Four physicists from Cornell University decided to climb some peaks in the Sangre de Cristo mountains in late May, which was the first chance for some to get away from classes. Veit Elser left from San Fransisco, while Gerry Dugan, Matthias Neubert and myself (Jim Welch) left from Ithaca. Gerry had just returned to Ithaca from a trip to Chicago around midnight but somehow got up for the 6 AM plane. Surprisingly there were no delays or missed flights and we all arrived on schedule to pick up a rental car and drive to Colorado Springs to start our acclimatization. We spent the first afternoon rock climbing and exploring at the Garden of the Gods park. Though we had not made specific plans where to camp that evening, we found an fine campsite in nearby Waldo canyon. All of us kept saying that this trip was going too smoothly to be believed.
The next day we drove to Great Sand Dunes National Monument which was very near our first real destination - Mt Blanca. I insisted I needed two nights at or below 8000 ft before we made camp at 11000 ft at lake Como, which is the usual jumping off point for assaults on Blanca. The dunes turned out to be a interesting place. We climbed the dunes barefoot about 400 ft on the west side of the park. On top we were immersed in acres of blowing sands, incredible shapes and curves, just like the posters. Going down was fun. We ran all the way down hell-for-leather without getting hurt. When we awoke the next morning the weather was again perfect. Everything was going so well. We packed the car and drove the short distance back the well known lake Como road, widely recognized as the worst road in Colorado.
The road was indeed pretty bad and getting worse the higher up you went, and we had a rental car, so we bailed out around 9000 ft and pulled over and parked. The rest of the way up was by foot and the packs were heavily loaded with winter gear. The hike up was unremarkable except to see the miserable road and debris from vehicles scattered everywhere. Snow first appeared at 10,000' and by 11,000' there was virtually complete snow coverage. We made camp right by the lake in a very heavily used site, though there was only one other tent nearby because it wasn't a weekend.
At 4:00 am the following morning we woke, ate and set out for the summit of Blanca 14,345 ft. We all carried crampons and ice axes. The crusty morning snow was firm and walking was reasonable. We knew from the hike in how difficult post-holing was in the soft afternoon snow. Soon we put our crampons on, somewhere near the Blue lakes. Matthias and Veit had 12 pt crampons, I had 10 pt crampons of similar construction but not suitable for ice. Gerry had 6 pointed "half crampons". The points were half as long and there were half as many as normal crampons. We didn't see anybody else out.
Veit and Matthias went ahead while Gerry and I climbed at a slower pace. There were numerous foot trails, mostly going up Blanca but also up the adjacent Ellingwood peak. Gerry and I took a rather more difficult trail traversing several old avalanche routes but eventually got to the base of a large snowfield just above Crater lake and proceeded to climb it the summit ridge. The snow remained firm and secure. After some huffing and puffing we made the ridge at 14000 ft where we met another climber, John Wingate from Texas. His partner was sick and he was alone and so the three of us climbed the ridge to the summit together. In the meantime Veit and Matthias had summited and descended and split up. Veit went back to the camp while Matthias went to bag Ellingwood on a route that also started from the base of the snowfield we had just come up. Gerry, John and I reached the peak at 10:30 sat for about 10-15 minutes and headed back down the ridge.
This picture shows the saddle of the summit ridge and part of the
snowfield immediately below it. Blanca peak is to the right of the
saddle. It is taken from crater lake. The five climbers are unknown.
Gerry climbing up a snow slope. Why isn't he using his ice axe?
View from the top of Blanca looking toward the summit ridge and snowfield.
On the way down the ridge we debated whether to go down the snowfield or down a rock pile which was on one edge of the snowfield and extended all the way from the ridge down about 1500 ft to a relatively level area. Gerry had actually come up the top part of the rock pile as he felt more comfortable with this route. By this time the snow was soft on the top 2 or 3 inches, but still firm underneath. Also we could see quite a few other climbers coming up, some on the snowfield and some on the rock pile. I felt the snow was secure and wanted to avoid rockfall hazard and chose the snow. I think John felt more or less the same but Gerry was having misgivings. He elected to try the snow anyways. John and I went ahead doing a zig-zag route down and heading toward the rock pile on the first tack. We stopped to change direction about 20 ft from the rock pile and waited for Gerry. As I looked back I could see him slide as each step was placed and became concerned. He called to us that he had decided to switch to the rock pile route and headed straight for it. When he was about 10 ft from the rock pile he slipped and started sliding straight down the 40 degree slope feet first. John immediately yelled "ice ax, ice ax" as Gerry accelerated away from us. We watched helplessly. Gerry could be seen holding his ax with the shaft in his right hand, left hand free, sliding face down. To self-arrest he would have to get one hand on top of the ax to hold the force. Below us about 500 ft was a `finger' of rocks that jutted into the snowfield out from the main rock pile. I couldn't see how Gerry could stop in time. About half way to the rock finger his ax slipped away eliminating any hope of a self-arrest. With about a 100 ft before the rock finger his body position became unstable. Then he hit the first rock which sent him flying into the air to bounce off the tops of the rocks below and go out of sight. In 4 or 5 seconds a perfect trip had turned into a disaster.
I feared the worst. It was quite a distance down to where Gerry was and I didn't want to take the time for a normal descent. Unwisely I sat down, stuck the pick in the snow and nudged forward. After a couple more practice nudges, I felt I could control my speed so I let it go pretty fast. The glissade was going pretty well as long as I kept my feet out of the snow (I still had crampons on and they really wanted to catch the snow and send me flying). About halfway down I started my deceleration but just before the rock finger the snow friction or the slope angle changed making it harder to stop. I realized I could not completely stop before I hit the very same rock Gerry hit so I prepared for the impact. It sent me flying in the air just as if I was hit by a snowplow. Fortunately I was going much slower than Gerry and was able to turn in the air and land feet first, and then fall over - resulting in badly bruised shins but little else wrong.
I quickly located Gerry nearby and was surprised to find him conscious and communicative. We first looked for major damage. All his limbs seemed to work, there were no gaping wounds. His back hurt and there was a lot of pain. Somehow he didn't hurt his head even though he had no helmet. He seemed to be getting shocky (cold and shivering, blue, weak). I did further damage assessment when John arrived carrying the lost ice axe. Gerry found that he could stand but could not walk.
Matthias in the meantime had descended Ellingwood and was at the base of the snowfield watching the whole affair 1000+ ft above him. When he saw the fall he immediately started up to help. Not long after John arrived Sarah Delano showed up. She had been climbing down the rock pile and saw the commotion. When she arrived she immediately started to help by supplying Gerry with hand warmers applied to the jugular, and other warm clothing. Gerry had spare gortex pants so we took off his wet pants and replaced them with some dry pants and the gortex pants. This had the effect of making him slipperier on the snow which was to be useful.
The problem at hand was what to do with Gerry who couldn't walk and was on the side of a steep snowfield around 13800 ft a long long way from help. It was 1100 A. With afternoon thunderstorms coming, given the exposure of the position and the possibility that help might not come that day, I didn't think we should wait there until help arrived. I decided we needed to get him to a secure location where we could get him warm and out of the weather so we could wait an extended time. There was a relatively level area about 1000 ft down the slope which looked like it might even be big enough for a helicopter. Nobody had a rope but it turned out that Gerry had a few pieces of utility cord. Sarah also had 50 ft of cord. At John's suggestion, John, Matthias and I each tied our ice axes to Gerry's pack and started a kind of moving belay with Gerry sliding and the three of us either anchoring him by sticking the axe all the way into the snow or dragging him transversely and then down the snowfield.
This technique worked OK but Gerry was hurting a lot. We gave him a bunch of ibuprofen. By 300P we had descended to the level area about 12800 feet where there was a small frozen lake and a rock outcropping. No longer needing him to help with the decent I sent Matthias to go back to lake Como for help and to send somebody back with a tent and sleeping bag. Somewhere, I thought to myself, I remember reading that the average rescue in the Colorado mountains takes 18-24 hours.
Sarah located an old stone circle that had been constructed a long time ago in the outcropping. It was the best news I had heard in the last four hours. Unfortunately it was level with Gerry and about 150 ft away. The snow by now was too soft to drag anything in so Gerry had to walk. If he couldn't we would have to try to build some kind of snow shelter where he was, without a shovel. John and I held him up the best we could and he endured the pain and made progress. Sarah scouted ahead for post-holing snow which would have had very serious consequences for Gerry if he fell in. Unfortunately she found some surrounding the outcropping. As we got closer to the circle I found a couple of boards left over from an abandoned mining operation, which we were able to use to support Gerry over the weak snow area. The rest of us post-holed.
Gerry made it to the stone circle but he didn't look too good. We put our packs under him and all the warm things we could find over him. Sarah brought out hand warmers, warm clothing and food and made both of Gerry and I eat and drink. About this time Brent showed up and said he had a cell phone. John made the call for help. John gave a cogent description of what had happened and with Gerry's help gave the UTM coordinates from Gerry's GPS. Essentially no information was given back from the emergency service as to what we should do, when to expect help, or what form it would be in. They asked about the cell phone battery level and asked us to keep it on. Once the call was placed we started the waiting process. There was little else to do but keep Gerry warm and give him liquid. He was still shocky and blue.
We called back at 911 a couple of times to see if we could find out anything more but were told only that "help is on the way" - no estimate as to time or what form the help would be in. Late in the day, just after a snowstorm, Veit arrived carrying a tent and a sleeping bag. He had had to struggle through the soft afternoon snow back up the mountain a second time. Veit is an EMT and quickly took over Gerry's care. After examining Gerry, Veit and I set up the tent. There was no real place to put it so Veit made a "level" spot by moving a lot of fist sized rocks around and we put the tent there. We were thinking that unless help arrive soon it looked like we would stay the night: three adults in a two man tent, one sleeping bag, no pads, sleeping on rocks.
Once it was clear that we had some protection for the night, Sarah and John could do no more so they headed back. As it was, it was so late that Sarah didn't make it out until well after dark despite her adventure racing speed. Brent had decided that he would go back to Blue lakes where he had camped and pack up his stuff and bring it up and camp out next to us for support. After Sarah and John left he returned. We had taken the best "site" for our tent, so Brent was left to set up in the stone circle (it was pretty small, and miserable). He melted some snow and made plenty of water for us. Veit and I were in the tent trying to keep Gerry warm. Sarah left an emergency strobe light and flare with us. At 900P it was dark so I put the strobe on a conspicuous point and crawled back into the tent.
While we were in the tent, I recalled from a guided tour of the HMS Victory that each of the approximately 500 sailors was given 15 inches of horizontal space to sleep in, and they slept head to toe on hammocks strung below deck. So we arranged ourselves head to toe with me in the middle with my head pointed downhill. By our calculation we were better off than the sailors as far as space was concerned by an inch. However warmth was a problem even with three in one tent. Without pads I was afraid the ground would suck all our heat out, as it would if we had camped on snow or cold ground. However the uncomfortable loose rocks that we were on turned out to have significant insulation value, probably due to the air space between the rocks. So even without a sleeping pad the cold from the ground wasn't the main problem.
We had Gerry warmly dressed and in the sleeping bag. Through more calls to 911 Veit was finally able to talk directly with a paramedic and explain the medical condition. It was good that he did since previously there had not been a plan in place to send a paramedic with the rescue party.
It soon became apparent that neither Veit nor I was going to make it without additional warmth so I opened the sleeping bag and pulled the top corner across of us insofar as possible. Veit got very little of it. He had cold wet feet which he was trying to warm inside Gerry's pack, but it wasn't working well. (It turned out Gerry's pack had a leaky water bottle in it.) As the night went on we got closer together to minimize the cold. Fortunately the night was unremarkable and no severe weather developed. Gerry slept but Veit and I were awake virtually the whole night. At times Gerry would wake from the discomfort and pain. Because of his injuries he could not move around at all and that was an additional torture. Veit kept a very close eye on Gerry's condition throughout the night.
We found out later that two more sleeping bags had been sent up from lake Como via an eagle scout, Michael Gentry. He had hiked all the way from the road that day, and made the additional hike from lake Como to Crater lake right below us. Unfortunately he couldn't find us and it got dark. He called and called but we couldn't hear him due to a burbling brook nearby. So he had to go back to the lake with the sleeping bags. He left just minutes before I set out the strobe light.
By 500 A I couldn't stand the rocks and being pointed downhill any more and got out and walked around the outcropping for a couple of hours. It was quiet and there was no wind. Around 700A I saw people approaching who turned out to be the help we asked for the previous day. They had a long story to tell. Matthias led two volunteers, a paramedic and one other guy to our encampment. They were really beat when they arrived. Basically when they had gotten the call they had dropped whatever they were doing and started out toward the mountain. One guy was still in sneakers! None of them had a sleeping bag. The group had formed from two pairs that met up at lake Como. One pair had been trying to get to the lake since 7 pm the previous evening. On the first attempt their vehicle broke down near lake Como and they had to go all the way back to get another. They eventually got through to lake Como around 500A. The other pair (the paramedic and his assistant) came up with the sheriff on "4 wheelers". It was so late when they arrived and they didn't have any warm clothes or sleeping bag so they stayed a few hours in Gerry's and my tent back at Lake Como until they could move out.
With Veit's help the paramedic started an IV and we soon loaded Gerry into a metal basket the volunteers had dragged up. The paramedic said that he wanted an helicopter evacuation. Unfortunately the helicopter couldn't go that far up due to tricky winds and high altitude. So they rigged Gerry's basket to some cord tied around the waists of two of the volunteers, put crampons on them, and started off for Blue lakes to try to find a spot for the helicopter. The basket was heavy and the slope was quite steep in places, but the local volunteers were very strong and secure. After some radio calls a dark green helicopter ( a Huey from Vietnam era) appeared ominously down canyon. He circled us once and turned toward the south side of the canyon. It looked like he was going to fly straight into the wall, but somehow disappeared behind a ridge and then reappeared as he searched for a good landing site. Slowly he made his way up the canyon and then set down on a spot that would have been just big enough for a single tent. The blades seemed to be about 5-10 feet from the mountain side. "Just the patient and one EMT" was what the pilot, Lt Col Best, ordered on the radio. The rescue crew loaded Gerry into the chopper and after about 5 minutes of fussing inside they took off for the airport. There Gerry was transferred to an ambulance and went to Alamosa hospital.
This was the helicopter landing site at Blue lakes. The photo doesn't
convey the relative proximity of the valley wall to the whirling blades
of the helicopter. Veit and Matthias are standing there for scale.
After the helicopter left we split up with the rescuers and hiked back up to the stone circle to break camp. Then it was back down to lake Como where we packed up everything for the hike out. Gerry's stuff was considerable. Fortunately the boy scout group came to the rescue again. They agreed to carry about 5 lbs each down to 8500 ft where their car was which we could reach with our car. Veit carefully arranged seven more or less equal loads for them and we put the bulky or awkward stuff on our packs. This saved one of us a round trip to Como lake from the road. After a long and heavy hike out we drove to the Alamosa hospital where we arrived at 1015P to find Gerry alive and kicking.
Gerry had a broken pelvis, but little else besides a few bruises and abrasions. No internal injuries, no broken ribs. He was very lucky. The pelvis did not require a cast. The prognosis was about 6-8 weeks for recovery. After two nights in the hospital they gave him a walker and released him. Matthias and Gerry changed their travel plans and Matthias took Gerry back a day early, while Veit and I stayed and hiked up Pike's peak.
Sarah Delano, an adventure racer from Colorado. She can be seen in a picture with Brent Hanlin
John Wingate, the Texan who was with Gerry and me when Gerry fell.
Brent Hanlin, a bond trader/investment banker (A G Edwards) from Colorado. Shown in one of his many clothing configurations.
Michael Gentry, eagle scout is missing from this photo of some
of the boy scout group near the helicopter landing site because he was
worn out from the previous day's ordeal. Ken Gentry, the scout leader organized the carry out the bulk of Gerry's stuff. Matthias and Veit are also in this picture. 