Mysterious Backpacks on Stuart's WR

[Jarred_Jackman]

Just throwing this out to see if I can locate the owners.  We found two backpacking style packs on the WR of Stuart the other day.  They were heavily sun faded.  Found them stashed in a small rock crevice below the West Horn more or less.  I went through the packs as they seemed out of place and as though they'd been there a while.  I was wondering if someone had abandoned them or maybe if someone was injured on the mountain.  We found a wilderness use permit "tag" that was dated 8/5/2017 with two names, Tim Pale or Pate, and Jim Schiller.  (This obviously told us that there wasn't a current emergency nearby.)  A quick internet search revealed that these two were in an accident on the mountain and had to be rescued via helicopter.  One actually lives in the same town as me, Camas, WA.  Crazy.  Anyhow, the packs are still there as is some random gear, a couple 30M ropes, etc.  If anyone knows these guys or if either Tim or Jim see this post, feel free to reach out to me.  If you'd like the packs back, they're not all that hard to recover if a person would be willing to pack them up to the summit and down the CC.  Otherwise, this just makes for an interesting piece of knowledge if you find yourself on the WR of Stuart and stumble upon a couple of mysterious backpacks.  

[Rad]

Very cool. Sounds like you solved the mystery yourself.

If those two were plucked from the mtn in a heli SAR probably told them to leave their packs behind.

Why don't you contact them directly yourself?

[mgetlin]

I saw those right before I got plucked off by a heli! 

[chucK]

I ran into a couple backpacks up there on August 3rd.  They were about where you mention them, on the rib West of Long John Tower, but they were not stashed in a crevice they were up on a rib.   Probably the same ones and somebody moved them in the 3 weeks since I'd been there?

I found an article on the web (maybe the one you found) https://www.ncwlife.com/injured-climber-airlifted-mt-stuart/  that is dated 8/8/2018 and notes the rescue was "yesterday".

So, maybe the dates don't match up?