catbirdseat Posted March 17, 2006 Share Posted March 17, 2006 Here's your last chance to get out and do that winter climb. No excuses now. We have good weather and decent avalanche forecast. I want to see some trip reports on Monday! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weekend_Climberz Posted March 17, 2006 Share Posted March 17, 2006 How about a ski trip report? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G-spotter Posted March 17, 2006 Share Posted March 17, 2006 Yeah, there was ~30cm of fresh yesterday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raindawg Posted March 17, 2006 Share Posted March 17, 2006 I want to see some trip reports on Monday! And if there aren't any??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catbirdseat Posted March 17, 2006 Author Share Posted March 17, 2006 Hey you don't have to be Zack Hoyt to get out and enjoy some winter climbing in the Cascades. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MCash Posted March 17, 2006 Share Posted March 17, 2006 How about a ski trip report? Skiing is gay. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G-spotter Posted March 17, 2006 Share Posted March 17, 2006 So's dying in an avalanche. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dt_3pin Posted March 17, 2006 Share Posted March 17, 2006 Hey you don't have to be Zack Hoyt to get out and enjoy some winter climbing in the Cascades. holy crap, homey looks worked Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G-spotter Posted March 17, 2006 Share Posted March 17, 2006 he looks kinda like specialharry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kurthicks Posted March 17, 2006 Share Posted March 17, 2006 (edited) and scurlock comes through for inspiration! new uploads today! http://www.pbase.com/nolock/inbox Edited March 17, 2006 by wazzumountaineer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catbirdseat Posted March 17, 2006 Author Share Posted March 17, 2006 Accomplishments like this don't come every day. In case you haven't read it already: An updated artical from the Petersbur Pilot Historic climb and heroic rescue on Devil's Thumb Klas Stolpe March 16 , 2006. "Not so good,” came the last words at 10 am Tuesday morning from Zac Hoyt’s satellite radio phone on the frozen ice under the towering mountain known as Devil’s Thumb in southeast Alaska. He was responding to a question by his close friend Dieter Klose asking how things were going. Hoyt, 30, had just completed the first winter ascent of Devil’s Thumb. In the world of mountaineering that is one of the greatest feats, and he had done it solo. “Top of the world,” were the words Hoyt said to his dear friend Dieter Klose as he called from the summit of 9,500-foot tall Devil’s Thumb, a rock and ice encrusted mountain across Frederick Sound from Petersburg. The northwest face of the mountain has never been successfully summitted. Over 39 climbing parties have gone to Devil’s Thumb, 15 have summitted on routes other than the northwest face. There have been three fatalities on the northwest face and one on another route. Although he had pulled the climb off without a hitch, his words spoken before the sat-phone lost reception worried his best friend. “With that, knowing Zac as he’s one of my very best friends,” Klose stated. “He’s the master of understatement. I knew ‘not so good,’ meant ‘pretty darn bad.” Hoyt had eaten breakfast Saturday in Petersburg where he is employed by the Alaska Department of Fish & Game as a fisheries biologist and diver. His climb started at 7:00 AM and by noon Saturday he was on the summit of Devil’s Thumb where he made his first phone call to Klose. “He just called to check in, to just say, ‘hey, I’ve done it,” Klose stated. “We agreed he would call, that it would be pretty cool.” Hoyt followed what is known as the Krakauer Route, named after Jon Krakauer who climbed that path in 1977, the mountain’s first solo ascent. It’s a straightforward snow face followed by a traversing climb and lots of exposure, 2700 hundred feet of technical climbing without a rope, meaning a climber could look down a long ways. Hoyt did four rappels and the rest was down climbing on this southeast face of Devil’s Thumb. Hoyt called again from a ‘high camp’ at 4:00 PM where he spent the night on the upper ice cap above the Baird Glacier. Mid-day Monday he fell 100 feet into a crevasse, injuring his shoulder. He had minimal but essential gear, including just one ice axe to climb out. He spent the night in the crevasse, which was just wide enough for his one-man tent. This was when he made his last contact to Klose, stating he was in the middle of the icefall and things were not going well. At the time of the last phone contact, Klose took action. He called Foggy Mountain climbing shop in Juneau and reached Ryan Johnson and two friends, who had climbed Mt. McKinley. They were packed and ready in two hours and on the afternoon jet. “In the end I can’t say it was a life and death situation if we wouldn’t have gotten him,” Klose stated. “I suspected it may have been the case, seeing the conditions we had in town and knowing he was in a spot with harsh weather. Zac was totally prepared, completely experienced, the kind of person to be doing this with the knowledge and the equipment to pull this off. Zac Hoyt is an incredible athlete, this feat would be heralded in Europe, and will be in the climbing community. He wasn’t some bozo up there, he’s a really sharp climber… but the scales tipped.” Klose was on the Coast Guard helicopter to rescue Hoyt on Tuesday and first spotted his tent below. “It was a completely terrifying experience for me,” Klose said with misty eyes. “I was at the open door, strapped in and looking out because the window kept frosting. It was an incredibly heroic performance by those pilots. The next thing I knew he (Hoyt) was in and next to me.” “This is a one shot deal, if you can’t get your boots on forget them,” United States Coast Guard LCDR Bill Timmons said via VHF to Hoyt in the tent below the hovering H60 Coast Guard helicopter. “Get in the basket if you can, we only have one shot at this.” Winds were sustained at 40 knots and gusted to over 60 with reduced visibility and blowing snow. Moderate to severe turbulence was over Burkett Glacier. Temperatures outside the helicopter were minus 30 degrees Celsius. At 100 feet above the stranded climber and 5,400 feet above sea level, the hoist would be a daunting task. “We’ve never encountered anything like this before,” Timmons commented Wednesday by phone interview. “We were trying to maintain a stable hover… we had very little visual cues… our power required to stay safely in flight was right at our margins. From a pilot perspective, from an aircrew perspective, we pushed ourselves to our maximum limits… with respect to our training standardization. We operated at the edge of the operating envelope of our H60’s capabilities. There was very little margin of error, if any at all.” The chopper pulled away for better visibility and then radioed their final request. It was too risky even to lower the rescue team onto the ice. The chopper again hovered into position. After clambering into the basket, Hoyt was safe in the chopper in 30 seconds. “Dieter was instrumental in the rescue,” Timmons said. “His knowledge of the area was crucial… he was right on within a half-mile. It was the smartest thing we did taking him on the chopper. Trying to find a tiny tent in those conditions at that altitude was like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. We would have been jeopardizing the safety of anyone lowered onto that location… there was no guarantee the weather would improve.” Added Timmons, “I’ve never been any more proud, in my twelve years of flying, than at the end of yesterday’s rescue. Our crew and our helicopter operated to its maximum capabilities… we were at the edge of our envelope but we were able to get the mission done and save someone’s life. There was a lot of relief and a lot of joy when we got back to Petersburg. As Coast Guardsmen we craft our skills for rescue off the water… I’d never envisioned this type of rescue, on a high mountain, when I enlisted.” “I spent 45 minutes on the summit, enjoying everything,” Hoyt stated Wednesday from his hospital room at Petersburg Medical Center. With 15 years of experience and climbs in the Alaskan Range, New Zealand, Patagonia, and many mountains in the western United States, Hoyt is considered one of mountaineering’s better alpinists. “You could see town… Fairweather, Glacier Bay, the big mountains in Canada, Baranof… and to see everything in winter white was truly magical. It’s my life, it’s my passion, it’s what drives me forward… it’s what I love… it’s what I waste all my money on.” His hands bandaged because of frostbite, Hoyt spoke of the particulars of his ordeal. Leaving his base-camp at Devil’s Thumb, heading northeast toward Burkett Glacier, Hoyt was on an icefall that loses elevation between the two. Wearing skis and pulling a sled carrying his pack he fell through a snow bridge 100-feet into the ice crevasse. “Uh oh,” Hoyt said his first thoughts were as he lay amidst the ice and snow. The following hours would be incredibly daunting as he struggled against fatigue and falling snow. “I felt like I wasn’t going to make it through the night… I thought I was going to drown in snow. It was pouring in nearly as fast as I could shovel… my hands have paid for that.” In the morning he began to climb out of the crevasse using his single ice tool, trailing a rope, he made his last sat-phonecall, rappelled back in to retrieve some gear, climbed back out, each trip taking 45 minutes. “It was one of my most technical and toughest climbs,” he said. “Basically just two hands on one axe, heaving up, getting your feet locked… trying to grab onto something to reset the axe and then doing it all over again…” He pulled his gear to the surface and tried to reestablish himself, and began making plans of attempting to ski on. Weather conditions forced him into the tent. “When I first heard that helicopter I didn’t think there was any way I was actually leaving on that helicopter,” Hoyt said. “The conditions were too poor, a complete blizzard…” Unable to get his boots on and told of the final attempt by the chopper, Hoyt abandoned the tent and jumped into the basket, holding on as hard as he could. The struggle would not end just by getting into the basket. The winds slammed Hoyt into a serac once the hoist began. “I was pretty overwhelmed having Dieter, my best friend, right there,” Hoyt said of being inside the chopper. “The comfort of him and the helicopter and knowing I was safe.” Hoyt’s injuries include a possible torn rotator cuff and frostbite on his fingers and thumbs. “I just want people to know how thankful I am to everybody that was involved,” Hoyt stated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weekend_Climberz Posted March 18, 2006 Share Posted March 18, 2006 I vote for an injuries and accident board. Anyone else? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G-spotter Posted March 18, 2006 Share Posted March 18, 2006 Hey you don't have to be Zack Hoyt to get out and enjoy some winter climbing in the Cascades. holy crap, homey looks worked what's the thing up and left of his head, a big hunk of frozen horsecock? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kurthicks Posted March 20, 2006 Share Posted March 20, 2006 I want to see some trip reports on Monday! done. TR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catbirdseat Posted March 21, 2006 Author Share Posted March 21, 2006 Right on, brother. I got mine too, modest though it may have been. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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