Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion Three Hikers Missing On Mt. Whitney Since Saturday Are Found

Story from the LA Times.

Here's the LA Times full story:

"Three hikers were rescued Monday from Mt. Whitney after a combined search-and-rescue effort by Inyo County Sheriff's Department personnel and a California National Guard CH-47 Chinook helicopter.

The three had been missing since a snowstorm Saturday.

Inyo County sheriff's spokeswoman Carma Roper said the helicopter found the hikers near the 15,000-foot summit, the highest peak in the contiguous United States.

Michael Pettleton, 25, and Michael Cady, 37, both of La Verne, and Travis Cone, 29, of San Dimas are experienced hikers who took shelter near a rock and used blankets for warmth, Roper said.

On Monday, they hiked down the mountain and were taken by helicopter to Lone Pine Airport."

Poorly written piece.

Blankets? Maybe space blankets? The image of someone carting nice wooly blankets up Whitney is ... different from my expectations.

They should have just hiked out. Hiking will keep you warm and going lower will be warmer. Whitney is also not the type of place it is easy to get lost.

They used the words "experienced hikers", again. The rest of the story should be interesting and informative to those who think winter is a 3-season hike...just colder.

Rogue,

Saturday the SoCal mountains were cold, windy and white out conditions existed from time to time. The Sierra Range was cloud covered from my vantage point along the Angeles Crest. You can argue they should not have been that high but if they were dealing snow, wind and white out staying in the hut until conditions improved made sense.

Maybe but even in a white out it seems like it would be easy to follow that crest.

I hesitate to comment on such threads about "coulda, shoulda, woulda", from my armchair....but....I will say this about that:

There have been times when I was driving along under the cozy conditions of my car...on the freeway...wider than a trail...not steep...and the "whiteout" (be it fog, clouds, snow) moved in and I could not see beyond the hood of my car, and suddenly, straight was not so easy, and damn that freeway lane got reeeeaaaal narrow...and was that a curve coming up? Hyperventalation soon followed. Ever flown under a hood? Up is down, and left is right...or wrong...or steeply off the "trail" -- no matter what the instruments (GPS, Loran C...or just plain gyroscope) are screaming at you.

As I recall, an experienced femal hiker was lost/fell from a very well known Baldy trail last year, under some zero visibility conditions.

Well, time to recline the chair and contemplate some hot chocolate. Whatever the actual personal weather conditions were for those hikers, at least they lived to tell, as some do not.

It is always tough to second guess what happened on a trip where things didn't go as planned. On another trip reported on this forum, even when the hikers themselves write of their experience, there will be a number of people who will lecture and criticize and blame them.

I just wish the people in this situation would be able to report what happened, and how they planned their trip. I am wondering what weather forecasts they used.

I am sure many could learn from their experience -- if only we could get a full report.

Rogue,

I was on Ontario Ridge two weeks ago in white out and got turned around...thinking I was heading west when I was to east. This is and area I've hiked many times. White out contributed us being a 1/2 mile off on our ascent to a lower ridge. If they lost their tracks back to Trail Crest, they could have really put themselves in the jackpot. Not even mentioning what could have happened on the lower part of the mountain.

With that said, what is called white out in the papers usually is not white out but limited visibility...like that incident with the skier up on San Jacinto last winter. I was out that day and conditions were marginal not white out. The biggest problem there was he should not have been out by himself.

Steve,

That is why my friends and I read these reports all the time. We try to figure out what these folks did right and wrong. Hopefully, when we totally screw up we make the right decisions to minimize our plight and end up not having our names in the LA Times.

Lovin' Bee's reply.

Why is there no "like button" yet?

My take is that they probably got in trouble somewhere between 14,500 and 15,000 feet. I think most of us would have too . . .

Bee I agree. I have flown under a hood and been in a whiteout. The reason they call it a whiteout is because you can't see anything but white.I have been in Mammouth in a whiteout on a well marked trail and had to take off my skis and walkout because I couldn't see. It was hairy scary.I couldn't imagine going down the backside of Whitney and down the switchbacks cables or slope (whichever is being used now) in true whiteout conditins.

Gary, I agree, that last 500 feet to 15,000 is a doooozy! :-)

Spoken like a true ignoramus. Outstanding insight!

Please, do enlighten us, since you must know something about the hikers that no one else does...

LIKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Relax, relax, it is after all the LA Times. My guess is they have cut back on the use of Google to fact check trivial things like the elevation of the California's highest peak.

One mo' thing on white out...as Rod said it can be a bit scary. The scary part is being disoriented. A couple of weeks ago on Ontario Ridge I knew exactly where I was, I just thought the right way to descend west rather than east. My friends and I stopped to discuss our direction of travel, everyone assured me we were going in the right direction. About a minute later, when the downward slope appeared to my left with a bunch of snow it I was sure we were going in the right direction...but not until then.

Just having a little fun at the LA Times' expense, Bill - I'm sure we're not the first! You'd think a writer would check a fact like that before publishing, though - takes all of 20 seconds with a search engine.

As far as the decisions these 3 hikers made, I would probably have done the same thing (although I almost certainly would not have headed up if winter weather was a concern, but that's a personal choice based on comfort with the white stuff). That ridge between Trail Crest and the summit is no joke when it's iced up or freshly powdered. Add blizzard conditions and I'd have likely sat my butt down too and waited it out.

One of the best ways to make someone tense is to tell them to relax.

I like to laugh. Bulldog and Quillansculpture make me laugh.

Roger that, Laura, Yep, they could have followed that ridge right off the east face or somewhere equally fatal. Staying put was wise. Did they check a weather forecast before setting out(which would have been the sensible thing to do)?

Bulldog,

The one time I went across that ridge was during spring 2007. It was in bright sunlight with temperatures near freezing. Conditions varied from a clear trail, soft snow to a sheet of ice...I would not liked to dealt with all three when I could not see my hand in front of my face.

I regularly go out in blizzard and/or white out conditions in the Mt. Jacinto area. I'm with friends and most of us are carrying maps, compasses and GPS. Mountain Station to the San Jacinto doesn't have a bit of exposure like Trail Crest to the summit. The key words no exposure, friends and maps, compasses and multiple GPS. We also have turned around short of our planned destination when things gotten really bad.

To confirm what everyone else here has been saying: I've gotten lost in two whiteouts. Both on trails I'd skied or hiked dozens to hundreds of times before. Once on Bishop Pass a group of 4 of us -- all backcountry rangers who had skied that pass at least a dozen times each -- got lost near the pass. Using a map and compass, one of us would go out to the limit of visibility (about 10 feet) and the one with the compass would wave right or left to stay on our estimated route to the place we could get off the ridge. All this in 30+ MPH winds and about -10 F (without windchill factored in). We called the rock above the gulley where we could safely ski down "thank you Jesus rock" when it loomed out of the blowing snow. Darned good navigating, too... .

It also inspired a great line from one of my buddies. As we skied out the next day, we came out from under the rain shadow of the Sierra. Blowing and miserable one minute, clear the next as we approached the trailhead. Two guys were skiing in and, after finding out what we did, said "Boy, what a great job. Must be really fun to be paid to ski around all the time!" To which my buddy growled: "How about I velcro you to my ass next time? Then you see how much fun it can be."

Which is all to say you can definitely get lost in a whiteout. You not only lose landmarks and direction, you lose horizon and any sense of balance. Really nerve wracking.

George

Hey, George -- ask yer buddy if he maintains full rights & priviledges to his quote.....

I can think of at least 5 situations in which I could have replaced at least 5 lesser impacting expletives.

1. It amazes me that we are having this conversation in the first place
2. perhaps the 'follow the ridge' person has never been in a whiteout (a sensitive subject with me -- see avitar)
3. perhaps there must always be a contrarian in the mix, causing us to relate/emphasize what would otherwise be patently obvious.

Uh-oh, the head cold is taking over my otherwise impeccable manners....better sign off at this point...

I think there is a bit of misunderstanding about what I meant with hiking out. My comments where only because it's Whitney with very specific terrain. I had not bothered to comment anymore on it because there are too many variables that like mentioned cannot be seen from the comfort of my chair.

I was once in a very bad storm where my hiking partner insisted on hiking out while it was dark and there was no way I was going to do so in the storm so I stayed put while he left.

How did that work out? For both of you?

That is the problem in a nutshell. The specifics become non-specific.


Yes, Wagga is asking if the other guys' choice was successful.


Mountain literature quote of the day:
In mountaineering one man's prudence is another man's poison. HW Tilman, Two Mountains and a River, page 585

Great quote, Harvey.

Oh, I missed that part. It worked out for both of us. I was able to stay warm all night as the snow continued to fall and he made it out successfully. Although when we agreed to meet at the bottom in the morning I found he had left so I had to hitch hike to the nearest town.