|
Hiker dies on Mount Rainier, 2 wait for rescue
2008-06-10
A hiker died on Mount Rainier and two others were awaiting rescue Tuesday at Camp Muir, high on the volcano's flank, officials at the national park said. Ranger Sandi Kinzer the three went on a day hike Monday and got caught in a blizzard on the Muir snowfield. In a recorded message, park spokesman Kevin Bacher said rangers received a call at 3:30 a.m. Tuesday that the three hikers were trapped. Weather prevented a rescue attempt at that time, but one of the hikers reached Camp Muir at 7:15 a.m. and directed rescuers to the other hikers near Anvil Rock, a large outcropping at the edge of the Muir snowfield. The surviving hiker was brought back to Camp Muir, a staging area for climbers, is at about 10,000 feet elevation on the 14,410-foot mountain. Officials hoped to get a helicopter to the scene Tuesday evening or early Wednesday if weather permitted, Bacher said. The three were described as two men and a woman in their early 30s, all from Bellevue, east of Seattle. Two had reached the summit of Rainier previously, Bacher said. It wasn't immediately known which of the hikers died. Three doctors associated with a climbing concessionaire in the park were at Camp Muir with the two survivors, who were suffering frostbite and hypothermia, Bacher said. After a winter of heavy snowfall that forced repeated closure of mountain passes, unseasonably cold conditions have continued long into spring in Washington's Cascade Range. Camp Muir received 2 feet of fresh snow overnight, with 5-foot drifts, Bacher said.
|  | | | Profile |
News85 | Gallery | Links | |
| |
|
|
|
