Skyline Rescue by climbers

[Cy Kaicener]

Injured hikers were rescued on Skyline between 7500 feet and 7800 feet (about half a mile from the tram)
http://www.mydesert.com/article/2009011 ... 1/90112014

[Hikin_Jim]

Any idea of who the three "trail angels" are?

[Cy Kaicener]

Doreen went half way up and ran into the three hikers. She tried to talk them out of going up but could not talk any sense into them.
Search and Rescue might know who the three 'angels' were or maybe someone up at the tram.

[AlanK]

This is exactly the kind of thing Doreen used to warn about on this board. It seems to happen pretty regularly. It's too bad that she has to be so right all the time.

[halhiker]

How many does that make this winter?

[FIGHT ON]

How many does that make this winter?

It depends, you gonna include stobbart?

[halhiker]

How many does that make this winter?

It depends, you gonna include stobbart?

Sure.

[zippetydude]

I believe HJ was referring to the three hikers who rescued the two who were stuck, not the ones who were stranded.

I don't know who they were, but they apparently did a great job, getting the two warmed up and then hiking them up that last really tough bit of terrain below the notch.

While I've never gotten stuck myself - I'm relatively cautious when it comes to icy conditions - I don't have much criticism for them. I've seen how suddenly the situation can deteriorate, even when I'm alert.

I snowshoed up a new route on San G last year, and was moving well over seemingly consolidated snow when I found that I suddenly began to slide. Just a little, mind you, but once the crust fragmented, I found that there was a hard icy surface about 3 inches down that would have become increasingly shallow as I climbed.

In other words, if I hadn't happened to slide right there, I might well have been a hundred yards higher when I began to slide, and would have had little to slow me for at least that far.

The situation changed almost imperceptibly, and it wasn't some clever deduction on my part that revealed the risk. I was just lucky.

Yes, I think doing Skyline right now is probably dumb. But some people say it's always too risky...

So, who were the three who helped out?

z

[jth]

Hello Cy, Doreen, everybody,

We met you on the trail Doreen. I met Cy on the trail a few times last year.

Our friends (the two cold ones) started up about 7:00 AM, planning to attempt the summit after getting to the tram. We (the three others) started around 8:00 AM, planning stopping at the tram. We met Doreen later that morning. Above 6000 feet, the trail vanished beneath snow. Around 5:00 PM, I received a call from one of our friends in Riverside. He told us that the other two were having problems with possible cold injuries on their feet and that they had called SAR. We continued up to the traverse, where we found our two friends. After we arrived, we broke trail to the tram with our two friends following.

As they were experienced mountaineers, it was surprising to find our friends having trouble. Expecting icy conditions, they neglected to bring gaiters.

Doreen's warnings about the snow were correct. The snow is soft and deep. Ascending the final chute, we sunk up to 4 feet. Progress was quite slow.

We met one other, Erik Alm, who turned back at 7000 feet because of bad snow conditions.

Has anybody heard from Torben lately?

[Cy Kaicener]

Hi Joe - Its good to hear from you again. I see that you are also up at 1.00 am in the morning Thanks for breaking trail and helping out.
I have not heard from Torben Thomsen in ages. If I can find his e mail address I will drop him a line. I hope that he didn't go back to Denmark.

Update - I just e mailed him this thread