The Search for Scott

After a fun and perfect weather climb of Gilbert Peak, we were enjoying the trail down completing a loop option. Along the way, my climbing partner Scott wanted to climb point 5,390, a minor peak with 320 feet of prominence, that is a half mile detour off the trail. (The trail has been rerouted so topo maps do not show location correctly). I was tired since I forgot half my food in the car so I declined and we parted ways. I would walk slow and just meet him at the trailhead. It was 5 p.m. when we departed ways. I took my time hiking out, even leaving 3 messages on the trail, one written in leaves, another small rocks, and a third in sticks. Arriving back at my car, I drove several hundred yards to be closer to where he would come out. Hours passed, he never came back to the trailhead that night. At 12:45 a.m I drove out 5 miles to cell service to let our wives know the situation. I did leave the option to call search and rescue to Scotts wife but said to call for sure if I do not call back by 9 a.m.

I then at 1 a.m hiked back around 5 miles to our point of separation on the mountain and did not find him. I had really been hoping that he just lost his headlamp and was stuck on the trail in the dark waiting for me. Without finding him on the trail, I now knew he had fallen and was hurt or dead. There was always a chance he was just lost but it was very unlikely knowing Scott and the terrain. I hiked back out to the trailhead, drove the 5 miles to cell service and at 6 a.m. called family again only to find out they had already called search and rescue at 3 a.m. That was good news.

Search and rescue showed up at 7 a.m. and by 9 a.m., a search team was hiking toward the mountain and a sheriffs drone was on top of peak 5,390 doing a grid pattern. When he did not walk out by 11 am I figured he likely died in a fall. Mountain Rescue did come across my notes on the trail made from sticks, rocks and leaves. They radioed back to base and asked if Scott might have left these notes. I had to quickly respond that I left those and to continue on.

About 1 p.m. on Saturday, the mountain rescue ground team found him. He had fallen off the mountain rock climbing trying to reach the summit. He had leg, back and head injuries but he was alive. A military helicopter came and hoisted him from the mountain. As they were trying to get the helicopter, the wind was a concern so incase he had to be carried out, a ground team of search and rescue personal started hiking up the trail with a wheel stretcher. Luckily, the military helicopter was available but the military unit had to make several phone calls and hoops to get permission from higher ranks. The military helicopter had a hoist as there was no place to land for a regular helicopter. I believe the sheriff stated that Kittitas County did not have a helicopter with a hoist.

Scott was only at the hospital for one hour to get staples on his head injury. There was no surgery on his back so he was quickly released. He broke many of his vertebrae so quite injured and had 2 months of recovery. The doctor said he would be 1 inch shorter due to the accident.

He called me on his way home from the hospital and told me what had happened. The rock hold he was using came loose and he fell 20 feet vertically (landing upright on his feet) onto some steep talus, and then he tumbled down the mountain 30 feet, landing on a log that split his head open. He managed to climb a bit of distance down the mountain while injured, in hopes of reaching the trail. BUT, the pain was too much so he stopped and laid down knowing it would be dark in an hour or so. He was at that spot all night including when I was yelling for him from the trail below the peak. At 8 a.m. in the morning, when Search and Rescue was just starting to arrive at the trailhead, Scott made another attempt to get down to the trail where he could be found easier. He even heard the drone searching above and this gave him some motivation. Unfortunately, the pain was so bad trying to climb over all the deadfall, that he had to stop again. Now at this point, he was only 300 feet or so from the trail. When Search and Rescue got to the highpoint of the trail where I had split from him the previous day, it was not long before calling his name that the searchers heard a whistle blowing. They quickly followed the sound and found Scott alive but very injured. Thankfully, two of the rescue volunteers were EMTs, so they patched him up while waiting for the helicopter.

When the doctor came in, he reported the bad news, You broke your back and crushed your spine, but in light of the situation, you are lucky that is all. He explained that between each vertebra there is cartilage like a marshmallow and that I crushed all of them and will be about one half too 1 inch shorter in height. They found 2 fractured vertebrae in my lower back, 4 in my mid back and 1 break in my neck called clay shoveler break. But luckily none of the breaks were towards my spinal cord. The breaks were away from my cord, if they would have broken towards my cord, I would have been possibly paralyzed from that point down, waist down, chest down, neck down… I was blessed very blessed. I was so blessed that they were all in shock and ahh when I got up off the ER table and walked out about an hour later. I had a very deep gash in my head that you could see my skull, about 2 inches long that required 5 staples to put back to together. Other than that, my pinky and little toe and ribs were not broken just sprained and badly bruised and I was cut up and bruised from head to toe.

Before I knew it, I was scrambling up the scree towards the rocky summit. I snapped a picture of my climbing route at 5:30 p.m. thinking to myself this was a little steeper than I was thinking it would be and thought to myself maybe I should just head back without climbing it. I justified to myself, it is right here, 5 minutes and I will be on top, if something does not feel right, I will just down climb it and forget it, I have no plans to every come back to this area again so if you are ever going to climb it now is the time. Just before heading up, I took the last sip of water from my 2L balder when I was immediately stung by 3 bees; in my left ankle, left knee and right hand. I have had allergic reactions to being stung in the hand before and this was no different, my right hand swelled up like a marshmallow within a few hours. I again had the thought that I should turn around and head down due to the bees and steepness of the final climb, but it was right here less than 30 feet above me, so I climbed on. Although it was straight up, the holds were plenty and big. In the climbing world they call these kind of holds juggers, while small holds are called crimpers. Knowing I have had a rock fail on me before (another story on Mount Jefferson at 9000’ for another time), I have been often pounding on rocks that look suspicious of pealing and this was no different. 20 feet up (which was incorrect more about this later) I pounded on my next hold and it sounded solid, so I pulled myself up on it when it peeled off the wall taking me with it. Ugh… I remember the rock peeling but I do not remember hitting the slopped scree ground 20 feet below. I do vaguely remember tumbling the 30 feet (also incorrect) down the scree 45-degree slope. When I came too, guessing about 30 minutes later, the left side of my head was up against a 15 foot long, by 2-foot round log that stopped my fall, otherwise I would have kept tumbling much longer. I was staring at a rock that was covered in blood. I immediately put my right hand against the right side of my head and felt a large half soft ball size lump on my head. When I pulled my hand away there was blood and hair in my hand, so I pulled out my first aid kit and started bandaging up my head and the bigger cuts on my hands. Taking my back pack off I knew I severely injured my back, possible broke some ribs and something was wrong with my right little pinky and left little toe bone, other than that my arms worked, my neck seemed fine, and my legs very beaten and bruised but ok. I was disoriented and was not sure whether I came from the left or the right and my phone was no longer in my back pocket. Not wanting to head in the wrong direction I needed my phone which I use to navigate on peakbagger topo app. Knowing it should be somewhere within my 30 feet tumble path I started back up. I found the phone 10 feet up and located my return path back toward the trail over all those down trees. I did not look at the time but I worked my way back till about 7:30 p.m. when it was just starting to get dark, by this time my back was killing me and I was done. I thought to myself that I traveled less than 1000 feet and was about halfway there. I also recognized that I was not going to walk out all the way to the car on my own, that search and rescue was needed to carry me out. So, there was no reason to continue to punish my body to just get another 1000 feet or so. I put my light weight wind breaker on and used the back pack as a pillow with the hopes that I could sleep for a few hours and then try again with a renewed energy to work my way toward the trail. This was my goal because I knew Eric would eventually come back there looking for me. I slept off and on for the next few hours when I decided it was time to start working towards the trail again. I put on my headlamp and it took all that I had to just get to my feet. I bruised a left rib and my sternum bone which was causing very shallow breathing and my back had stiffened to the point that I could not use it to do anything, my core muscles were seized up and useless. I quickly realized I was not progressing any further tonight. So, I laid back down on the cool 45-degree night and shivered myself in and out of sleep. It was very uncomfortable laying in one position so I would drag my heals up to raise my knees and this would release tension on my back, then I would push my heals back down, under the log that I was partially laying under as a wind break, then I would roll over to my right, then to my back, then to my left, repeating about every 30-60 minutes to a different position to relieve pressures from the ground and my body. I was never afraid of the woods or the dark, I was comfortable being in the mountains, but I did long for the sunlight to rise for its warmth that I desperately wanted.

I blew my whistle 3 bursts and instantly heard a faint shout toward the trail. It sounded like Eric, what a relief he was on his way. I could not make out any words but a minute later I could hear a female voice shouting my name, I thought is this Bethany or maybe Rachelle, Erics wife? What good are they going to be to help me out? I continued to blow, 1 blow every 30 seconds so they could travel toward the sound. The female (early 30s in age) arrived first; she was with SAR. She said how happy she was to find me and confirmed that a doctor and EMT were with her and on their way. She asked other than the obvious head injury what else was injured. I answered something is wrong with my back it is in a lot of pain to move. She asked what can I do for you right now. I answered her, I am very cold and severely dehydrated. She gave me some water, which I was grateful to finally get the dirt out of my mouth while she tried to make me comfortable with a sleeping pad and her down jacket. She asked me, did you bandage up your head, I thought this is a weird question since I was alone. I answered her yes, I am the only one here, she responded, you did a good job by yourself. By this time 3 other SAR members had shown up. One male (early 40s) I didn’t see much of him because he was scouting access and exit routes, a retired military EMT (early 50s) and a retired doctor (mid 60s) they started their evaluation. Multiple head lacerations, possible broken back, possible broken ribs and sternum, possible broken right pinky and left little toe bone, impact to right shin bone, and multiple small laceration and cuts all over body. They called for a Helio with a basket rescue, as they tried to make me comfortable. They desperately want a helo rescue because I kept over hearing them discuss how hard it would be to carry me out the way they came in, something about so many down trees.

Two reasons to go back, one I left about $250 of gear at the accident location and secondly, I wanted to revisit the scene to verify my recollection of events. Bethany and I drove back, hiking the 6 miles to the off-trail section. From here I knew it would be about ¼ mile. I was wrong on the distance it was ¾ mile to the scene. I was also wrong on many other distances and possibly how I fell. The wall was closer to 40 feet high, not 30 feet and it was two segments that I fell. The first segment was 15 feet of class 4, then a small 1 foot shelf than another 20 feet of class 5 to the top.

The first 15 feet of class 4 was easy climbing and I went up within seconds. I paused for a second on the shelf, then started the second 20 foot segment of class 5. This segment I was a bit nervous about, but the holds were big and plentiful, so I decided I would climb it and stop if any move felt to risky and down climb back to ground. It was when I was 15 feet up on this second section, about 5-10 feet from the top, that the rock peeled off the wall and I fell 15 feet straight down hitting the 1-foot ledge with my feet. This impact crushed my back and possibly fractured all or some of the 7 vertebras. Then a backwards superman down the second 15 feet to the 45-degree scree slope. I fell a total of 30 feet than landed on my back, feet or possibly my head, where I tumbled like a rag doll another 40 feet in sharp, loose, softball size, rock until I hit the 2 foot log that stopped my fall gratefully, because the slope kept going.

I came back to incident site for several reason, one of them was clarification on the fall scene. I am not sure how my head was busted open possible the rock that pealed off the wall hit me in the head as I fell the 30 feet to the ground or possible I hit my head on one of the softball size rocks on the 45 degree slope that I was tumbling down for 40 feet, or possible on the 2 foot log that stopped my fall.

The only gear I found at the accident site were my $120 trekking poles which mice had chewed the straps off and started chewing the cork grips off, my $30 sun hat was more than likely a mouse bed and my $100 sunglasses where gone. I did not care about the hat but I really loved those sunglasses for all my outdoor activities and those where my best trekking poles. After my visit with the wall, I attempted to retrace my steps to where I spent the night. I was floored with how difficult the terrain was, dozens of down trees to go over, steep 40-degree side sloping hills very loose scree. I do not fully understand how I traveled this terrain with a broken back, because even now with 7 weeks of healing (which is even a miracle in its self that I was now doing it) was still very difficult terrain to travel through. I thought I shuffled and climbed a 1000 feet before my body said no more but reality, I traveled 2500 feet almost a half mile all while busted up, adrenaline is real. I could not find my exact sleeping location if I had more time, I would have liked to have found it. When we got back to the trail, we logged 0.8 miles of off trail climbing.