bv
10-19-2003, 11:33 AM
Just posted this on rockclimbing.com (I know we have at least one heli rescue pilot who reads this board), and I can't seem to find any decent no. cal. climbing forums (suggestions?), so here ya go...
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Wondering if anyone has any info on the guy that was knocked out and heli-evac'ed from Surrealistic Pillar at the leap last Friday (10/17)?
We did SP in the morning and these two guys started as we finished the second pitch. We hung out at the top of SP for quite a while and never heard any problems (one guy had mentioned doing the route before, and they watched us for quite a while from below), and didn't realize an accident had occurred till seeing a helo and associated rescue vehicles moving down the valley (by which time we were a half-mile away on Haystack Crack on the East Wall). Helo couldn't seem to figure out where the accident occurred for a while, and ended up ~15-ft off our second-pitch belay on Haystack for about 2 minutes (and no we did not flag them nor do anything beyond a simple head tap/thumbs up once they were there to acknowledge them in hopes they would leave). Neither pilot responded or made any signals, so we turned our backs and they left about a minute later (friggin' impossible to hear anything with those things). Anyway we saw the belayer and another guy hiking out in the dark and all that was mentioned was 'rope tangle' and a long fall - he said the guy was knocked out for a bit, came to, and simply said 'get help.' Apparently they evac'ed him from the top of the second pitch to somewhere in South Lake, no small feat...
For those whose don't know, Surrealistic Pillar is a classic two and a half pitch 5.7 at the Leap that has good exposure and non-trivial route-finding. A description is at
http://www.supertopo.com/rockclimbing/route.html?r=lolosurr
_______________________________
Wondering if anyone has any info on the guy that was knocked out and heli-evac'ed from Surrealistic Pillar at the leap last Friday (10/17)?
We did SP in the morning and these two guys started as we finished the second pitch. We hung out at the top of SP for quite a while and never heard any problems (one guy had mentioned doing the route before, and they watched us for quite a while from below), and didn't realize an accident had occurred till seeing a helo and associated rescue vehicles moving down the valley (by which time we were a half-mile away on Haystack Crack on the East Wall). Helo couldn't seem to figure out where the accident occurred for a while, and ended up ~15-ft off our second-pitch belay on Haystack for about 2 minutes (and no we did not flag them nor do anything beyond a simple head tap/thumbs up once they were there to acknowledge them in hopes they would leave). Neither pilot responded or made any signals, so we turned our backs and they left about a minute later (friggin' impossible to hear anything with those things). Anyway we saw the belayer and another guy hiking out in the dark and all that was mentioned was 'rope tangle' and a long fall - he said the guy was knocked out for a bit, came to, and simply said 'get help.' Apparently they evac'ed him from the top of the second pitch to somewhere in South Lake, no small feat...
For those whose don't know, Surrealistic Pillar is a classic two and a half pitch 5.7 at the Leap that has good exposure and non-trivial route-finding. A description is at
http://www.supertopo.com/rockclimbing/route.html?r=lolosurr