Some of the Bay Area volunteers in last week's Mount Shasta rescue were still in high school. KTVU reported that an 11-member team from the Marin County Sheriff's Office Search and Rescue unit, five of them teenagers, joined a multi-agency effort to reach a 39-year-old Florida climber.
What happened
SFist, citing Bay Area News Group and SFGate, said the man climbed the 14,179-foot peak alone and reached the summit on a Sunday afternoon. On the way down, his GPS sent him toward the Whitney Glacier, and he fell through a snow bridge into a crevasse at about 12,600 feet. He badly hurt his leg. Two U.S. Forest Service climbing rangers reached him the next morning and stayed with him through a second night.
High winds kept helicopters from reaching him, so crews from Siskiyou, Marin, San Mateo and Trinity counties and Oregon's Jackson County carried out a ground evacuation, SFist reported. KTVU said winds hit about 60 mph. SFist reported winds of 60 to 70 mph, with some rescuers hit by falling rocks about the size of soccer balls.
"We braced ourselves on the rock and we were the anchor in the system that helped lower the patient," team member Charlie Pledger told KTVU. Crews lowered the climber to a landing zone, and a California Highway Patrol helicopter flew him out around 5:30 p.m. when the weather briefly cleared.
KTVU said the climber is being treated for frostbite and a broken leg and is expected to recover. "This incredible mission highlights not only the courage and skill of our volunteers but also the power of interagency teamwork," the Marin County Sheriff's Office said.