additional assistance behind him. With the rapidly warming weather MAST gave 1200 noon as their cutoff for a winch extraction. After that it would have been a ground carry at least to the Ingalls meadows. CCMR had 5 more people standing by and we probably would have pressed every climber and fisherman at Ingalls into service for a carry. Some of the extra helicopter activity was the Chelan County ship ferrying personnel (we do not have winch or long line capability on that ship) and a run to Wenatchee for fuel. Everything went well and she was picked up a bit before noon. We didn't know of the extent of the injury until she got to CWH. My hat is off to everyone that helped - particularly her party and the other climbers who gave up their day to help one of their own. And the National Guard totally rocked on this one - I think they said the pilot and crew chief were from Wisconsin.

A cimber fell an estimated 50 - 60 feet on saturday from below Long John Tower on the West Ridge of Stuart, and sustained ankle injuries and lacerations. Her party, other climbers and CCMR assisted her to 7000 feet where she was winched by MAST and transported to CWH in Wenatchee. She had a non-displaced fracture of the tibia and a fairly significant wound on her ankle. She was treated and released.

At peak rafting season the Wenatchee runs 6K+ cfs and is now well under 2. Most folks are floating it in inner tubes. The Methow is way down (altho a friend said they played in the Black Hole last weekend in a kayak and duckie). So until they start dumping Rimrock into the Tieton there isn't much on this side. The "flip-flop" or "flush" is kind of interesting. As I understand it they purposely lower the Yakima for fish spawning - if they keep the river high (as they do now for irrigation) the eggs would be out of water when it goes down in the winter. To make up irrigation water they dump Rimrock Lake down the Tieton, which goes to spring runoff level for two or three weeks. Boaters come from all over the northwest as its the only game in town. Party time - boating, climbing, biking, then do it all over again. Both Osprey and River Riders as well as several other commercial companies will take your money and give you a ride. Probably not a great river for a newbee as its fairly continuous with brushy banks and few eddies. But it is a great raft trip.

John, no I was with a friend who lives in Revelstoke and had the local knowledge of the new rap line. We debated doing it in two days and adding Uto, but our weather window opened for one so we went for it. Pretty hard on an old man's knees... Downclimbed the upper ridge for a while until a little notch - then went straight down the face for 5 or 6 30 meter raps. There was one other party with us and we felt it faster for the first person to rap with the second rope and start rigging the next one while everyone else rapped and pulled - the stations were just 30 meters apart. They were great but very hard to see - no webbing or color and several times the first person had to swing back and forth until he found the anchor. We were going to suggest that the bolts be painted or some color added somehow. From the last rap we had a couple hundred feet of loose ledges and snow back to the trail. Great climb - moderate but exposed on really great rock. I had wanted that one for many years and it was great to get up it finally. When we got back to Revelstoke it started raining and that evening my friend passed a kidney stone so our decision to do it in a day was the right one.

Most of the rafting companies on the east side have shut down for the season until fall - when they run the Tieton during the "flush". That is highly recommend - continuous fun class 2 with two great little 3's and a small dam to run. Contact any of the Leavenworth raft companies for more info. Plus you can do a little climbing or mtn biking after your river run.

[quote discussing the new rappel route on Sir Donald When we did Sir Donald last year the new rap stations were a little difficult to locate. Has that been improved? We felt they would be almost impossible to find in a storm or dark when you might really need them. btw - it took us 19 hrs car to car - and I'm 59. I might be old but I make up for it by being slow.

Good question. Is perlon static? I could be wrong about the shock absorbtion (other than the prusik knot slipping). Obviously I've never fallen on my purcell...

No, just skied this time. The traverse to Coney Lake is a pretty nice way into the Rat Lakes later in the year. Each fall we do a cross Enchantment day hike - this is one option that drops directly into Temple Canyon on the way out.

FWIW after reviewing the impact forces on a static tie in (sewn daisy chain) I started using my shorter Purcell Prusik for an adjustable way to clip anchors. I keep it girth hitched to my harness and adjust to the situation. The nice thing is that in a fall it will be dynamic - even if you forget to unclip, climb above your anchor, then fall(fall factor 2). I use 6 mm cord since I also use it as a standard prusik but 7 mm works just as well.

The breaking strength of 9/16 climb spec runners is given in one source as 2250 lbs (10 kN) and 9/16 spectra as 6075 lbs (27 kN). It is likely that this short factor 2 fall would be enough to fail the runner. The source did not say if this was sewn, tied, or just the breaking strength of the webbing - it did call it "impact force and breaking strength that...components... can withstand".