Mt. Whitney says the life of a hiker, weeks in the center of the snow

The return of snow has already brought life to the tallest mountain in the continental United States, with a stillbirth on Slippery Mt. Whitney, according to the Inyo County Sheriff’s Department.

Last weekend, a hiker fell on a section of the famous “99 switchbacks,” said Lindsey Hisinator, public outreach coordinator for the Inyo County Sheriff’s department. The switchbacks start above camp at about 12,000 feet, where most hikers spend the night before making the early morning 14,500-foot Summit.

In the summer, when the trail is dry, the switchbacks section is a long loop, going back and forth for two kilometers, and about 2,000 vertical feet.

When it gets heavy snow, as it did earlier this month, the trail gets buried and the whole slope becomes a deep thing.

Wes Ostgaard, who said he has climbed Mt. Whitney four times, posted on Facebook that the conditions on Saturday were very tricky for him and his climbing partners decided to change.

“The winds were very heavy, and with the recent snowfall, the wind was blowing snow in our faces,” Ostgaard said. Snow covered the trail and, in many places, rendered it “invisible,” he wrote.

When Ostgaard and his friends went down the switchbacks they came across the body of another hiker who had gone down above a section of steel cables and said they were bald alone 70 ft, however.

“I believe it is very likely that he survived,” wrote Hiker’s OSTGAard. “There was a fair amount of blood from [colliding with] Ropes, and lots of blood around the rock he met. “

Ostgaard used starlink to contact his father around 12:30 pm, who then contacted the emergency services. The helicopter arrived about four hours later, Ostgaard wrote.

Another hiker that day, Kirill Novitskiy, encountered similar conditions on Saturday’s switchbacks but made the “wrong decision” to continue climbing.

He did it just by microspikes – small metal cleats that stick to the bottom of the shoes and provide traction in the winter on flat ground – or on gentle slopes where the fall is not a big deal.

But the microspikes are not enough for the inadequacy of the mountains in winter, when a fall can be fatal.

As often happens in the mountains, when Novitskiy returned to the encountered ranks after a few hours of walking on flat ground from the summit, he found conditions so degraded that he was in great danger and heavily armed.

“I had a few dangerous places where the trail became a slope full of sweet snow, and it was very easy to slow down,” wrote Facebook. “The worst part of the way back was the switchbacks. Almost the entire trail was covered in powdery snow exposed to the wind, it was very difficult to walk with the microspikes.”

Near the Bibles he saw poles walking without anyone, then he met a group of five pedestrians at the bottom of the switchbacks who told him about the accident.

Anyone who tries to climb Mt. Whitney from this point during the winter must bring crampons – large spikes that stick firmly to the blocks that climb the mountains and put him on the snow – and snow.

Experts also advise traveling in groups, and bringing a satellite communication device to communicate with help if something goes wrong.

So far, the Inyo Sheriff’s Department has not released an identity of the deceased.

In January this year, a Texas native died after attempting to climb Mt. Whitney for bad weather. His body was found at an elevation of 12,000 feet near the North Fork Lone Pine Creek Trail.

In June, a 14-year-old hiker fell on Mt. Whitney and fell off a 12,000-foot cliff. He survived.