The return of snow has already claimed a life on the tallest mountain within the continental United States, with the dying of a hiker on slippery Mt. Whitney, based on the Inyo County Sheriff’s Division.
Over the weekend, the hiker fell within the infamous “99 Switchbacks” part of the principle path, stated Lindsey Stine, Group Outreach Coordinator for the Inyo County Sheriff’s Division. The switchbacks start simply above Path Camp at virtually 12,000 ft, the place many hikers spend the evening earlier than making an early morning begin for the 14,500-foot summit.
In the summertime, when the path is dry, the switchbacks part is an extended slog, winding forwards and backwards up two miles, and almost 2,000 vertical ft.
When it will get an enormous snow, because it did earlier this month, the path turns into buried and the entire slope turns into perilously steep.
Wes Ostgaard, who stated he has climbed Mt. Whitney 4 occasions, posted on Fb that situations on Saturday had been so treacherous he and his climbing companions determined to show round.
“Winds had been extraordinarily intense, and with the current snowfall, the wind was blasting snow in our faces,” Ostgaard wrote. The snow lined the path and, in lots of locations, rendered it “invisible,” he wrote.
When Ostgaard and his companions had been descending the switchbacks they encountered the physique of one other hiker who had apparently fallen above a bit of metal security cables after which slid one other 70 ft, or so.
“I consider it’s extremely unlikely he survived,” Ostgaard wrote of the hiker. “There was a good quantity of blood from [colliding with] the cables, and a number of blood round a rock he made contact with.”
Ostgaard used Starlink to contact his father round 12:30 p.m., who then contacted emergency providers. A helicopter arrived about 4 hours later, Ostgaard wrote.
One other hiker that day, Kirill Novitskiy, encountered the identical situations on the switchbacks on Saturday however made the “mistaken choice” to maintain climbing.
He made it up with simply microspikes — little steel cleats that connect to the underside of footwear and supply winter traction on flat floor — or on light slopes the place falling can be no huge deal.
However microspikes are notoriously insufficient for winter mountaineering, when a fall may very well be deadly.
As so typically occurs within the mountains, when Novitskiy returned to the steep switchbacks after a couple of hours touring on comparatively flat floor to and from the summit, he found situations had deteriorated a lot that he was in actual hazard and critically under-equipped.
“I had a few harmful locations the place the path grew to become a slope stuffed with powdery snow, and it was very straightforward to slide off,” Novitskiy wrote on Fb. “The worst half on the way in which again had been the switchbacks. Virtually all of the path was lined with powdery snow introduced up with the wind, it was very onerous to go along with simply microspikes.”
Close to the cables he noticed a pair of trekking poles with no one round, after which encountered a gaggle of 5 hikers on the backside of the switchbacks who instructed him in regards to the accident.
Anybody trying to climb Mt. Whitney from this level on within the winter season ought to carry crampons — a lot bigger spikes that connect firmly to mountaineering boots and dig deep into snow and ice to forestall falls – and an ice axe.
Specialists additionally advise touring in teams, and bringing a satellite tv for pc communication system to contact assist if something goes mistaken.
Up to now, the Inyo Sheriff’s Division has not launched the identification of the hiker who died.
In January this 12 months, a hiker from Texas died after trying to climb Mt. Whitney in unhealthy climate. His physique was discovered at an elevation of 12,000 ft close to North Fork Lone Pine Creek Path.
In June, a 14-year-old hiker grew to become delirious on Mt. Whitney and fell off of a 12,000-foot cliff. He survived.
