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Adams - South route, avy conditions


Alex_Mineev

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Attitude said:

sobo said:Our info also sez that he was with a member of this board (who I will not name) that apparently is an experienced mountaineer,
Where was Lambone this weekend? crazy.gif

 

Well, it wasn't him. It'll be a long process of elimination if we go this way...

 

Oh, and snaf.gif

 

hehehehe

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vegetablebelay said:

sobo said:

 

Our info also sez that he was with a member of this board...

 

Is that a standard SAR question now or did he volunteer that? hahaha.gif

 

yellaf.gif Nope, but seriously, it is standard procedure for CWMR/SAR to ascertain the name(s) of the subject(s) of the search, and the name(s) of the reporting party (RP). When I heard the name of one of the RP members, I recognized it from this board.

 

Without express permission from that member, I don't think it's prudent for me to release any names (even though the local rag identified the subject of the search, but then again, that's the media).

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micajones said:

The three boys and thre girls, all in their 20's, were plucked from a ridge on St Helens. cantfocus.gif

 

Different mission altogether. We didn't get the page for that one. Too bad, I haven't had the opportunity for any helo ops yet. cry.gif

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The guy was from my party.

 

Yesterday when things settled down a bit and everybody got calm we run a postmortem on the incident.

Here is the sequence of events:

We camped under SB on Sunday evening two hours before dark that we used to run a standard self-arrest practice in the nearby bowl.

Woke up at 2.30am and started ascent at 3.45.

At 6 we reached the steep slope above launch counter. On the slope we split in two teams – Sergei (the lost guy) + Edward and Kate + me. Visibility was good. Trail was wide and perfectly visible. Everything was just fine. The reason for split was the wind. Kate and I were going faster than Ed and Sergei and we had to wait every half an hour for them freezing ourselves (we had more warm clothes in backpack but did not wear itbecause if you keep going it gets too hot and you start sweating that makes things even more uncomfortable). We checked that Sergei and Ed had enough water, clothes and GPS in their backpack and agreed that we (Kate and I) will meet them on our way down.

So far so good. Wind was getting stronger, we were getting higher. I was constantly checking both guys that followed behind with 40-50 minutes gap.

Kate and I reached the summit at 9.45, spent 15-20 minutes and started our way down.

We met Ed in 15 minutes – he was hiking the true summit. At this point cloud covered the summit and visibility degraded to may be a hundred meters (yards). I checked him how he feels and whether he is going to summit since the weather turned to a chilling wind with slight icy precipitation. He asked me how far the summit is – I said he’ll need 30 minutes. We also agreed that the cloud with precipitation will go away soon (it fact went of the summit in 10 minutes or so restoring good visibility). I told him that the trail up there is prominent and there are no cornices or other problems, we decided that he will make a couple pictures up there, meet Sergei and they both will immediately start going down _following_the_trail_.

I would expect that you ask me “Where was Sergei at this moment?” Sergei was 25 yards above us climbing 50-60 degree slope right below the summit. This was the moment when I did my first mistake. I should probably go for him and bring him down. Instead I was quite angry that he did such thing ignoring everything we talked about that mountain in the evening. I was quite tired, angry and getting cold again (we spent 10 minutes discussing things with Ed). I would also like to say that I have some experience, but not an expert level and may be not even moderate. Adams is my highest mountain on the moment. I just did not feel safe following Sergei. Later Sergei would explain to Ed that he wanted to test crampons and ice ax in ‘real conditions’…

That was the last time when I’ve seen everybody.

So at about 10.50-11.00 Kate and I continued going down, Ed and Sergei continued the final push.

They successfully reached the summit, snapped few pictures and started heading down.

Sergei says that on the way down he ‘practiced’ self-arrest couple times above the false summit.

Both Ed and Sergei agreed that Sergei was frequently leaving the trail to make pictures saying “go ahead, I’ll catch up”. Visibility was still Ok (I’ve seen pictures from Sergei’s camera). So… Ed was steadily going down checking from time to time that Sergei is still visible running across the false summit from side to side…

Here it is not very clear what happened, but as I understand Ed did not see Sergei for 30 minutes or so while he was going below the false summit thinking that Sergei is Ok, just behind the false summit. Ed also met few people going up. So he continued going down gradually getting anxious. At some point he understood that Sergei is missing too long and he also understood that he was too exhausted to go back up the summit and check. Keeping in mind that Sergei was always ‘practicing’ something he decided that Sergei could traverse the summit by its side or something…

We met Ed at 3pm below launch counter.

I tried to hike the top of SB to see if I can see Sergei and figured out that I was too exhausted. I did not make it.

I did not have equipment for crevasse rescue since I knew there would be no crevasses on our way. If I tried to summit again starting at 3pm I would reach the summit at 9pm in the best case and become another victim.

We gave 2 hours for Sergei to appear.

At 5pm we contacted 911.

At 5.30 Kate and I headed down to the car (cell phone batteries were off after 30 minutes of talking to 911 on analog roam), Ed left in the camp.

At 8pm I reached phone at Trout Lake gas station and called 911, then Yakima serif. We also called our friends and asked them to bring another fresh guy and pick up Kate. Friends arrived at 3am. First rangers arrived about 6am and stayed on the trailhead waiting for the rest. At 7am I and Mike (the fresh guy) started hiking back to SB to prepare me and Ed for another summit climb with rangers. We reached base camp at 9.30, started melting water. Rangers where following us with approx 40 minutes gap. At 9.45 rangers notified us that Sergei was found.

End of story.

 

When I asked Sergei why he did not follow his traces back to find the trail at the moment when he understood he was lost – the reply was “I was too tired, I decided to traverse the summit by its side (almost the same thing as Ed guessed) but later I encountered too steep slope and had to go down. I also saw ski traces going down (Mazama glacier) and decided to follow them”…

 

 

I would like to say thank you to all the rescue team. And say sorry for the disturbance that I caused by my mistakes.

Sergey feels good. His burned lips are already almost Ok.

 

The lesson is learned.

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Alex_Mineev said:

...story by one who was there snipped...

 

I would like to say thank you to all the rescue team. And say sorry for the disturbance that I caused by my mistakes.

Sergey feels good. His burned lips are already almost Ok.

 

The lesson is learned.

 

Your quite welcome, Alex. Don't worry about any "disturbance" that you think you might have caused. We are all volunteers, and we do it because we would like to think that we can help out sometimes. Sergey "found" his own self; we didn't do anything except bring him back to town.

 

I'm glad he's feeeling better. It was fun hanging out with him while waiting for your team to return.

 

Climb safely! bigdrink.gif

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