rescue on leconte

[2giqs]

Although this account takes place far from Colorado, the tale has just enough whimsy that how could I not chair it with y'all.

RESCUE ON MT. LECONTE (PART I)
BY JOEMILLER|DECEMBER 2, 2014|HIKING
This is the first of a two-part account of a rescue two weekends ago on Mt. Leconte. It's based on a trip report written by Jon Holliday and a subsequent interview. Part two will run Thursday.

Pete, Jon, David and Scott outside their cabin on Mt. LeConte.
From left: Pete, Jon, David and Scott outside the dinning area at Mt. LeConte.
Jon Holliday and his buddies were amused by the guy lugging a beach chair and umbrella up the rugged five-mile trail to 6,594-foot Mt. LeConte last Saturday. What’s the deal? they asked. “I just want a comfortable place to sit and watch the sun set over Tennessee,” the fellow told them.
“We thought it was pretty silly at the time,” Jon recalled this week. “It turned out he ended up playing a pivotal role in all this.”
“All this” was the worst-case hiking scenario that would unfold a day later as Jon, who lives in Cary, Pete Sprague of Asheville, David Sprague of Boone and Scott Duffy of Charlotte headed back down the mountain. It’s a scenario that likely crosses every hiker’s mind at some point.
What happens when you fall in the backcountry and can’t get up?


For the past five years, the foursome has hiked to the lodge atop Mt. LeConte for it’s last weekend before closing for the season. LeConte, on the Tennessee side of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, is a popular destination in hiking circles: The cabins and lodge at the summit are accessible only on foot, and, despite the 2,800-foot vertical climb, it can take a year or more to score a reservation. This late in the season, though, the iffy weather can winnow the masses. Early this month, for instance, 22 inches of snow buried LeConte.
Last weekend for Mt. LeConte, though, was a bit of Indian Summer.
“The weather was great for November,” said Jon, “with blue skies and bright sunshine. Pete was hiking in shorts. We were even discussing the possibility of getting sunburned.” Ideal conditions — heading up, at least.
The four reached the summit, unpacked, had hot chocolate and caught up with friends from Kentucky and Indiana who also make it a ritual to visit Leconte at season’s end. They headed up to Cliff Top to catch the sunset, then had dinner and played cards in the lodge. Around midnight, they walked back to their cabin in rain and fog.


“We woke up to more fog and rain and the wind howling Sunday morning,” said Jon. “We had expected rain and were prepared for our three-hour hike down, where we had a nice lunch waiting for us in the car.” Another weekend ritual: get to the car a little after noon, then feast on a smorgasbord of lunchmeat on French bread, chips and a beer or two. The kind of meal that tastes especially great after a mountain hike.
After packing up, putting on their rain gear and strapping on their microspikes, the four started down the mountain. The temperature was on its way into the upper 50s; someone commented on how much of the ice had melted. Good thing, since they already had a driving rain and winds gusting to 60 miles per hour to contend with.
As they continued down the mountain, David and Jon moved ahead. When the two reached Monotony Ridge, they figured they were about five minutes ahead of their partners. The wind and rain continued. On a couple of particularly treacherous sections they had to cling to anchored cables to stay upright.


Around 10:45, despite the howling wind and driving rain, they thought they heard someone yelling.
“We could tell they were human voices, but we couldn’t tell what they were saying,” Jon said. That it might be one of their hiking partners didn’t occur to them: despite the conditions, there was a good deal of traffic on the trail. “The people who had stayed overnight were all heading down, and there was a crew heading up to close the lodge for the season.”
They could tell by the urgency and repetition of the yells, though, that someone was in trouble.
Jon and David headed back up the mountain. Eventually, they ran into hikers coming down the trail who told them Pete had fallen and may have broken his leg. When they made it back to their friends, Jon said it was pretty obvious Pete’s leg was indeed broken — both the tibia and fibula, it turned out. Ironically, the fall occurred on a flat stretch of trail with just one small but devastating patch of ice. Another hiker and his girlfriend who were on the mountain training to climb Mount Rainier, had taken control of the situation, calling park emergency personnel and initiating a rescue.
“Fortunately, we were in the one place where we could get cell reception,” Jon said.
They were two miles from the top, three from the bottom. The trail was rugged both ways. Jon said he knew immediately they were in for a long afternoon.

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Yesterday, Jon Holliday of Cary recounted how an annual tradition for four hiking buddies — Pete Sprague of Asheville, David Sprague of Boone and Scott Duffy of Charlotte and himself — took a turn when Pete fell and broke a leg. Today, the rescue.
.
It would be three hours before a first responder could reach the scene, a dispatcher for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park told the hikers. Though it wasn’t cold, the torrential rain meant keeping Pete warm would be a top priority. That’s where Mr. Silly from Saturday turned into Sunday’s savior. He happened by shortly after Pete fell; his beach chair was just what was needed to keep Pete off the wet ground and keep him from slipping into shock. The umbrella came in handy, too, as did the space blanket Jon had purchased just three weeks earlier.
As predicted, Park Service Medic Les Kwiatkowski arrived about 1:30 p.m., three hours after Pete went down.
“He did an assessment of Pete and the injury, relayed the info to the dispatcher, and placed a splint on Pete's right leg,” Jon said. “He also trenched the trail to route the water running down the trail around Pete. From that point, Les continued to monitor Pete and stay in communication with the dispatcher while we waited for the rescue team.”
A second medic arrived around 3:30 and administered the pain medication that would make Pete’s bouncy ride down the mountain bearable. A half hour later, more than a dozen rescue team members arrived with a basket litter and a wheeled Teton litter. They also brought gear for an overnight stay if conditions warranted.
“They moved Pete into a zero degree sleeping bag inside a waterproof bivy sack, placed a helmet on him, and strapped him into the basket litter. They then strapped the basket to the wheeled Teton litter and the rescue team and I started down the mountain together.”

It was 4:30. They had three miles of trail ahead of them. The sun would set in about an hour, and the wind and rain were picking up.
Slowly, they began down the mountain.
Jon describes the contraption and process that would help get Pete off the mountain:
“The wheeled Teton litter had a single motorcycle tire in the center of an aluminum frame, with two handles and a hand brake on the back. On the front, a person would get inside a step-through bar on the litter — like you see when people are pulling rickshaws. These two people would guide the Teton litter and control the speed. Two people on each side of the litter would help guide it, lift it over obstacles, and keep it upright as needed. After a while, the team would stop and people would swap off with others when they were too tired to keep going. When the trail got too narrow for people to be on both sides, they would line the trail standing on the mountain sides and pass the litter from one person to the next. At times, they would hook onto the sled when there was a danger of falling themselves. Throughout the rescue, team members were calling out commands to ensure obstacles were seen before the litter got to them, to halt the litter if needed, and to control the speed of the transport as required.
“The last guy, the trailer, was carrying the beach chair and walking with the polka dot golf umbrella open over his head. He said if he had to carry it he may as well use it. People were giving him a hard time, of course.”


Soon, it was dark and the wind had become more ominous. And there was the water.
“Water was pouring down the trail, running down the mountainsides over the rock walls creating new waterfalls, and previously shallow creeks were now rushing streams, one time coming over my boots filling them with water,” says Jon. “You could hear the water rushing around you through the forest and see the whitewater like a trail through the forest from the reflections of our headlamps.”
They made a brief pitstop in an overhang at Alum Cave Bluffs, swapping out headlamp batteries, grabbing a snack, catching their breath. Then they pressed on.
“We came to an area where the trail is routed up and over the root section of an old downed tree,” Jon said. “The litter had to be lifted and turned sharply to get over that obstacle. Rescue personnel were standing awkwardly all over the sides of the trail and on the roots of the downed tree to get through.”
At a series of steps at Arch Rock, Pete and his sled had to be belayed using a series of ropes set up by the rescue team. Once they’d passed that obstacle, another arose: a one-log bridge crossing common in the Great Smokies.
“It was very tricky to lift the litter onto the bridge and keep the tire centered on a 18 inch wide log with a rail on just one side, with rescue personnel on the back and front and in the stream guiding the litter along when possible,” said Jon. It was the first of many such bridges they would have to negotiate in the last mile and a third.
“One seemed like it was only 12 inches wide,” Jon said.


“We finally made it to the parking lot and a waiting ambulance at 8:30 p.m, 10 hours after the accident occurred,” Jon said.
Pete was transported to LeConte Medical Center and put in a full leg cast. Three days later he had surgery in Asheville. He’s expected to be off the trail for at least eight weeks.
What might seem like a harrowing experience to some was, to Jon, just another adventure on the trail that was handled by following some common sense rules of hiking.
Know where you are at all times. Knowing the trail as well as Jon did helped: they were able to let rescuers know their precise location. A map is essential, as is a compass. A passing hiker had an altimeter and was able to provide a precise elevation, which helped rescuers as well.
Hike prepared. Jon and his buddies weren’t expecting to hike at night, but they all had headlamps — and extra batteries. “I always pack a first-aid kit, rain gear and extra food,” said Jon, “even on short hikes at Umstead. You never know what might happen.”
Try to hike in groups of three or more. The power of numbers was key to Pete’s rescue, said Jon. “If it’s just two of you and one of you gets hurt, then you have to decide between going for help and staying with the injured person.”
Make sure you don’t become part of the problem. Hiking down, Jon was in the company of qualified rescue personnel. “I was carrying some gear, but my main goal was to be careful and not add to the problem.”



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[Tortoise1]

Good story. I've come to believe in that 3 hiker rule.

[kenichi4692]

I miss hiking Mt LeConte. hiked all 4routes. Alum cave trail gets icy&sketchy in winter. awesome hike in spring. lots of rhododendrons. the view from Myrtle point is great too.

[technicolorNH]

LeConte sticks out in my memory as being one of the few peaks in the eastern time zone outside of the 'Dacks and the Whites that really had some serious elevation from top to bottom. I've done the Alum Cave route in summer when it was a wet slog and like Kenichi mentioned, in winter it must be a real ice fest.