Climber stranded after partner falls from cliff, WA rescuers say. ‘He’s going to die’
.jpeg "Two climbers were stranded overnight in frigid weather after one of them fell from a cliff, Washington rescuers say.")
As two climbers were on their way back down from climbing a Washington mountain peak, one of them fell.
He fell on the pair’s last rappel down the Cauthorn-Wilson Route on Cutthroat Peak on Sunday, April 28, the Chelan County Mountain Rescue said in an April 29 Facebook post.
“The knot on the rappel ring … came out of the system and so Phillip fell with the rope all the way down to the bottom of the route,” Thomas Gilbert, one of the climbers, told KIRO 7 News.
Without a rope, GIlbert sat.
“‘He’s going to die, and I’ll be stranded,’” Gilbert thought to himself, KIRO 7 News reported. “‘He’s really struggling or really, really hurt, and I have no rope and I can’t come down to help him.”
The pair activated an alert from a Garmin inReach, which reached the Chelan County Sheriff’s Office at about 8 p.m., according to an April 29 Facebook post.
The climbers, though, would be stranded for hours more.
Deputies said they spoke with the climbers’ friends and learned which route they had taken.
“Just after midnight,” deputies said rescuers from Naval Air Station Whidbey Island flew a helicopter to hoist the pair from the mountain.
However, unfavorable weather forced them to turn around.
Deputies said they also requested help from Chelan County Mountain Rescue, which reached the trailhead shortly before 3 a.m.
After hiking for nearly four hours, deputies said rescuers found the climbers.
Rescuers said they warmed the injured climber with “sleeping bags, ‘chem kits’ (think giant hand warmers), food, water and shelter,” while other rescuers lowered Gilbert “down to other team members to be warmed.”
As another team from Mountain Rescue made their way to the climbers, deputies said the weather finally cleared.
The Navy sent in a helicopter “for a second time” shortly after 9 a.m., deputies said.
Rescuers airlifted the injured climber from the area at about 10:30 a.m., while rescuers helped Gilbert down to the trailhead, according to deputies.
“I will say thank you to (the rescuers) for the rest of my life,” Gilbert told KIRO 7 News.
Cutthroat Peak is in northern Washington, about a 157-mile drive northeast from Seattle.
This story was originally published May 2, 2024 at 12:25 PM with the headline "Climber stranded after partner falls from cliff, WA rescuers say. ‘He’s going to die’."
