Climber dies on Emmons Route, Mt. Rainier

http://www.king5.com/news/local/Mount-Rainier-climber-feared-dead-99473089.html

Shame this. They were descending after a successful summit. All four dragged into a crevasse.



Brian

This sucks and is sad, RIP. I'll pray for his loved ones.


I've said it before and IMO people, especially ones new to "mountaineering" put too much emphasis on the self-arrest. Better footwork and general climbing technique are much more important. I think this story illustrates that there are plenty of times where a self arrest does nothing.

A good thread discussion with my thoughts on this here:
http://vftt.org/forums/showthread.php?t=26604

Doug makes a great point. The thought I have is to save some energy for the trip down. People push themselves so hard to get to the top of Rainier and other similar peaks that picking up cramponed feet is difficult on the hike down.

How sad!

Prayers go out to the family and fellow climbers!

Roped together with no fixed protection on the descent and the top man falls…..
If the top man falls the team is screwed.

This happens all too often.

One should think carefully before employing this technique on steep terrain.

Third climbing death on Rainier this year alone!

B the Hiker said:

Third climbing death on Rainier this year alone!

Click to expand...

After the big Ingraham avalance back in June (the week before I left for the Kautz), the news reports said the one climber killed was the first death on Rainier since 2005. Now we have this unfortunate crevasse fall.

Was there another fatality this summer, did the news reports err, or is this the second climbing death in 2010?

Craig said:

Roped together with no fixed protection on the descent and the top man falls…..
If the top man falls the team is screwed.

This happens all too often.

One should think carefully before employing this technique on steep terrain.

Click to expand...

It would seem from the article that at least some of the climbers, including the dead one, were relatively experienced, and my understanding is that the Emmons route is not terribly steep (relatively speaking). My guess is that they were roped because of the crevasse danger, not for protection against a fall off the mountain.

I assumed they were roped because of crevasse fall danger.

Unfortunately, being roped together on *steep terrain may mitigate the danger of crevasse fall, by the man on point, but it enhances the danger of a catastrophic team fall.

There are many factors to consider here.
1. How steep is the terrain? Will a fall of one individual likely pull others off the mountain?
2. What condition is the snow surface? Is the surface hard and slick?
3. Are all crevasses likely exposed? Is there an obvious worn treadway?
4. Are you ascending or descending? Where are the more experienced climbers located on the rope?
Roping together in steep terrain above crevasses without fixed protection is a serious undertaking IMO. A decision not to be make lightly.


It obviously takes longer to belay the team down. Perhaps they considered this but decided against it for varies reasons. I don’t know, I wasn’t there, nor am I second guessing their actions.

All I’m saying is, before roping up on steep terrain - consider the possibilities.

*Define “steep” as you will but obviously it was steep enough to initiate a sliding fall that took them all down

<guessing>
In this case the top man fell. There was likely 40’ of rope between him and the second man. That means he slid 80’ before the rope went taught on the second man. The second man may not have known the top man fell until he slid past. By then it may have been too late to get down in self arrest. If the second man got pulled off his feet, it would be all over. The remaining 2 men wouldn’t be able to arrest 2 sliding men (probably).
</guessing>

I've been on the Emmons. It's steep enough.

Let me rephrase. The Emmons is very steep. We spent hours on hours switchbacking up the glacier. When we headed out at midnight, I looked up to admire the stars. Only the stars were actually headlamps from other teams farther up the mountain. I can definitely see how a trip and fall off the "sidewalk sidecut" can take a whole team down.

J.Dub said:

After the big Ingraham avalance back in June (the week before I left for the Kautz), the news reports said the one climber killed was the first death on Rainier since 2005. Now we have this unfortunate crevasse fall.

Was there another fatality this summer, did the news reports err, or is this the second climbing death in 2010?

Click to expand...

This is the third this year. The younger guy caught in the avi, the older guy who unclipped and disappeared and this. "the news reports said the one climber killed was the first death on Rainier since 2005" is wrong. There was at least 1 in 2008, unless you need to be above 10,000' or something to be considered a "climbing" death.

Just got back from Rainier today. I was actually climbing on the Emmons through RMI that same day. We left Camp Schurman around 2am, and made the summit around 9-9:30. And made it back down to Schurman at 1pm. The route this year took a long traverse to the west around 12,500 ft to nearly 14,000 ft towards the Winthrop. The snow condition was pretty good at that elevation, but the slopes were pretty steep, at least 35-40 degrees easy. On that traverse, there was actually a huge serac above and then about 50 ft below the traverse, a huge crack. This is the part where the RMI guides were assuming where the fall happened.

We actually met the team coming down, just below Columbia Crest; they were heading up. The one thing the guides did mention was that the team, although roped together, actually had pretty large intervals between them, and they were pretty much using the full 60m (or 50m) rope. On the other hand, we were actually roped together in teams of 3, with only about 20-25 ft between us, and the guides were carrying lots of coils. What the guides were saying was that with the long rope intervals, when a person falls, you can't "catch" them as well as being short roped, because of the pendulum effect of a climber falling, and the shock load on the rope after falling for a good distance. So this might have contributed to the whole team being pulled into the crevasse.

It's very tragic accident, and it really put things in perspective for us when we heard about it. Rainier is a beautiful mountain not to be underestimated. The guides with RMI were excellent and we are so thankful they were able to keep us safe. The Emmons is an unbelievable glacier.

Aviarome