Twelve days ago, 68-year-old Dean Smith, of Boulder, was nearing the top of Lambs Slide, a 1,100-foot couloir of snow and ice, on Longs Peak's Kiener's route.
He noticed that his left crampon was coming loose, but only 50 feet remained to Broadway ledge, where he planned to adjust it. He kept climbing.
Suddenly he slipped, and began sliding down the 40-degree slope of hard snow. He reacted by instinct, driving the pick of his ice axe into the snow to stop his acceleration.
"If I hadn't self-arrested immediately, I would have gone the whole way," Smith told me in a phone interview. "I probably would have died."
He stood up, then stepped over to the rock adjacent to Lambs Slide.
That's when he realized his left arm wasn't functional, and that he needed help.
The public is both fascinated by and fed up with rescued climbers. Maybe it's because climber rescues are sometimes dangerous (though they're often no more involved than hiker rescues). Maybe it's because a small percentage of climber rescues require aircraft (usually helicopters), and are both risky and expensive.
But one reason why climber rescues are criticized is because their publicity is grossly disproportionate to that of other outdoor recreation rescues. People think they happen all the time.
According to "Dead Men Walking: Search and Rescue in U.S. National Parks," a study of search-and-rescue efforts in all National Park Service units from 1992 to 2007, the participant activities that required the most search-and-rescue operations were hiking, motorized boating, swimming, overnight hiking and non-motorized boating.
Climber rescues accounted for just 5 percent of all search-and-rescue operations during these 15 years. How often do you hear about the other 95 percent of rescues? Certainly not that often.
I don't necessarily blame the media. After all, climbing accidents and rescues tend to be far more compelling than other rescues. But I do blame a lack of public awareness that nearly every climbing mishap is public knowledge.
I also blame something else: a lack of understanding. Hiking, fishing, boating and swimming are activities that almost everyone can relate to. It's understood why people do these things, and why, despite some risk (and inevitable accidents and rescues), people will keep doing them.
But climbing? Most people have difficulty understanding why climbers climb. This lack of understanding focuses critical eyes unjustly.
Dean Smith had climbed Kiener's more than 20 times, often solo, in 54 years of climbing, including last year when he was 67 years old. But this time he was stuck atop Lambs Slide with an injured arm. Smith, whose cell phone was "worth its weight in gold," called for a rescue. Within three hours, four rangers helped him rappel Lambs Slide and get him to the Chasm Lake Patrol Cabin. The next day, he rode to the trailhead on horseback.
The problem in Smith's case, and one reason why his rescue received critical online commentary, is that he'd ridden the same horse down the same trail just two weeks earlier.
On July 8, Smith injured his foot while descending from the summit of Mount Lady Washington, adjacent to Longs Peak. "The pain was intense," he said. Nevertheless, he slowly walked down unassisted until two climbing rangers caught up with him just two miles from the trailhead. Limping, Smith asked for assistance, and he rode the horse 0.7 miles to the trailhead.
By July 22, Smith's foot had healed enough to attempt Longs.
After the second incident (the first was not a rescue), a brief article ran in the Camera with the headline: "Rescue on Longs Peak was second for Boulder hiker in three weeks." A quick glance at the headline left me as guilty of judgment as anyone.
But after reading it, then interviewing Dean, I understood that he made no egregious errors. If anything, he was unlucky.
Climber rescues are disproportionately publicized and unfairly criticized. Further, rescue reports are usually marred by few and/or inaccurate details, no matter what the source. If you care enough to criticize rescued climbers as reckless, foolhardy or whatever (some climbers are these things!), please reserve judgment until you learn the facts.
Chris Weidner: Daily Camera
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