Fitness Files: The right backpacker at the right time
My friend, Cristina, a wildlife biologist, met me at the track the other day.
“I’ve told your rattlesnake story many times,” I said. “Remember, you caught rattlesnakes and marked their rattles with different color fingernail polish every year?”
“I’ve got a better one this time,” she said. “Last summer my work buddy, Tamar, and I took a weekend Sierra backpacking. Hiked all day. Dropped our packs to set up for the night, but we heard screaming. Couldn’t detect words at first. Then Tamar made out, ‘Help, call 911!’
“We grabbed headlamps. Tamar took a hatchet — in case we’d needed a weapon. I snatched our radio and we scrambled uphill toward the frantic voice.”
Cristina and Tamar navigated a mile of granite slab terrain, forded a river and clawed their way up a steep mountainside littered with scree.
“Those cries for help drove us,” Cristina went on. “We clambered up a cliff and saw a young man running toward our lights.”
Cristina described meeting Logan, a panic-stricken 16-year-old who explained that he and his dad, Ralph, were climbing Knife Edge Pass. Logan braced against a boulder when the huge rock rolled, crushed his dad against another rock and continued down the hill.
“Logan said, ‘I wrapped my dad in blankets, but he needs a helicopter to get to the hospital!’”
Cristina went on: “I radioed, ‘Man injured — base of Knife Edge.’ Answer was ‘Tomorrow morning, no night rescues.’
“Searching for Ralph, we raced along dark narrow trails. Logan had a GPS, but he’d entered his dad’s location incorrectly. After four hours searching along steep, unstable trails, Tamar said, ‘We’re going back to camp or there’ll be three more casualties.’
“I didn’t want to stop. Logan was desperate, but Tamar was right. Back in camp, we zipped our sleeping bags together to include Logan. Even with three people, the night was cold. I figured Ralph wouldn’t live, in shock, at 40 degrees.
“Logan told us Ralph was an experienced mountaineer who’d taken total charge of outings. Depending on his dad, he lacked solo skills.
“Four a.m., we headed back up the mountain. In daylight, Logan identified landmarks, directing us up 12,000 feet where we came upon Ralph, amazingly joking, ‘Where’s the hot flapjacks?’
“Soon his jokes stopped, and he screamed in agony. He’d held it together until help came. Then he let go.
“Thankfully, the helicopter came, hovered but couldn’t land on the ledge that barely held us. A medic dropped down on a tether, followed by a basket.
“We loaded Ralph, but it was tight. Half-step back and I’d have crashed down the canyon into the same boulder that got Ralph.
“We watched Ralph’s basket dangle from the copter until it could land on a flat plain up the mountain.
“We heard later that Ralph had a broken shoulder, clavicle, pelvis, ribs, internal bleeding due to ruptured diaphragm and a punctured lung.
“But just three months later, Tamar had Thanksgiving dinner with Ralph’s family. Ralph was back to work, without pain except his shoulder.”
I looked at Cristina and said, “Happy ending, but I bet you don’t want to go through anything like that again.”
“Actually I’m saving money to enroll in EMT training. I saw Ralph and Logan last spring on their first hike back. Logan told me he’d taken over GPS tracking. They’d learned a lesson.
“When I had to get to work, they handed me a box of chocolates and a card. Inside was a $1,000 check and a note: ‘Use this for medic training. You’ve got natural talent. We should know.’”
By story’s end, Cristina and I’d circled the track several times, but I hardly noticed my legs. What I felt was admiration for the lady jogging beside me — field biologist, mountaineer, savior.
Newport Beach resident CARRIE LUGER SLAYBACK is a retired teacher who ran the Los Angeles Marathon at age 70, winning first place in her age group. Her blog is [email protected].