Another Stuart N. Side rescue?

[oldmantex]

We were sleeping below the Sherpa W. Ridge on Saturday night (Sept. 10) and around 9:15pm a helicopter started making passes from the south (maybe Esmerelda TH) to the north of Stuart. They made many trips. I was curious at first but fell asleep after 3 round trips. My partner told me it kept going for a total of around 10 round trips. Curious why so many back and forths. Anyone know what happened?

[jstluise]

We descended Stuart on Saturday around 4pm and came across a climber in need of medical attention/evacuation. He apparently slid down the snowfield and couldn't arrest in time; he ended up bouncing into the rocks and injured his leg. He didn't say it was broken but he probably tore something. Anyways, he couldn't make it down on his own. He was with one other climber.

 

We took their information and coordinates and made our way to our packs that were at the top of the Sherpa Glacier couloir (we dropped them before we headed up to the summit). Unfortunately we didn't have cell coverage at our packs so we couldn't get a call out.

 

There were two other climbers behind us that must have made it down the CC route to get help for them. We camped at Sherpa Pass and saw the helicopter fly around quite a bit. We thought it was odd since the GPS coordinates of the climber was known.

 

Unless there was another climber in need, I don't know what they were doing. I remember hearing them hover for some time, maybe to drop a rescuer off? Then they left and came back later. I ended up falling asleep so I don't know exactly what time they stopped.