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DEM #97-1040 June 17, 1997 |
On Tuesday June 17th at 3:00 P.M. Gus Bush was contacted by Heidi Reick at
the Mt. Rainier communication center. Two Climbers had been stranded on the
top of Liberty Cap by a weekend snow storm. They requested eight strong
mountain rescue volunteers with Mt. Rainier summit experience to commit to
a three day climb. Gus then contacted John Wilcox, chief ranger at
Mt. Rainier for more information. John said that the two climbers
(Mike Catlett and Don Willcox) had left the White River Ranger station on
the 12th of June for a four day climb of Liberty Ridge. They had reached
the summit of Liberty Cap (14,112 Feet) when they were caught in a white
out. While the had the equipment to wait out the storm they were running
out of food and fuel when they finally called park rangers on a cell phone
on Sunday. The weather forecast called for the storm to last till
Thursday. Initial attempts by helicopter had proved unsuccessful.
Tracy Berryman started a callout and eight members responded; they were:
Ed Hrivnak, Jim Lewis, Chris Berryman, John Kirkman, Fran Mcfarland,
Jeff Sharp, Tom Miner and Andrew Cull.
They met at the Cache at 5:00 A.M. Wednesday morning and drove to the
White River Ranger station. After a briefing by Park Rangers they were
tasked to climb to Camp Schurman to assist a team of Park Rangers who had
left the night before. Around 11:00 A.M a Chinook helicopter was able to
land on the summit during a break in the weather and extract the stranded
climbers. The TMRU team was turned around on the Inner Glacier. They
returned to the Cache by 5:00 P.M.
The following letter was received by the unit from Donald Willcox:
Dear Members:
Due to unrelenting zero visibility and severe weather including thirty
hours of snow squalls with winds of 70-100 miles per hour, my partner and
I were forced to spend four days at Liberty Cap (14,100 ft.) on
Mt. Rainier, WA. On Sunday June 15th, 1997, we reached Liberty Cap at
11:00 in clear weather, leaving over nine hours of bright daylight to
descend to Glacier Basin (estimated travel time 4-7 hours).
Given clear weather and a good forecast through Wed. June 18 we melted
1.5 liters of water and ate the last of our food for lunch. We reasoned
that this would refresh our energy and hydration and allow for a more
rapid descent. Unfortunately, as we began our descent at 12:00-
12:10 p.m., an unpredicted weather front entombed the summit in a veil
of clouds allowing no better than 20 foot visibility until sometime early
Wed. morning.
Through a deliberate and calculated process of energy preservation and a
system of melting snow in our sleeping bags, we managed to maintain our
precious heat-producing energy, without food or fuel over the next four
days. Despite these efforts, had the weather not broken on Wed. our very
survival would have depended upon you and the other ground crews advancing
on our camp at 14,100. My climbing partner and I were made aware of your
organization's efforts in the rescue operation on June 18th 1997. We regret
that we were unable to acknowledge the critical role you played in
assisting in our rescue in media interviews (unfortunately, our thanks to
the U. S. Army was edited out of many of the news reports as well).
We fully understand the sacrifice that each of you made on our behalf.
Leaving jobs, families and accepting risk to your well being, you advanced
towards Liberty Cap in a selfless effort to preserve our lives. For this we
thank and are indebted to each and every one of you. We would also like to
acknowledge that we recognize that each climber is ultimately responsible
for his or her own actions. While we took every reasonable precaution on
this climb and were actually complimented for our decision making by the
National Park Service, we regret that events involving our climb endangered
your members.
Again, on behalf of my partner Mike Catlett, our wives, families and
friends I would like to thank you all for your dedication to climbing
safety and particularly to the extraordinary courage and caring exhibited
in rescue efforts on our behalf.
Tacoma Mountain Rescue |
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