Mt. Whitney Has Already Claimed A Hiker's Life, Weeks Into The Snow Season - Beritaja

The return of wintertime has already claimed a life connected the tallest upland successful the continental United States, pinch the decease of a hiker connected slippery Mt. Whitney, according to the Inyo County Sheriff’s Department.

Over the weekend, the hiker fell successful the notorious “99 Switchbacks” conception of the main trail, said Lindsey Stine, Community Outreach Coordinator for the Inyo County Sheriff’s Department. The switchbacks statesman conscionable supra Trail Camp astatine almost 12,000 feet, wherever galore hikers walk the nighttime earlier making an early greeting commencement for the 14,500-foot summit.

In the summer, erstwhile the way is dry, the switchbacks conception is simply a agelong slog, winding backmost and distant up 2 miles, and about 2,000 vertical feet.

When it gets a large snow, arsenic it did earlier this month, the way becomes buried and the full slope becomes perilously steep.

Wes Ostgaard, who said he has climbed Mt. Whitney 4 times, posted connected Facebook that conditions connected Saturday were truthful treacherous he and his climbing partners decided to move around.

“Winds were highly intense, and pinch the caller snowfall, the upwind was blasting snowfall successful our faces,” Ostgaard wrote. The snowfall covered the way and, successful galore places, rendered it “invisible,” he wrote.

When Ostgaard and his companions were descending the switchbacks they encountered the assemblage of different hiker who had apparently fallen supra a conception of alloy information cables and past slid different 70 ft, aliases so.

“I judge it is highly improbable he survived,” Ostgaard wrote of the hiker. “There was a adjacent magnitude of humor from [colliding with] the cables, and a batch of humor about a stone he made interaction with.”

Ostgaard utilized Starlink to interaction his begetter about 12:30 p.m., who past contacted emergency services. A chopper arrived about 4 hours later, Ostgaard wrote.

Another hiker that day, Kirill Novitskiy, encountered the aforesaid conditions connected the switchbacks connected Saturday but made the “wrong decision” to support climbing.

He made it up pinch conscionable microspikes — small metallic cleats that connect to the bottommost of shoes and supply wintertime traction connected level crushed — aliases connected gentle slopes wherever falling would beryllium nary large deal.

But microspikes are notoriously inadequate for wintertime mountaineering, erstwhile a autumn could beryllium fatal.

As truthful often happens successful the mountains, erstwhile Novitskiy returned to the steep switchbacks aft a fewer hours walking connected comparatively level crushed to and from the summit, he discovered conditions had deteriorated truthful overmuch that he was successful existent threat and earnestly under-equipped.

“I had a mates of vulnerable places wherever the way became a slope afloat of powdery snow, and it was very easy to gaffe off,” Novitskiy wrote connected Facebook. “The worst portion connected the measurement backmost were the switchbacks. Almost each the way was covered pinch powdery snowfall brought up pinch the wind, it was very difficult to spell pinch conscionable microspikes.”

Near the cables he saw a brace of trekking poles pinch cipher around, and past encountered a group of 5 hikers astatine the bottommost of the switchbacks who told him about the accident.

Anyone attempting to climb Mt. Whitney from this constituent connected successful the wintertime play should bring crampons — overmuch larger spikes that connect firmly to mountaineering boots and excavation heavy into snowfall and crystal to forestall falls – and an crystal axe.

Experts besides counsel walking successful groups, and bringing a outer connection instrumentality to interaction thief if thing goes wrong.

So far, the Inyo Sheriff’s Department has not released the personality of the hiker who died.

In January this year, a hiker from Texas died aft attempting to climb Mt. Whitney successful bad weather. His assemblage was recovered astatine an elevation of 12,000 feet adjacent North Fork Lone Pine Creek Trail.

In June, a 14-year-old hiker became delirious connected Mt. Whitney and fell disconnected of a 12,000-foot cliff. He survived.