How To Fall Off A Mountain

Rich Benbrook

Using the Maps

Mount Whitney

Monarch Lake

Vidette Meadow

Cottonwood Lakes

Onion Valley to
Whitney Portal

Symmes Creek to
Mineral King

Mount Tyndall

Whitney Group

Mount Shasta

Mount Williamson

Palisades

Middle Palisade
Revisited

Thunder Mountain

Middle Palisade
Try Again

Middle Palisade
Take Three

Mount Sill

Thunderbolt Peak
Climbing Up

Thunderbolt Peak
Climbing Down

Thunderbolt Peak
Rescue

Aerial Photos

National Park Service Search and Rescue

Links

Thunderbolt Peak - Climbing Down

maps:

By this time, two other climbers arrived at the scene. Brick and Bridger Root, a father and son team from Colorado, were on vacation and they too had planned to climb all of California's 14,000 foot peaks. These two were wonderful. I would have certainly died without their help. Bridger was only 14, but kept his wits about him and provided assistance far greater then to be expected from someone his age. We were fortunate; this peak is infrequently climbed and to have two climbing parties at once would be very unusual, but in this instance was a welcome surprise. They were with Tim, about 20 feet above me. Unable to climb down to me, they lowered a rope which I tied into my harness. One thing about climbing that most people don't realize, it is physically impossible to pull somebody up with a rope due to the friction of rope against rock. It is also impossible to climb a rope without special 'ascender' devices, which we did not have. The only way out would be for me to climb up a near vertical cliff with a broken knee.

Tim: By leaning out on a flake I could just see his shoulder. We tossed a rope to Rich and tried to pull him up to the platform. Unfortunately, the rope made so many turns over the rock that hauling him was practically impossible. He mostly had to climb up to us on his own, a slow, laborious process which must have been excruciating.

I tried to stand up, and as soon as I put weight on my right leg it collapsed underneath me. Now the knee and rib pain really kicked in. I thought I might pass out. I tried again to stand, and found that as long as I kept my right leg locked, it would support my weight.

I started climbing up the cliff, supporting my weight on my broken knee while I stepped up to the next foothold with my good leg. Then I lifted my bad leg up to meet the good one, and repeated the process. The other climbers kept the rope tight, so if I slipped I wouldn't fall back down again. And slip I did. Often. Each time, I'd swing away from the cliff on the rope, and then swing back into it, crashing against my ribs and causing much pain.

It wasn't until I got back up to the rest of the climbers that I thought I just might live. We still had a lot of work ahead of us, though. Brick had a tarp and some duct tape. We rolled the tarp and taped it to my leg as a splint. It didn't work well, but it was better than nothing.

Tim: When at last he was on the platform, Rich told me that he had fallen about 20 feet onto a ledge, striking his right knee on the rock. He could not use the knee; he thought it was broken. He had also injured his ribs. This caused him considerable pain unless he took shallow breaths, which is practically impossible to do at fourteen thousand feet.

I could see that we were in a lot of trouble. I turned to Brick and told him frankly that we needed his help to get down the mountain. Brick and Bridger were beyond all praise. Although my request meant giving up the summit, they immediately agreed to help. I shudder now to think what we would have done without them. I would have had to lower Rich from one belay point to another without anyone to hold him upright or place his feet. We never could have made it down before dark -- if we could have made it at all without causing him serious injury. I probably would have had to leave him on the mountain to get help. Even with three of us, it was enormously difficult to bring Rich down.

The next obstacle was a rappel about 80 feet straight down, to get back to the top of the chute. Bridger went down first. Brick then lowered me on the rope. It was again painful as I swung back and forth into the rocks. Bridger helped me with the landing, and then Brick and Tim climbed down to meet us.

Starting down the chute, it became obvious that I would need assistance the entire way. They could not carry me down the slope; I would have to climb myself. Brick set up an anchor, tied himself in, and started letting out rope as I climbed down the chute. I would soon get far enough below him that he couldn't see me any more. We relied on shouting for communication. Mostly, I faced the mountain, and climbed down backwards. I would lower my broken leg, and Bridger, who stayed right below me, directed it to the next foothold. Frequently, he had to grab my foot and actually place it in the right spot, as I had absolutely no muscle control to swing that leg forward. (A little anatomy - the kneecap is crucial to straightening the leg, it doesn't actually support any weight, but with it broken I could not swing my foot forward onto the foothold.) Then I would place all my weight on the bad leg, and bring the good leg down to meet it. I fell often, and needless to say it was slow going. We were only able to go about a hundred feet before reaching the end of the rope. Then I had to wait while Brick took apart the anchor, climbed down to us, and set up another anchor. Anchor in. Down climb. Repeat. Over and over.

By this point, it was obvious that we were going to be on the mountain a very long time. We decided that even though it was risky, we needed to send one of us out to get help. Tim took off, but we knew he would be lucky to get out before dark. He had to down climb the chute, negotiate the chockstone at the half-way point, cross Thunderbolt Pass back to camp, hike two miles off trail across Dusy Basin, and finally back down the trail to the car. I handed him the keys and wished him the best of luck.

Tim: While Brick belayed from above, Bridger and I steadied Rich and placed his feet in the holds. It took quite a long time just to get him back to the notch. Although it was less steep in the chute, the lower angle created a new problem. With only one working leg, Rich was top heavy and in constant danger of flipping over. I clasped his shoulders and walked backwards with him, trying to form a stable three-legged unit, but we still crashed repeatedly into the side of the mountain. A big part of the problem was that the chute did not allow us to stay directly below our belay point; we often had to move to the left or right, making us vulnerable to a pendulum swing in the opposite direction. After several hours we had succeeded in descending only a few hundred feet. When we had reached the same point on the way up, I had thought we were as good as on top.

The situation was not good. We were moving at a snail's pace and the traverse around the chockstone, the worst part of the descent, was still ahead of us. Getting Rich back to our camp in Dusy Basin was completely out of the question. He would have to spend the night in Palisade Basin, probably near Thunderbolt Pass; it would be too hard to move him over the giant talus at the base of the Southwest Chute. On top of everything else, the weather, which had been beautiful in the morning, was deteriorating. The clouds pressed around us and sounds became muffled, as though snow was about to fall.

It was becoming obvious that we could not stay together until we were off the mountain. One of us would have to go now for help. I was the choice by default. Brick was the most experienced climber and his skills were essential for Rich's safety. Bridger, though remarkably steady and mature for his age, was only fourteen. He and Brick were visiting from Colorado, and probably neither of them had been in Palisade or Dusy Basin before. I was familiar with both and could give precise directions to the rescue crew.

Fortunately, the weather cooperated. A few clouds formed, but no thunder or rain appeared. It was late afternoon when we got to the chockstone at the half-way point, and now I realized what a difficult time Tim must have had. It is always easier to climb up then down. While climbing the cliff face to get out of the chute worked on the way up, it was not as good of an option going down. Here was another spot where a rappel would be easiest, but that takes at least two people, so that option would not have been available for Tim. We considered rappelling ourselves, but decided that would be too risky.

I sat, while Brick and Bridger attempted to find the correct spot to climb down the cliff. Another rule of mountain climbing; it's easy to see the route looking up from the bottom, but looking down from the top everything disappears and the route cannot be seen. While they spent an hour looking for the way down, I worried about Tim having to do this by himself. I half expected to find his body somewhere in the chute below us.

Finally, a route was located, and we started again the process of getting off the mountain. The cliff was difficult, but we made it back into the chute. The chute was filled with icy snow, which we had avoided on the way up by climbing along the edge where the warmth of the rocks had melted the snow. Since it was now very late in the afternoon, with only a few hours of daylight left, we needed to pick up the pace. I sat on the snow, and they lowered me fairly fast to the end of the rope. I'd dig a spot to sit while they slid down to meet me, and we'd start down again. Although the speed caused me to twist my leg a lot, and resulted in much pain, we had no choice with the approaching darkness.

At the bottom of the chute, the snow ended and now there was just a bunch of talus (big boulders) between us and Brick and Bridger's backpacks. We could see a small level spot just below another snow field. We decided to spend the night there, as continuing across Thunderbolt Pass to my campsite would have been impossible.

It was just about dark as I hobbled into camp. Nine hours had passed since my fall, and I was completely exhausted. I collapsed against a rock, and lay down to rest while they set up the tent. I tried to drink some water and eat a little food, but I felt nauseous and couldn't force much down.

Once the tent was set up, I crawled in. Brick loaned me his sleeping bag, and started to fix dinner. I couldn't move any more - couldn't even sit up to eat due to the pain in my ribs.