Summit County Citizens Voice

Quandary Peak looks benign from this angle, but the mountain is a hotspot for search and rescue missions.

Missing climbers recovered after spending a frigid night on the West Ridge route

By Bob Berwyn

SUMMIT COUNTY — An overnight rescue mission on Quandary Peak last weekend ended successfully, with an Army National Guard Blackhawk helicopter landing on the summit of the 14,265-foot peak Sunday to evacuate a pair of tired climbers and several members of the Summit County Rescue Group.

It was the first time anyone could remember that a large military helicopter landed on the summit of Summit County’s highest peak, although smaller Flight For Life choppers make the trip on a regular basis — five times last summer, according to Mark Svenson, coordinator for the most recent rescue mission.

Rescue experts from Eagle, Grand, Routt and Clear Creek counties were also called upon to assist with the mission, with at least 14 out-of-county and 16 local responders, according Jim Koegel, spokesman for the Summit County Rescue Group.

The all-night mission started about 11:30 p.m. Saturday with a 911 call. Two experienced and well-equipped climbers, a man and woman, had started ascending the West Ridge Route early Saturday morning, planning to return by evening.

They left word of their plan with a friend, who was instructed call for help if they hadn’t returned at the planned time, Koegel said.

According to Koegel, the climbers had bivouac gear but opted to keep moving rather than hunkering down for the night.

“They got into far more difficult terrain than they anticipated,” Koegel said. “These people had a solid plan,” he said, acknowledging that the climbers were well-prepared and followed one of the key safety rules by notifying someone else of their scheduled return time.

The area that apparently stymied the climbers is a notorious terrain trap, summer and winter, for hikers and climbers who venture off-route.

At 12:30 a.m. Sunday, with a temperature of minus one and winds blowing at 20 mph, the first team of four rescuers started climbing the West Ridge to try and make contact with the missing climbers. Using night-vision goggles, a Flight For Life rescue crew spotted the pair high on the mountain, perhaps 100 yards from the summit, in very dangerous terrain, Koegel said.

“They were moving slowly and they were moving up,” Koegel said.

The rescuers on the ground were able to make visual contact with the climbers using flashlights to signal, but facing difficult conditions, decided to retreat until morning, Svenson said.

At 5:30 a.m. Sunday, another team of rescuers headed up the East Ridge Route toward the summit of Quandary and made contact with the climbers mid-morning, Svenson said.

At that point, the High-Altitude Army Aviation Training Site in Gypsum had been alerted with a request for helicopter assistance.

According to Summit County Sheriff’s Department technician Mark Watson, the Army National Guard training base responded with a high-powered Black Hawk helicopter designed to fly at high elevations.

Instead of airlifting the climbers and rescuers one at a time, the Black Hawk, after landing on or very near the summit, was able to transport everyone back to the valley at the same time, Watson said.

“We had two people way up high, taking the brunt of the weather,” Watson said. “Fortunately, there’s a resource there,” he added, referring to the National Guard training center that has helped with other rescues in Summit County, including a May 2010 mission to evacuate a badly injured snowboarder in the Tenmile Range.

More recently, a Black Hawk was called to help with the rescue of a climber in late September on The Thorn, in the Gore Range near Silverthorne. Read about the Gore Range rescue at the SCRG newsroom.

Filed under: Colorado, hiking, recreation, search and rescue, Summit County Colorado, Summit County news Tagged: | HAATS Black Hawk helicopter, Quandary Peak, Summit County Colorado, Summit County News, Summit County Rescue Group