Avalanche Incident
Avalanche Incident
At a briefing at Paradise on Mount Rainier this morning, Lou Whittaker, co-owner of RMI defended the actions of his guides. Questions had been raised about the lateness of the hour in which the two RMI guided rope teams were still relatively high on the mountain when they got hit by an avalanche at 2:11pm PST at 11,400 feet, Thursday June 11, 1998. Whittaker said the hour was not a significant factor, that his guides are trained to assess risk, and that avalanches happen at all hours on Rainier.
"All the people were kicking loose stuff, so the fact that this one guide [Taylor Forman, see story below] thinks he did it is really almost amusing to me because everyone was kicking stuff off. He's a brand new guide; I haven't talked to him yet about why he feels that he's responsible, but it's quite obvious that avalanche could have triggered a minute before or afterward and there is no fault found with the person that's climbing above.
"We climb in all conditions and this is a five day school so we come down any time in the day or evening sometimes as late as four or five in the afternoon and still get off the mountain. It's light until 9:30 at night and then the moonlight comes out. There has been that question, 'aren't they coming down late?' You're not coming down late on the mountain when you climb every day on the mountain; you do go up and down it at any time of the day. So, that is something I can clear up as well."
This was the first major climb for Patrick Nestler, 29, of Connecticut, reported the Seattle Times. He'd fallen the furthest and dangled about 100 feet off the cliff of Disappointment Cleaver as rescuers worked throughout the afternoon. Nestler died before they could reach him.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, PREPARED 2:00 a.m., June 12, 1998
AVALANCHE ON MOUNT RAINIER, ONE CLIMBER DIES
All climbers known to have been in the area of an avalanche on Mount Rainier yesterday have now been accounted for. An avalanche caught climbers on Disappointment Cleaver at approximately 11,400 feet yesterday afternoon. One of the climbers, Patrick Nestler, age 29, of Rowayton, Connecticut, died as a result of injuries sustained in the accident. All the other climbers have been located. Injured avalanche victims were evacuated by U.S. Army Helicopter to Madigan Army Hospital in Tacoma, Washington, as twilight settled over the mountain late yesterday.
The avalanche was reported to the National Park Service at approximately 2:11 p.m. Thursday. A climbing team in the area witnessed the event and called a report to the NPS by cell phone. A rescue effort was mounted immediately.
Climbers from the National Park Service and Rainier Mountaineering Inc. were nearby, and they were able to hurry to assist the injured climbers. The rescue required moving injured climbers to an area where it was safe to land a helicopter. Clouds over the mountain prevented helicopters from getting in for several hours, but just before dark a U.S. Army Chinook helicopter was able to get to the injured who needed rescue.
Some victims of the avalanche are hospitalized. Others were treated and released. Still others are expected to hike out on their own accord later today.
The teams were organized by Rainier Mountaineering Inc., a guide service that leads most group expeditions up Rainier.
In an interview, Tyler Forman takes responsibility for the fatal slide, but a park official says the findings are preliminary
Associated Press - Sunday, June 14 1998
PARADISE, Wash. -- The avalanche that killed one climber and injured at least seven others on Mount Rainier may have been triggered by a guide's stumble while crossing a treacherous ice face. The groups involved were with Rainier Mountaineering, Incorporated.
"My world's been turned upside down: My foot slipped, the snow was wet enough, and that's what triggered the slide," RMI guide Tyler Forman told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
In Saturday's editions, the newspaper quoted Forman as saying the avalanche was "triggered by my foot."
Nearby climbers spotted the fast-moving snow, said climber Jeff Fisher, 38, of Burnsville, Minn. "We yelled, and they looked up, but they couldn't move fast enough," he said.
Forman and Fisher were not hurt, but the slide swept several of their companions down the mountain.
The likely cause of the accident was confirmed by Chief National Park Ranger John Krambrink, who added that the findings were preliminary.
"It sure looks like a team may have set off the avalanche," Krambrink said.
Sunny, warm weather Thursday followed an inch of rain that fell in the 24 hours before the avalanche, said Garth Ferber of the Northwest Weather and Avalanche Center. The sun warmed the snow, making it unstable.
Rainier Mountaineering Inc. resumed its guided climbs Saturday morning after a one-day suspension Friday to regroup and assess conditions. Both climbing teams caught in the avalanche had been participating in RMI's five-day, $745 mountaineering course.
A full climbing group of 25 ascended Saturday morning, said staff member Katy Rossman at the Paradise office.
"A few people have dropped (out), but for the most part things have remained pretty up to speed," she said, adding that this year has been the company's busiest ever.
One group caught in Thursday's slide held its ground using ice axes to arrest the fall. The other was swept over Disappointment Cleaver, its five members attached by a rope and some of them dangling over an icy cliff.
Patrick Nestler, 29, of Norwalk, Conn., died after falling about 100 feet and spending several hours dangling from a rope.
Eight people -- including Nestler, four injured men and three injured women -- were taken off the mountain Thursday night by helicopter. The others completed their descent Friday. The injured were treated at hospitals and released.
Mount Rainier is the state's highest peak -- at 14,410 feet -- and its most challenging. There have been at least 94 climbing-related deaths there since record-keeping began in 1887 -- 12 years before the park was established in 1899.
The worst climbing accident on Mount Rainier also occurred in June -- June 21, 1981 -- when 11 people in an RMI group died in an icefall at 11,000 feet. Thursday's avalanche occurred at about 11,400 feet.
(AP) - LONGMIRE, Wash., June 12
ONE PERSON was killed and seven hurt, although all of the injured were released from the hospital Friday.
The slide swept over two climbing teams - both part of a 27-member group in a five-day, $745 school arranged by Rainier Mountaineering Inc.
"Mountaineering has inherent risks," RMI owner and veteran climber/guide Lou Whittaker said. "That’s probably the lure of mountaineering - the risks."
This time of year there is particular danger from avalanches as rising temperatures melt the snow that each winter buries the slumbering volcano 50 miles southeast of Seattle. And warm temperatures Thursday followed two days of cold that dumped new snow on the peak.
The second team held their ground using ice axes to arrest their fall. The injured people were taken off the mountain. The rest of the group finished their descent Friday.
Twenty-nine-year-old Patrick Nestler, who dangled 100 feet over a sharp-edged rock formation known as Disappointment Cleaver, died of hypothermia, according to an autopsy that also found blunt injuries. Climbing guide Ruth Mahre was praised for saving the lives of the other three climbers linked by the rope between her and Nestler. "I wasn’t the heroine. I was just lucky," Mahre said. "If anybody moved it was all over for all of us."
"I saw people go right by me," Mark Hunter, 39, of Westport, Conn., said at a news conference. "The avalanche was just a few feet from hitting us all."
"I heard people screaming ‘help,’ screaming that they were cold, screaming that they were going to die," said Jeff Fisher, 38, of Bloomington, Minn. "At the end, it was like tumbling bodies and they just kept going."
June 12, 1998, 12:55 a.m. EDT (0455 GMT)
LONGMIRE, Wash. (CNN) -- One person was killed and five were injured when 12 climbers were caught in an avalanche Thursday on the upper reaches of Mount Rainier.
A man who spent several hours dangling by a rope off an icy cliff called Disappointment Cleaver died Thursday night. He suffered massive trauma, Mount Rainier National Park spokeswoman Maria Gillett said.
A woman was in serious condition suffering from severe hypothermia. One man broke a leg, one woman and one man each suffered a broken hand and another woman suffered from mild hypothermia.
The rest escaped unharmed.
Gillett said at least two of the injured were being carried on litters and lowered on ropes down the mountain. She said they were hoping to reach an area called Ingram Flats, about 400 feet down the mountain from where the avalanche occurred, or Camp Muir -- a popular basecamp -- about 1,000 feet lower.
Medical teams treated the injured at the scene, and rescue helicopters took the climbers off the mountain.
The snow slide hit two climbing teams -- each roped together and containing five or six people, said Dave Uberuaga, another park spokesman. He said the avalanche hit the climbers at 5:30 p.m. EDT
Members of one climbing party used ice axes to stop their slide and were not hurt. The other party was swept off the edge of the nose of Disappointment Cleaver at an elevation of 11,400 feet on the southeast side of the snowcapped peak.
They were apparently on their way down from the 14,410-foot summit.
Warm spring weather likely caused the avalanche, authorities said. Temperatures have recently gone as high as the upper 70s and lower 80s.
A climber from a party that was not in danger used his cellular telephone to report the avalanche, said Donna Rahier, a spokeswoman for Mount Rainier National Park.
UPI - Thursday June 11 11:36 PM EDT
MT. RAINIER, Wash., June 11 (UPI) - National Park Service officials report that of the 12 people caught up in an avalanche on Mt. Rainier (Thursday), there appear to be no fatalities. Six people were reportedly able to walk away from the slide, four were rescued and taken to area hospitals with broken bones and two remained dangling from ropes above a crevasse. The avalanche occurred at the 12,000-foot level of the mountain, not far from the site where 11 climbers were killed in a 1981 avalanche.
MT. RAINIER, Wash., June 11 (UPI)
The National Park Service says up to a dozen people have been caught in an avalanche on the upper reaches of Washington state's Mount Rainier, with several of them hanging precariously from their climbing ropes.
Park rangers say at least four climbing parties were in the path of the avalanche when it struck about 2:45 p.m. PDT today. One climber reported the accident via his cellular phone, saying that up to eight people were dangling from ropes, and others were swept into crevasses just above the 11,000-foot level on the 14,410-foot peak.
The slide happened on the east side of the mountain near a feature called Disappointment Cleaver.
Temperatures on the mountain reached into the 80s recently, creating prime avalanche conditions.
No deaths, serious injuries reported
CNN - June 11, 1998
ASHFORD, Washington (CNN) -- All 12 mountain climbers caught in an avalanche of snow on Washington's Mount Rainier Thursday have been accounted for, with rescue workers racing against the approach of nightfall to extract them from the mountain's snowy slopes.
None of the climbers appeared seriously injured. Reported injuries ranged from broken bones to hypothermia. The climbers were to be taken to hospitals in Puyallup and Tacoma.
About 2:30 p.m. (5:30 p.m. EDT), the avalanche hit two six-member climbing parties who were ascending along a route called Disappointment Cleaver at an altitude of about 12,000 feet (3,640 meters).
One group of six people was pushed into a crevasse. Six other climbers, connected by rope, were able to stop their slide by digging their axes into the ice.
Four of the six climbers who were swept into the crevasse were pulled out, but a man and a woman were still inside and suffering from hypothermia, according to Mount Rainier National Park official Nancy Woodward.
Another climber with a cell phone reported the incident to authorities, who dispatched helicopters and rescue teams to the site. Bad weather initially showed the rescue operation.
Warm spring weather likely caused the avalanche, authorities said. Temperatures have recently gone as high as the upper 70s and lower 80s.
An estimated 300 people have died over the last 100 years in avalanches on Mount Rainier, located about 50 miles southwest of Seattle. The worst avalanche in recent history happened on June 21, 1981, when 11 climbers died.
"Things are looking much, much better here," said Mark Morgan, concessions analyst at Mount Rainier National Park. It appears all 12 climbers hit by an avalanche on Disappointment Cleaver at 12,000 feet on Mount Rainier will survive.
Morgan says they don't have all the details yet, but it's believed the avalanche was a snow and ice slide that hit the three or four rope teams around 2pm this afternoon. All the climbers were swept down Disappointment Cleaver, the steepest section of the Camp Muir route on Rainier. Six of the climbers were able to self-arrest, and six were left dangling on ropes off various cliff-like sections of the Cleaver. No climbers had gone into crevasses as had been thought earlier in the day.
Morgan says that currently rescuers are trying to reach the last climber still hanging off his rope on the glacier. "They haven't been able to assess injuries," said Morgan, "but they've seen movement. They'll pull him up before nightfall."
The eleven rescued climbers have suffered broken legs and hands, hypothermia and shock, but none appear to be critical. Rescuers will attempt to bring some of the climbers all the way down to Paradise at 5,000 feet before dark, and stabilize others at Camp Muir (10,000 feet) for the night.
Seattle climber David McGovern told The Mountain Zone that he turned his rope team around at 12,900 feet on the Emmons Glacier (on the east side of the mountain) yesterday. "It was snowing and the wind was gusting to 20, 25 miles per hour. Windslab," said McGovern, "and I just said, 'we're getting out of here.'" When falling snow is whipped around by the wind, the snow flakes elongate into finger-shaped crystals that don't bond as well with each other or the pre-existing surface, explained McGovern. "Then if it warms up, like it did today, all that new snow can just let go. I don't know if that's what happened on Disappointment Cleaver, but it had me worried yesterday."
Five helicopters (including a Bell, Chinook, and Medivac) are currently working out of Stephen's Canyon, "mostly ferrying rescuers up," said Morgan. The cloud ceiling there is getting too low to fly from landing zones in the area though, and the rescue mission may be moved to Ranger Field off of Highway 410 in the north end of the park. "Right now our biggest challenges are daylight and the cloud ceiling," said Eric Walkinshaw at the Park Service.
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