Skiers split up, one lost
By Glenn
Henderson
At 8:30 Sunday
night I received an emergency phone call from
Kevin. A skier was reported overdue and lost by
her husband. They had been skiing to Jean Peak
and were part way up the mountain when she,
Christhild Anderson, decided it was getting to
icy and turned back to go to the tram. When her
husband Robert Anderson returned to the tram,
Christhild was not there. He waited until 4:00
p.m. and then asked the rangers to help in
finding her. The rangers then started searching
and finding no sign, called RMRU out.
We met at the
lower tram station and started gathering gear and
getting ready to go. A sense of urgency is always
felt by me and probably by all members in this
type of search as the subject may be injured,
possibly seriously, especially considering the
weather report from the top of the tram - 20 to
25 M.P.H. winds and temperatures in the low 20's.
The tram did
their usual great job by staying open way past
closing hours and ferrying members and gear up
the steep mountain. We finally got everyone to
the upper tram station at about 12:00 a.m. Jim
Fairchild was operations leader and made up four
different teams to go four different ways. Before
sending us out he interviewed Robert to better
understand where he last saw his wife. While this
was going on we got word that ranger Rick Brown
had lost a crampon while searching and had slid
300-400 feet down an icy slope. He was reported
to have difficulty breathing and some pain in the
chest area from hitting a tree. He was helped to
the Round Valley ranger cabin by head ranger
Manfred Knaak where he spent the night.
Jim then fired
up the teams, sending Bernie McIlvoy, Cameron
Robbins and Craig Britton to the Tamarack Bench.
Rick Pohlers, Mark Hebert and Mark Rhoads were
sent to the Wellman Divide. Joe Erickson and Jim
Anholm to the Sid Davis Drainage. And that left
Bruce Gahagan, Kevin Walker and I to go to the
east end of the Wellman Divide.
Joe's team and
ours started out together to the Round Valley
ranger cabin before splitting up so that Jim who
is a M.D. could check Rick Browns condition. He
did not seem to be in serious condition, but
still had some chest pains. From there we split
up, Joe and Jim down the Sid Davis drainage, and
us up onto the divide. Joe was especially excited as he
knew he would end up back at base camp before
daylight and would then get a lot of flying time
in the morning, as the green light was already
given for the helicopter at first light.
We completed
our assignment at about 5:00 a.m. and all teams
bivouacked until 6:30. After 1½ hours of sleep,
everyone was ready to continue the search. As Joe
was waiting in Long Valley for Don Landells to
pick him up he saw a lone female skier coming
towards him. He gave a shout and yes it was a
still lost Christhild Anderson. She was fine
after digging out a small snow cave, sitting on
her skies, covering her feet with her daypack and
spending a cold night on the mountain (smart
girl). Joe led her to the ranger station and a
reunion with her husband.
After hearing
the good news on the radio my team set a record
for packing up and beat it to the Round Valley
ranger cabin. From there, Don flew us to the Palm
Springs Hospital with Rick Brown. Don then flew
all other teams from the field to the lower tram
(except Joe, he was already in base camp, and had
to ride the tram down). Thus ended another
successful RMRU mission with a smile on
everyones face.
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