Injured climber survives 5 days on mountain

[carole]

News report. Bugs, yum.

 

[giggy]

I really hope he filtered that water

While "nontechnical" that area he was in is pretty steep snow with not much to stop you for a long way - an un-arrested fall would send one for a ride, I would say he was lucky considering.

 

[Kevin Rooney]

Wow, 5 days! That's impressive. Piker's Peak is the false summit about a mile before the true summit. I wonder which route he took - South Spur?

 

[giggy]

Kevin - that would be my guess since he was solo - I guess you could solo mazama (which does intersect with south spur below pikers) this time of year if the cracks were exposed, not sure I would want to that though. if you did fall in and you were solo - your fckd big time.

 

[cbcbd]

I climbed this weekend with a SAR guy who was part of the huge search effort on Adams. He went up the South Spur route and was found on the West side at 6000ft in the White Salmon Avalanche area on the Round the Mountain trail. Real freakin hardy... amazing.


More info in this article:
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/10/missing_climber_found_alive_on.html


Also, just to add a quote from a SAR volunteer on cc.com:
"We are all very glad that Derek was found alive and for all intents and purposes, OK. But let's remember a few things: Derek had never climbed a mountain like Adams before, he didn't know where he was going (no map, compass, GPS, etc), he had to rent his gear (i.e., suggesting that he wasn't very experienced in its use), he went at not so great a time of year (there was some pretty serious weather up high that was easily forecasted), and he went alone. In short, he was very lucky to have been found alive, but I respect the fact that he did all he could to get himself down and out under his own power. I just hope he learned a valuable lesson."

 

[AOC-1]

Here's a photo with the South Side non-technical ascent route in blue and his descent/crawl in red (courtesy of cascadeclimbers). Very lucky guy.

 

[Kevin Rooney]

Yes, it is certainly most remarkable that such an ill-prepared person was able to survive such an ordeal. After reaching the summit, it looks like he dropped down to the north before swinging back towards his ascent route.

On the totally different subject (and since AOC-1 has provided a link to an excellent view of Mt Adams) the sub-peak to the right and above the label "Southwest Chutes" is the false summit known as Pikers Peak. And more importantly - the mile or so below Pikers is supposedly the best glissade run in the country. It's certainly the best one I've ever been on.

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

And more importantly - the mile or so below Pikers is supposedly the best glissade run in the country. It's certainly the best one I've ever been on.

During the one time that I was on the S Ridge route, the long sitting glissade was the main destination for many of the folks I met, including many of those camping on the Lunch Counter. A deep rounded trough sets up, with really cool meanders, etc., much like a bobsled run (the physics of the trough is probably worthy of a scientific study).

 

[cbcbd]

Here's a photo with the South Side non-technical ascent route in blue and his descent/crawl in red (courtesy of cascadeclimbers). Very lucky guy.

I think this pic was posted just to show the mountain from the West. The pic was actually taken from Amar Andalkar's skimountaineer.com site from a ski report. The blue line was Amar's ascent and the red his ski descent:
http://www.turns-all-year.com/skiing_snowboarding/trip_reports/index.php?topic=1688

Since it said that he stumbled and fell from the Piker's peak, he probably fell down more in the SW chutes area which is below Piker's peak.