Training: FRA of Spindle Peak via Spindle Couloir, BC
145 days to Day 1 (1st attempt)
Two of us made First Recorded Ascent (FRA) of Spindle Peak via Spindle Couloir.
We wanted to climb (and downlcimb) something similar (or harder) to the headwall on the Denali West Buttress, which is ~250 meters high. Spindle Couloir is 580 meters, steeper and without fixed ropes - was ideal: it supports our motto - if training is not twice as hard of the real climb, it is not a training.
Lessons: 1) always check ultimate backup 2) sattelite phones can't dial 911
Originally, to allow enough time for the climb and descent, we planned two nights snowcamping at the fork Crown - Hanes Valley. However, when the desired cold finally came (it was -7°C at the base), the window of good conditions was only two days, followed by snowfall right after. So, I made the decision to squeeze the climb into a day-trip, followed by a day of clear weather. This reserved day saved Vera's life.
On the summit of Spindle Peak, after First Recorded Ascent of Spindle Couloir.
The fall lasted less than 2-3 seconds. She didn't scream or yell. Suddenly it was quiet. I couldn't see her. I paged her on the radio. There was silence, but I could hear the beep of her radio down below. I could hear its weak but sharp echo from the north walls of Widow Maker. I finished that last rappel we set up, retrieved the rope and started downclimbing. I paged here again and again. Silence, except the same remote beep of her radio.
Then I saw the blood on the snow. It was a single small red frozen piece of Slurpee. I picked it up, looked close at it and wanted to keep it, which was silly, of course. A sinister voice inside me whispered "See that!? You may not need to hurry anymore". I kept paging, but noticed that I couldn't hear the beep of her radio anymore.
Further down I picked her broken sunglasses, then a pair of gloves which were teared off her hands. I put them in the inner pocket of my down jacket but they kept falling out. Some other voice inside me yelled "Stupid! You are wasting your time! Hurry!" Then I saw her, on her knees hands in the air. She yelled "Call 911!", I yelled back "Press SPOT SOS button!". Then she just slowly lay down, facing the snow, as if preparing to sleep.
I hoped, like five years ago on Crown, there would be cell phone signal, and tried to dial 911 from my cellphone, but it didn't work. I tried to use sat phone, but the electronic voice on the other end would say again and again "You can't dial 911". I felt I indeed was wasting time, BIG way. I resumed descent, quick, it was still some distance to go. Then I saw her SPOT sitting there on the snow, also teared off her pack in the fall. I picked it up. That's when I pressed the SOS button. Now, for the SPOT to send emergency message, it takes some time to get working, the log below shows the very first SOS received by the GEOS International Emergency Response Center. It was 17:55.
What Vera did right after falling ~200m vertical is entirely beyond my comprehension - she managed to stop the fall and secure herself with two axes still clipped to her harness (or she most likely would tumble down another 100m), took her helmet off and replaced it with warm thick woolen hat. She took her pack off and put it down for insulation. There was also fleece jacket as extra layer. Then she went into a semi-coma and remained in this state for the rest 17 hours until the rescue helicopter airlift (9:50 a.m. next morning).
How Vera stopped her fall? We don't know how - she doesn't remember and I was 200m above her and couldn't see it. When I was downclimbing to her, I found her lost gloves. So she ended up bare-handed and with huge laceration on her middle finger, palm side, which looks like from an ice axe - so it is reasonable to assume it was a bare-hand self-arrest inflicted wound. The laceration was so deep that she could see the bone.
Through the night she would occasionally plead me not to"waste" our second SOL emergency bivy on her as she was worried "you will get cold", this pleading was done when she was actually sleeping. I was watching her for the first and scary sign of hypothermia - uncontrolled body shaking. At the same time I had to keep turning her body from one side to back and to another, but she was in pain and preferred lying on her right side. Massage every 15-20 minutes to keep blood circulation. I used tape to stick hand warmers to her hands and also put our foam pad and ropes under her body to insulate from the snow.
Then I moved her to another flatter platform which I cut nearby. When I was moving her, she weakly complained about something in a indifferent flat voice. I thought it was her fractured ankle. Only after I finished securing her body to the ice axe I saw what I did - there was a sharp icicle sticking out straight up , ~20 cm tall, in between the old location and new platform, so I actually dragged her over that thing! With horror I realized in how bad state she was - as she didn't react to that painful transfer so much (a sign of coma or semi-coma).
New location was better as I also could place her now empty backpack under her body and my large pack next to her side. We had Tylenol tablets which I gave her to relieve pain, four tablets total. She refused to drink our already cold water, but obeyed to take the pills. Now I was slowly getting cold too and exercises didn't seem to warm me up. I knew that I must keep her awake or the brain might simply give up controlling basic cardio function. So I talked to her through the entire night. I would say "Don't worry, the help is only a few hours away and then it will be over, you will have hot drinks, plenty of them, and be very, very warm and cozy. Just don't die before that, fight, don't sleep. You will make it"
She didn't seem to react much and it was not actually expected. Instead she would speak in a very slow and blurry voice something incoherent, yet seeming to make sense, much like drunken people try to do. Somewhere where she was now, far away from this Spindle couloir where her body was lying motionless on the snow and below our 220th peak that we have climbed together, she seemed to have encountered something "on sale" - and was excited to report to me about that - I was pretty sure it was as always something special.
Typical angle of Spindle Couloir' upper half that we climbed (at right). In front is "The Camel", and Crown on upper right.
Can see the blood on the snow
I removed her crampons, took off her boots and placed hand warmers on the feet. With horror I saw that she didn't wear lower-body base layer - only GoreTex pants!
The helmet took a lot of beating.
It's -6C...Left eye is bruised. The upper lip is swollen. I would ask her a friends phone number, and she will tell me, without mistake! Five of them, from memory, in such state.
Bare-hand self-arrest.
The camera with the helmet are now in my home "museum". Im the fall, it crack opened and memory card was lost.
Two of us made First Recorded Ascent (FRA) of Spindle Peak via Spindle Couloir.
We wanted to climb (and downlcimb) something similar (or harder) to the headwall on the Denali West Buttress, which is ~250 meters high. Spindle Couloir is 580 meters, steeper and without fixed ropes - was ideal: it supports our motto - if training is not twice as hard of the real climb, it is not a training.
Lessons: 1) always check ultimate backup 2) sattelite phones can't dial 911
The bad dream
Many, many years ago, I saw a weird dream, which ever since had kept arbitrary popping-up in my mind: an unidentified person, who looks very familiar to me, is starting uncontrolled slow slide down a steep ice chute, then quickly accelerates under gravity and disappears out of sight, probably to her death. It is quiet from the beginning to the very end. Like in those black-and-white silent movies. No screams. And then I am still there, on that edge, alone, trying to absorb what just happened.
I am in a state of initial horror of "expecting the arrival of real horror". Like if watching slowly receding tide ahead of actual tsunami. Before she falls, she is at my right, just a few meters away, very close yet I can't reach her. On my left and above is a cliff. Below us is a huge drop, the bottom of which we can't see because of the edge. I wish it were a dream, so could wake up. I do wake up, just before the "real" horror materializes, but the relief is not coming, some nagging aftertaste still remains deep in subconsciousness - I can't get rid of it. Who knew that the almost exact carbon-copy of this dream will playback in front of my own eyes today! Only that I can't wish to wake up - I am already well awake! And will have to deal with the real horror.
The day had come
Because Spindle is a pretty low peak, only 1,498 meters above sea level, one needs a lot of patience waiting for the right climbing conditions - cold hard stable snow with zero avalanche danger in the forecast. One also needs extra day of good weather - in case of a serious accident you don't want the search crew to be grounded in wait for weather clearance.Originally, to allow enough time for the climb and descent, we planned two nights snowcamping at the fork Crown - Hanes Valley. However, when the desired cold finally came (it was -7°C at the base), the window of good conditions was only two days, followed by snowfall right after. So, I made the decision to squeeze the climb into a day-trip, followed by a day of clear weather. This reserved day saved Vera's life.
So, the day had arrived. Blue skies, no wind, cold stable snow, but only for two days. Vera was working the night shift, yet, as expected, was very keen to climb Spindle right after. The route was pristine new, never had been reported to have been climbed. First ascent?! Probably. Conditions were perfect. I packed regular essentials: emergency tarp, SOL bivy, a small Therm-a-Rest. I looked at my SPOT satellite messenger which I decided not to renew for the next billing year, but still active for the remaining few days. Take or leave? I packed it. I also looked at borrowed (heavy!) satellite Iridium phone, and packed it too, just in case. These two devices turned out to be most critical in the outcome of the accident.
The climb
We left chalet after taking one of the first Skyrides and followed summer tourist path bypassing Dam via Alpine trail. Then dropped to Hanes Valley, passing the base of the Crown Couloir that was too familiar to us - having climbed it twice already. Typical for Hanes Valley, huge ugly blocks of avy debris with deep bulldozed smooth-ice chutes demanded attention - it is difficult not to think how it would feel being there at the wrong time.
There is no routefinding problem - pass Widowmaker and then just “aim it”. It is very difficult to miss the base. We confidently simulclimbed Spindle Couloir all the way to the exit, which is rather steep, with a moat to overcome. Once I was safe on the top, I radioed Vera if she was OK with the moat part, and received positive and cheerful “fine!”, so didn’t bother to secure the belay rope for her.
On the summit of Spindle Peak, after First Recorded Ascent of Spindle Couloir.
The descent and fall
After snapping the summit “hero” photos and a quick share of small energy drink (230ml) we headed down. We chose to rappel, why not? - there was a good tree at the edge and our rope was just enough to pass the questionable moat. Now, we are not new to the alpine rappel, having done it quite a few times, including rappelling Grand Wall of the Chief, from the rim to the bottom.
After the quick first rappel, we decided to keep rappelling until the slope angle becomes acceptable. Just when we rigged the very last (fourth) station, happy (the first ascent!), laughing and confident that it is all over, Vera slipped. I saw her ice axe pulling out of the surface and slowly she started sliding down - in the excitement of the moment she failed to clip herself to the rappel station. I grabbed her leashed axe (it was still so close!), but at the last moment, it slipped through my Gore-Tex shell and she started her free fall, down Spindle Couloir. Exactly like in my dream.
After the fall
We carried SPOT and Iridium satellite phone - Vera had SPOT and I had the phone. We also carried our FRS radios. I had regular cell phone as well. After she slipped, I saw her tumbling down, head down, head up, sideways, bumping up and hitting the surface, ice-axe in the air. For that kind of technical icy steep slope, which we front-pointed all the way up, with two axes, it is impossible to self-arrest. All you can do is just hope that your ice axes won't strike you through the stomach.The fall lasted less than 2-3 seconds. She didn't scream or yell. Suddenly it was quiet. I couldn't see her. I paged her on the radio. There was silence, but I could hear the beep of her radio down below. I could hear its weak but sharp echo from the north walls of Widow Maker. I finished that last rappel we set up, retrieved the rope and started downclimbing. I paged here again and again. Silence, except the same remote beep of her radio.
Then I saw the blood on the snow. It was a single small red frozen piece of Slurpee. I picked it up, looked close at it and wanted to keep it, which was silly, of course. A sinister voice inside me whispered "See that!? You may not need to hurry anymore". I kept paging, but noticed that I couldn't hear the beep of her radio anymore.
Further down I picked her broken sunglasses, then a pair of gloves which were teared off her hands. I put them in the inner pocket of my down jacket but they kept falling out. Some other voice inside me yelled "Stupid! You are wasting your time! Hurry!" Then I saw her, on her knees hands in the air. She yelled "Call 911!", I yelled back "Press SPOT SOS button!". Then she just slowly lay down, facing the snow, as if preparing to sleep.
I hoped, like five years ago on Crown, there would be cell phone signal, and tried to dial 911 from my cellphone, but it didn't work. I tried to use sat phone, but the electronic voice on the other end would say again and again "You can't dial 911". I felt I indeed was wasting time, BIG way. I resumed descent, quick, it was still some distance to go. Then I saw her SPOT sitting there on the snow, also teared off her pack in the fall. I picked it up. That's when I pressed the SOS button. Now, for the SPOT to send emergency message, it takes some time to get working, the log below shows the very first SOS received by the GEOS International Emergency Response Center. It was 17:55.
What Vera did right after falling ~200m vertical is entirely beyond my comprehension - she managed to stop the fall and secure herself with two axes still clipped to her harness (or she most likely would tumble down another 100m), took her helmet off and replaced it with warm thick woolen hat. She took her pack off and put it down for insulation. There was also fleece jacket as extra layer. Then she went into a semi-coma and remained in this state for the rest 17 hours until the rescue helicopter airlift (9:50 a.m. next morning).
How Vera stopped her fall? We don't know how - she doesn't remember and I was 200m above her and couldn't see it. When I was downclimbing to her, I found her lost gloves. So she ended up bare-handed and with huge laceration on her middle finger, palm side, which looks like from an ice axe - so it is reasonable to assume it was a bare-hand self-arrest inflicted wound. The laceration was so deep that she could see the bone.
Calling for help
In that narrow mountain gully the satellite reception was very poor. But the biggest problem was that you can't dial 911 from satellite phone! Even if you catch connection, the machine on the other end keeps informing you: "You can't dial 911!". So you have to call someone and ask to call 911 for you! Unless you know direct number of local police. The phone was borrowed, so the address book was empty.
A few meters below I found a spot from where I could get a ~15 seconds connection: but every time to get there I had to do some unprotected night-time acrobatics climbing up and down.
Between many failed frustrating attempts ("no network found") I managed to dial ang get through to five numbers of Vera's friends and all of them(!) hung up on me shortly after, the following calls were ignored. I even left one voice message and send text SMS! Zero reaction!
The reason is that satellite phone number is a lot longer than normal, so when it pops up on regular phones it is looking rather weird, so in this age of scams and telemarketing, people are naturally very skeptical. "Vera, your friend is unjured. Please dial 911" - I can hear the silence on the other end and then it's hung up. It took me two hours to reach out someone at Vera's work office and make her agree to call 911. "Why do you ask me to call 911 when you do have you own working phone - you are calling me?"
In about 20 minutes the phone rang. "This is North Shore Rescue. Are you the party of two? Names are such..? What's injury? Will she survive the night?" - "I don't think so". And then the connection dropped again. I turned the phone off to save battery - I knew they will come. And they did.
They rescue is coming, just hold on a bit longer
My most intense night ever. We spent 17 hours on the snow, mostly in the dark. I had digital thermometer which read -6°C - both snow surface and air. There was slight breeze with drifting snow now and then. Quiet and dark. Obviously, Vera was in a lot worse position than me - I could warm myself by moving around, she couldn't and didn't seem to care.Through the night she would occasionally plead me not to"waste" our second SOL emergency bivy on her as she was worried "you will get cold", this pleading was done when she was actually sleeping. I was watching her for the first and scary sign of hypothermia - uncontrolled body shaking. At the same time I had to keep turning her body from one side to back and to another, but she was in pain and preferred lying on her right side. Massage every 15-20 minutes to keep blood circulation. I used tape to stick hand warmers to her hands and also put our foam pad and ropes under her body to insulate from the snow.
Then I moved her to another flatter platform which I cut nearby. When I was moving her, she weakly complained about something in a indifferent flat voice. I thought it was her fractured ankle. Only after I finished securing her body to the ice axe I saw what I did - there was a sharp icicle sticking out straight up , ~20 cm tall, in between the old location and new platform, so I actually dragged her over that thing! With horror I realized in how bad state she was - as she didn't react to that painful transfer so much (a sign of coma or semi-coma).
New location was better as I also could place her now empty backpack under her body and my large pack next to her side. We had Tylenol tablets which I gave her to relieve pain, four tablets total. She refused to drink our already cold water, but obeyed to take the pills. Now I was slowly getting cold too and exercises didn't seem to warm me up. I knew that I must keep her awake or the brain might simply give up controlling basic cardio function. So I talked to her through the entire night. I would say "Don't worry, the help is only a few hours away and then it will be over, you will have hot drinks, plenty of them, and be very, very warm and cozy. Just don't die before that, fight, don't sleep. You will make it"
She didn't seem to react much and it was not actually expected. Instead she would speak in a very slow and blurry voice something incoherent, yet seeming to make sense, much like drunken people try to do. Somewhere where she was now, far away from this Spindle couloir where her body was lying motionless on the snow and below our 220th peak that we have climbed together, she seemed to have encountered something "on sale" - and was excited to report to me about that - I was pretty sure it was as always something special.
Photos
Our route. A - B fall line. At point B the rescue helicopter will pick up Vera next morning.Typical angle of Spindle Couloir' upper half that we climbed (at right). In front is "The Camel", and Crown on upper right.
Can see the blood on the snow
I removed her crampons, took off her boots and placed hand warmers on the feet. With horror I saw that she didn't wear lower-body base layer - only GoreTex pants!
The helmet took a lot of beating.
It's -6C...Left eye is bruised. The upper lip is swollen. I would ask her a friends phone number, and she will tell me, without mistake! Five of them, from memory, in such state.
Bare-hand self-arrest.
The camera with the helmet are now in my home "museum". Im the fall, it crack opened and memory card was lost.
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