Tumbling Headlamps

[tread_tramp]

I don't know whether tumbling headlamps are part of the 'Muir On Saturday' phenomanom. But two guys I spoke with at the Muir hut yesterday morning claimed to have seen the headlamps of falling and tumbling climbers above 13k on the DC route. One set of lights appeared to have fallen towards the Emmons Glacier before vanishing. And a set of headlamps, which appeared to be a team going to assist the first fallen climbers, fell towards the DC route before vanishing, presumably into a crevasse. As we were getting up yesterday morning, with plans to move our camp to Ingraham Flats, we saw a mass exodus of climbers returning to Muir with reports of fallen climers high on the mountain. As the morning progressed there were conflicting reports of the route being closed, Rangers turning people back above 13k, and the route being open. An army helecopter spent a significant amount of time scanning the upper slopes. But it seems nobody has been found. There was some talk of it being a false alarm. The witnesses seemed pretty certain of what they had seen. Hopefully they were mistaken.

 

Ralph

[To_The_Top]

It seemed like a bad press dream in the making. We heard not one party, or two, but up to three parties (one on the Emmons). Two helos searching, people talking of 6 to 9 climbers that tumbled into crevasses. It was all a false alarm. Absolutly nothing. We spoke to the one of the only teams that where ahead of the roadblock for the accident, and they had no idea of anyone falling or the possiblilty of 2 or 3 teams going down.

The rangers and RMI confirmed it was false later.

TTT

[joekania]

Perhaps they were. Sounds a little funny, though. The search was called off that afternoon.

 

http://www.king5.com/topstories/NW_071302WABclimbers.77b5fb34.html

 

http://www.komotv.com/stories/19352.htm