Hiker dies on Mt. Rainier as 2 others await rescue

lulululu

Hiker dies on Mt. Rainier as 2 others await rescue

04:37 PM PDT on Tuesday, June 10, 2008

By AP and kgw.com Staff

LONGMIRE, Wash. -- A hiker died on Mount Rainier Tuesday and two other hikers were awaiting rescue at Camp Muir, which is high on the volcano's flank.

Park Ranger Sandi Kinzer confirmed the death.

Rangers received a call at 3:30 a.m. that three hikers were trapped in a blizzard on the Muir snowfield, said park spokesman Kevin Bacher.

Weather prevented a rescue attempt at that time, but one of the hikers reached Camp Muir at 7:15 a.m. and was able to direct rescuers to the other hikers near Anvil Rock, a large outcropping at the edge of the Muir snowfield.

Camp Muir, a staging area for climbers, is at about 10,000 feet elevation on the 14,410-foot mountain.

Bacher said officials hope to get a helicopter to the scene Tuesday evening or early Wednesday if weather permits.

Bacher said the three were described as two men and a woman in their early 30s, all from Bellevue. He said two had reached the summit of Mount Rainier previously.

Three doctors associated with a climbing concessionaire in the park are at Camp Muir with the hikers, who were suffering frostbite and hypothermia, according to Bacher.

He said Camp Muir received 2 feet of fresh snow overnight, with 5-foot drifts.

http://www.kgw.com/news-local/st ... imber.1bf9f664.html

citywander

Some discussion about this accident from company's newsgroup.

"I was part of a climbing party that made Muir Monday during the storm.  It was the worst storm I have climbed in.  Gust up around 70 and sustained winds around 50.  Visibility at the top was less than 20 ft.  Our party wanded the top of the mountain every 20 ft and turning around you could not see you last wand.  

We made Muir @ 7:45 pm.  It took us nearly 8 hours to reach the hut due to the wind.  Walking was difficult at best.  Some memebers of our group were not doing great towards the end and were moving very slow.  One member came in very cold, but we were able to warm everyone up fairly quickly.  Waiting on the slower memebers was one of the colder things I have done.  We were able to keep everyone moving though and made the hut safely.  

Tuesday morning a number of us from our group played a secondary role in helping with the rescue efforts.  It was quite a sobering experience."

citywander

"I'll jump in and share my experience here – not as extreme, but hopefully edifying. Forgive my longwinded nature...

In 2004 I was training to do the fundraiser climb, and we had an early-June hike to Muir. A few of us planned to make it an overnight (we coordinated on bringing tent, stove, etc). Saturday a.m. at Paradise was overcast and raining, and the weather only deteriorated. About 2/3 of the way to Muir, the wind was steadily strong enough to be sandblasting us with sideways snow pellets, and visibility was poor. Gusts were pretty strong (guessing 45 mph or so – enough to nearly knock me down), so not as bad as last Monday's conditions, but definitely unpleasant. I really wanted to get out of the weather. I thought about whimpering to ask my 2 campmates to descend, but then we opted to pitch the tent (group decision, consensus), and I immediately realized that was the better thing to do. It would have taken hours to descend, in bad conditions. By making camp we were out of the weather in minutes, not hours.

The other folks who were dayhiking made it to Muir to rest a little and then descended immediately. They were good about watching out for each other, counting noses at the hut and at the parking lot. Most reported that they appreciated the experience for its mental training. A lot of mountaineering boils down to how you deal with being uncomfortable.

The Park Service had wanded the route, and that helped. In fact, the next morning the wind died down but there was fog and snow – visibility was worse than the previous afternoon (30 ft. maybe). Our threesome had map/compass, GPS too… The problem is, you have to dig them out of pockets/packs to use them, mittens and gloves are cumbersome. You find that you just want to keep going, and you convince yourself that the route is obvious enough. At one point I was certain that the wands were taking us in the wrong direction (what goofball placed these things?), and I would have wandered off over the Paradise glacier had I not been able to regain rationality.

When we got to the parking lot at Paradise, the American flag was at half-staff, and I thought maybe there'd been a fatality on the mountain. But no, Ronald Reagan had died. I'd brought a little radio in hopes of catching a broadcast of the Belmont Stakes (no Triple Crown winner that year, either), but I'd missed the news about Reagan.

Lessons learned:
1.        Be prepared for the worst (we were, so that was good). Ours wasn't an emergency shelter; we were planning to camp.
2.        Be a team-player. Our whiteout descent really clicked when we started spacing ourselves strategically (I can see you behind me and the next wand in front of me… let's take a bearing – etc)
3.        Wind, cold, and whiteout can play all sorts of tricks on your brain; it's good to be aware of this
4.        Know how to navigate in a whiteout, and have the presence of mind to use this knowledge, especially when the weather is seducing you into confidence, laziness, or – scariest, because it's a symptom of hypothermia – lethargy (see #2, above)
5.        Radio reception near Anvil Rock sucks

A note about the route from Muir back to Paradise: it's easy to think you want to make a beeline, but you don't (Nisqually glacier!). You make an arc that will feel counterintuitive. There's good navigation info on the Mt. Rainier Park website."

ALEXYIM

Yahoo 新聞報導拯救過程.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080 ... mount_rainier_fatal


By DONNA GORDON BLANKINSHIP, Associated Press Writer
Wed Jun 11, 1:31 PM ET


LONGMIRE, Wash. - A helicopter rescued two hikers from high on Mount Rainier Wednesday after they were caught in a freak June blizzard that caused a third hiker's death.

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An Army Chinook helicopter rescued the man and woman at about 6:15 a.m. from Camp Muir, a staging area for climbers about 10,000 feet up the 14,410-foot volcano. Both were suffering from frostbite and hypothermia and taken by air to hospitals, said Kevin Bacher, a spokesman for Mount Rainier National Park.

The two and the woman's husband had been out for a day hike Monday to Camp Muir when they were caught in the storm that dumped 2 feet of snow.

Park officials hoped to helicopter the dead man off the mountain Wednesday afternoon, if weather permitted. If not, the body could be brought down on a sled, Bacher said.

All three were experienced climbers and two had reached the top of Mount Rainier before, Bacher said. Bacher and park Ranger Sandi Kinzer declined to identify the three, saying park officials were having difficulty contacting the dead hiker's family.

Bacher said the three were in their early 30s and from Bellevue, east of Seattle. He said the woman wanted to break the news to her mother-in-law herself.

After a winter of heavy snowfall that forced repeated closure of mountain passes, unseasonably cold conditions have continued long into spring in Washington's Cascade Range.

Paradise, the jumping-off point for the trail to Camp Muir, received 2 feet of fresh snow over Monday night, with 5-foot drifts and 70 mph winds at Camp Muir, Bacher said.

"Nobody expects a blizzard in June," he said.

Rangers received a call at 3:30 a.m. Tuesday that three hikers had been trapped in the sudden blizzard on the Muir snowfield as they were descending.

The three apparently built a snow shelter at about 9,500 feet. The weather prevented an immediate rescue attempt after their call, Bacher said. The other male hiker left the married couple and battled through heavy snow to reach Camp Muir at 7:15 a.m. Tuesday and was able to direct rescuers to the other hikers near Anvil Rock, a large outcropping at the edge of the Muir snowfield.

The others were brought to a shelter at Camp Muir about an hour later, but the woman's husband was unconscious and later died, Bacher said. He suffered from hypothermia and frostbite.

The helicopter from Fort Lewis took the survivors to Madigan Hospital at the Army base near Tacoma. Madigan spokeswoman Hyliejan Pressey said the two had frostbite but were walking and talking, and would be transferred to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle for further treatment.

Bacher said day hikers are not required to check in with park officials, and these hikers didn't. But he said it's a good idea any time of year to inquire about conditions on the mountain, where weather can turn deadly quickly.

"Be prepared for worse conditions than you expect," he said. "Be prepared to spend the night out."

The death was the first reported on the mountain this year. In December, a 22-year-old Lynnwood man, Kirk Reiser, was killed when he was swept up in a snowslide while on a day hike on snowshoes.

Bacher said 48 people spent Tuesday night at Camp Muir. Some had planned to sleep there and others had to because of the weather.

好天氣hiking問題总是不大.
壞天氣和冷天氣是一個大問題, 衣服,鞋物,裝備,計劃等是非常小心.
我們那一次,傻瓜地上了Camp Muir沒問題, 天氣沒有變壞是重要因素.
touch wood.