A friend and I went for a planned camp/hike/summit three days ago. The hike in was great. Warm, sunny and clear. I had obsessively checked the forecast for the area on weather.com which was mistake number one. I’ve since learned to check it on mountain forecast.com.
The next morning the weather was pleasant enough, mix of sun and cloud with occasional sprinkles. We decided it was a go and headed up the mountain which was going to be a good three hours to the summit. There was snow on the ground fairly soon but we had microspikes and I had extra layers in my daypack. It was still warm enough for shorts and a tshirt at this point. Mistake number two was my friend did not have any extra clothes other than a light wind breaker.
After about an hour, with the snow cover, it got harder and harder to see the trail but we had alltrails which we kept checking. Mistake number three is we should have turned back then. But at this point it was just kind of funny to us. We were still warm, weather was ok. Then we had to so some fairly significant scrambling up for a bit and then the weather started to change. The rain became heavy and the wind started picking up.
But by now we were past the half way point and decided it would be better to keep going (we were doing a loop rather than an in and out) By now it had been about four hours. The fog, rain and wind got really, really bad. I’ve since learned that the gusts were about 100km/h. At this point navigation became very difficult and we had to keep checking gps every minute or so.
Then my friend said “my hands aren’t working, you’ll have to do all the trail checking”. Honestly I thought he was being a little dramatic because by this point I had put on all my layers and was mostly ok except for trying to not get blown off the mountain. Then we stopped for a minute to eat and he sort of collapsed on the ground into a little ball. Then I knew he was not doing well but it was so crazy windy I knew that a helicopter wouldn’t be able to land so I made him get up and keep moving forward.
I just hoped that if I could get us over the mountain and onto the other side that the wind would be less and we’d be able to get down. But then he couldn’t go on any more and when I looked up at the final peak I just decided that if we went up there, we would die. So we called for help on his garmin.
They transferred me to the local SARS and they said they were going to send a helicopter to us after giving them our location. After about an hour we could hear the helicopter but the wind/rain/fog was so thick we couldn’t see it. Then they called us and said it couldn’t land in the weather and a ground crew was on their way. After another hour they called and said the helicopter would be there in fifteen minutes. We were so happy.
We’d been just marching in place for two hours trying to not die. My friend fell asleep standing up at one point and he was shivering like crazy. Fifteen minutes came and went, then another fifteen minutes. They called back and said the helicopter still couldn’t land and the ground crew was making their way to us. That’s when I started to lose hope and worried that we were in serious danger. My hands weren’t working properly at this point and the sustained wind and rain was making me really cold. My friend was in really bad shape. My speech was starting to slur a bit and he just wasn’t talking anymore.
Then, after about three hours since calling for help we heard a sound in the distance that we thought sounded like a person calling so I started blowing my airhorn and he started blowing his whistle. Finally we saw two heads pop up over the snow.
They immediately started helping my friend, warming him up. They said the helicopter was going to try again to get us and we heard it so close but it just couldn’t land. So the only option was to hike out. Then another two rescuers came from the opposite direction and joined us. By this time the wind was dying down and the rain had slowed down as well. They were super efficient and just started taking us back down but in a different direction. We had to do a lot of bushwhacking and they set up ropes to get down the steep parts. It took about another three hours to get down with them. Very quickly, after starting to move again, my hands warmed up and I was ok.
Honestly the way down was kind of fun for me. At one point two others joined us from a different direction. They had multiple teams coming from different ways to find us. They said it’s the best outcome for them, to have people who are able to walk themselves out and not have to carry them in a stretcher. They were laughing and joking with each other which helped me to relax. They were so kind and knowledgeable. There was no judgment but they got me to think about what I did wrong and how to not get in that situation again. My friend was doing ok as well but he did fall a few times. But some of the rescuers fell as well because it was quite difficult terrain.
Finally we made it to the base, way the heck far away on logging roads where three vehicles met us and drove us all back to civilization. Once at headquarters I was able to change into dry clothes. I hadn’t noticed how completely soaked I was till that point because I had to ring out my underwear in the sink.
I’ve been ravenously hungry and thirsty since. Yesterday I couldn’t really think clearly so all I did was lay my gear out to dry then went to bed. Today I feel a lot better but I’m still pretty foggy so this is likely just a blather. In total we were on the mountain for 15 hours.