by Bob Madgic
Hikers and mountain climbers usually can avoid AMS by acclimatizing over several days. The most stringent recommendation is one day of ascent for each thousand feet above eight thousand feet elevation. Pippey, Esteban, and Frith did acclimatize over two days on this particular journey; they spent one day at eight thousand feet and a second at twelve thousand. Nevertheless, thin air was still a threat.
Soon after the threesome left Whitney Portal and headed up the mountain, Pippey, a veritable hiking machine, was way out in front. The first three-and-a-half-mile leg meanders through a pine-scented forest of Jeffrey pine and red fir, and leads to Outpost Camp in a wildflower-filled meadow, the first of the two camping areas on the trail. From there, it is another three and a half miles to Trail Camp. Here backpackers have built low rock walls to ward off piercing winds, and resident marmots either beg for food or steal it from campers. The pica, a high-elevation-dwelling mammal that looks like a huge mouse but belongs to the rabbit family, also populates this area.
After Trail Camp, where the trio bedded down for the night, the trail becomes steep. But the vistas up ahead, to the left and right, more than compensate for the uphill grind. Tufts of sky pilot—one of the most beautiful and fragrant of alpine wildflow-ers—garnish the trailside. Then come the hundred switchbacks leading up to Trail Crest, a mountain pass that is still two miles from Whitney’s summit. From this ridge is a view of the upper Kern River Basin to the west, a gigantic bowl beyond which lies another range of snow-covered peaks—the Great Western Divide and the Kaweah Range. To the east are sweeping vistas of lakes, the Owens Valley, and the Inyos Mountains beyond, home to bristlecone pine trees, some more than four thousand years old, maybe even six thousand.
Esteban and Frith struggled, their party lifestyle taking its toll. Ever the warrior and despite his fatigue and increasing light-head-edness, Esteban pushed onward. So did Frith, who wore a bright red bandanna around his neck. At Trail Crest, Frith got a headache and nosebleed, but he trudged on, describing the adventure as “bitchin’, bitchin’.” (This was a standard phrase in Friths vocabulary, one he applied to various marvels. He may have learned it from “Bob Bitchin’,” a popular character on the TV show Saturday Night Live.)
When they finally reached the summit, as many as fifty other people were milling about, smiling, holding hands, and a few just meditating. Esteban felt very woozy—all he wanted to do was lie down. An instant later, or so it seemed, Pippey was shaking him awake. Actually, Esteban had been out for about thirty minutes, oblivious to the sheer drop-off just a few feet away.
The three men departed down the other side of Whitney to a grassy meadow bordering Guitar Lake, so named because of its shape. During this long descent, Esteban sweated profusely. When they arrived at the small lake, it was in shadows and the temperature had dropped. Esteban began shivering uncontrollably—the first sign of hypothermia. Pippey and Frith stripped his wet clothes, put him in his sleeping bag, and heated soup for him. While Esteban dozed, they stripped off their own clothes and jumped into the ice-cold lake, which they could tolerate only for a few seconds.
That evening, they saw two other backpackers camped nearby. In his customary fashion, Frith sauntered over and struck up a friendly conversation. He later returned with freshly popped popcorn his newfound friends had given him.
Esteban, Pippey, and Frith met a solo backpacker named Joe the next day. He was, as Esteban characterized him, a “1960s hippie type.” Joe and Frith hit it off right away, and soon the four were a band of brothers. When the group had settled down for the evening, Joe broke out a few joints and Esteban produced a bota bag containing 151-proof Bacardi rum, which served as not only refreshment but also antiseptic, mouthwash, and fire starter. Between shots of straight rum and hits of Joe’s weed, the happy campers soon forgot all about their physical ailments. Still to come were a dinner of Top Ramen noodles augmented with salami and cheese, and then “killer cigars” that Esteban kept in a waterproof pouch. Evening passed into night.
They realized the next day there was little food left. Checking his topo map, Pippey pinpointed a stream five miles away—a ten-mile round trip—where they might catch fish. It was either that or go hungry, so off they went. Both Pippey and Frith loved to fish and had brought along telescopic rods. At the stream, they saw many smallish trout, but the fish weren’t biting. Pippey, hiding behind a small waterfall, finally managed to coax out about a dozen wary little rainbows with salmon eggs, and the men snared their dinner.
The party arrived back at camp just as darkness settled. That night, amid breathtaking wilderness rimmed by snowcapped mountains, they savored the fish fried in butter and lemon. More Bacardi, more pot, more cigars, and a cozy fire and fabulous view of Mount Whitney’s crest ... all left the three men quite mellow and very appreciative of the great outdoors.
For Frith, this outing confirmed his love of the Sierra Nevada. He already was looking forward to Half Dome.
FOR THE HALF DOME OUTING, Frith recruited Bruce Weiner. Not only did he want his friend to experience California at its best, but he expected the trip to reignite their deep friendship.
Frith and Weiner had met at the University of Rochester in New York, where both were optical engineering majors. They were the same age—twenty-four. In contrast to his friend’s heft, the five-foot, nine-inch, Weiner was on the lean side, weighing 165 pounds. He had thick, curly black hair. After college, Weiner was employed for a little more than a year by Inspex Corporation in Waltham, Massachusetts, but he was less interested in career than recreation—skiing, biking, golfing, beaching, gambling, partying—and scouting for female companionship. He worked out with weights three times a week and played racquetball most days, so he was in reasonably good physical shape. Although not as extroverted as Frith, Weiner was easygoing and friendly, and had a subtle sense of humor.
In letters he wrote to Weiner after moving to California in April, Frith reported “lots of jobs, lots of sun, lots of women in bikinis here in the West.” The report quickly persuaded Weiner to pull up stakes. He began job hunting in the Bay Area and accepted an engineering position at Lockheed Missiles and Space Corporation in Sunnyvale, near where Frith worked.
Weiner had just arrived in California in early July; he’d moved all his boxes into his new apartment the very day he left for the Half Dome trip, leaving him no time to unpack. The Yosemite outing would be Weiner’s first mountain adventure—in fact, his first real hike of any substance.
Steve Ellner—a single child who, by his own admission, could be stubborn, opinionated, and uncompromising—was a greenhorn, too. Unlike the others, he had zero affinity for the rugged outdoors. But Buchner was certain that the beauty of Yosemite and Half Dome would captivate the twenty-seven-year-old Ellner, as they do most first-time visitors. Buchner wanted his pal to experience the summit “happening,” particularly sitting in the King’s Chair at night. Because Ellner was Esteban’s roommate (Esteban had moved out of the house he shared with Pippey when Pippey’s girlfriend moved in), the wonders of Half Dome had been already drilled into him.
He agreed to go, despite considerable misgivings. In the preceding days, Ellner’s co-workers kidded him about lightning on Half Dome. Aren’t you the tallest? You’ll probably be the one who gets struck, they joked. Ellner, the only six-footer in the group and a self-avowed coward, would carry those thoughts with him throughout the trip.
An unlikely pair would accompany the seven men: the sixteen-year-old twins Brian and Bruce Jordan. Pippey hoped the mountain might work its magic on these two drifting teens, his “little brothers.” The youngest of five children, with three older sisters, the Jordan twins were just six years old when Pippey, then fourteen, “adopted” the Jordan family as his own. Mr. Jordan was an easygoing, affable guy who wrestled with an alcohol problem. He and Pippey often sat in the garage until very late at night, talking and drinking. Sometimes Mr. Jordan passed out in a drunken stupor.
He and his wife neither closely supervised nor firml
y disciplined their two sons, who attended school in a low-income neighborhood in the East Bay city of Hayward and were surrounded by drugs and other temptations. Of the two, Brian was more outgoing and assertive. He often spoke of becoming a big success someday. Unfortunately, some activities, such as using and selling marijuana, were just too tempting. Bruce, who had blonder hair than his brother, was more reticent and quiet. He also got into drugs early on, but, unlike the enterprising Brian, didn’t sell them.
Both good-looking young men, Brian and Bruce were mainly interested in girls and cars, like many teenage boys. But smoking pot contributed to their excessive truancy, and that prompted the high school to drop both from classes and send them to continuation school—the same thing that had happened to Pippey when he was their age. Recalling his own troubled past, Pippey realized that Brian and Bruce were surely headed for trouble, so he tried to steer them back on course. In order to do that, he believed he had to gain their trust. The linchpin in this scheme was fishing, an activity the twins had taken up at ponds around the East Bay and truly loved.
Pippey first took them on a backpacking trip near Mount Whitney, where they camped and hooked golden trout, a beautiful native species. The twins themselves got hooked, and more outings followed. Pippey was heartened to see the boys soak up these experiences and get high on nature. When it came time for the July pilgrimage to Half Dome, Pippey seized the opportunity to bring them along. It would be another major step in their reformation.
AT 2 P.M. ON FRIDAY, July 26, Weiner picked up Frith at Spectra Physics in his rental car, courtesy of Lockheed. They bought various camping supplies, freeze-dried meals, and trail mix, then drove to Rice’s home near Santa Cruz, where he and Esteban waited.
Pippey and the Jordan twins would drive in the Bip Mobile and rendezvous with others at Red Bud that night. Buchner and Ellner planned to meet the group on Saturday somewhere on the trail or, later, at the top of Half Dome. First, Buchner wanted to show Ellner as much of Yosemite as possible.
The caravan from Santa Cruz—Esteban and Rice in Esteban’s truck, Frith and Weiner in the rental car—left for Yosemite around 5 P.M. They headed east across the Central Valley—listening again and again to the number one hit at the time, “Brothers in Arms,” by the Scottish group Dire Staits—and stopped at nine thirty in Merced for a Chinese dinner. Esteban couldn’t get the song’s lyrics out of his head. On a dark stretch of road somewhere between Merced and Mariposa, Weiner noticed that Esteban’s truck, just ahead, started to swerve. He flashed his high beams and honked until Esteban, who was dozing off at the wheel, pulled over. They switched drivers; Frith drove the truck and Rice joined Weiner. At Mariposa, they cranked up on caffeine and quickly hit the road again, arriving at Red Bud around midnight.
The Bip Mobile pulled in thirty minutes later. Despite the late hour, everyone was pumped up about the forthcoming hike. Some drank beer, others smoked pot, and everyone jabbered about the coming day. Weiner turned in before the others. Lying there among the pines, listening to his friends’ chatter and the incessant chirping of cicadas while watching shooting stars streak across the sparkling sky, he thought it was one of the most peaceful and relaxed moments of his life.
The others eventually rolled into their sleeping bags, too. For most of them, it would be their last peaceful rest for a long time.
MIKE HOOG’S GROUP—Jennie Hayes, Rick Pedroncelli, and Linda and Dan Crozier, who was a year younger than his twenty-two-year-old sister—reached the entrance to Yosemite on Highway 120 just before midnight that same Friday. They continued a few more miles to the Crane Flat Campground and bedded down.
The group rose at six thirty the next morning, gobbled down breakfast, quickly packed up, and left for the Valley and their big day of hiking. They were on the trail to Half Dome two hours later.
Hoog, twenty-one years old, was a passionate outdoorsman, and a fitness buff. He ran marathons and competed in triathlons. A lithe, 160-pound man who stood five foot eleven, he sported shoulder-length blond hair often tied in a ponytail and boyish good looks. His easygoing and fun-loving manner belied an inner intensity that drove him to achieve. He had spent a lot of time with the Crozier family since the third grade, including vacation time. The youngest of five children, Hoog had at eighteen experienced his father’s death, an event that deeply affected him. He saw firsthand how fragile life could be, so his attitude was, Savor the moment. He had gone to Half Dome on several earlier trips and become a self-described Dome freak.
Hoog had just earned an associate of arts degree in emergency medical services from Santa Rosa Junior College. His close friend Linda Crozier also had recently graduated—from the University of California, Davis—with a bachelor of arts degree in physical education and had enrolled in a master’s program in exercise physiology. In 1974, with her father’s encouragement, Crozier became one of the first girls in the nation to play Little League baseball. In 1982, the nineteen-year-old and her father rafted down the Snake River in Idaho. She fell in love with whitewater rafting and the outdoors.
Crozier, who had a close and supportive family, was a straight-A student in high school. She thought about becoming a doctor but chose sports medicine and physical therapy instead. At Davis, she earned certification as an athletic trainer and worked as a student athletic trainer for several teams, which exposed her to all kinds of injuries. She also joined the Outdoor Adventures program there, learning to guide a raft through whitewater and gaining the requisite skills and mental toughness for whitewater rescues.
At 115 pounds, she was slim for her five-foot, five-inch, height—and distinctively pretty, with shoulder-length, feathered dark brown hair, hazel eyes, and olive skin. Crozier was self-confident, extroverted, and content—qualities that accented her Eurasian attractiveness (her father was Caucasian, her mother Chinese). Most of the time her face held a smile.
Hoog and his troupe arrived at Nevada Fall shortly after noon. Several trails converge there, bringing together day visitors, backpackers, and hikers; more than fifty were sprinkled about. Hoog’s upbeat and friendly group ate their lunches and joked with each other and those nearby, radiating good spirits. They stretched out on the rocks in their swimsuits to soak up sunshine and rest before the final leg of the trek.
Hoog and Crozier were alike in many ways. But one common trait would prove most serendipitous on that particular Saturday— each was a trained emergency medical technician.
THERE ARE SEVERAL PROGRAMS that prepare people to handle medical emergencies. The most elementary is Basic First Aid, offered by the American Red Cross. It entails two hours of training in fundamentals—bandaging, cleansing wounds, treating burns, and the like. Another Red Cross course (six hours) teaches cardiovascular pulmonary resuscitation (CPR), or how to treat a victim whose breathing or heart function has stopped. The Red Cross also offers a more extensive, fifteen-hour Public Safety Program that includes CPR. It’s designed for firefighters, lifeguards, and others who respond to public emergencies.
Courses leading to emergency medical technician (EMT) certification are much more extensive.
Three levels of EMT certification are available in California: EMT-I, EMT-II, and EMT-III (paramedic). EMT-Is complete 114 hours of classroom and clinical training on diagnosis, treatment, and quick transportation of victims to the nearest medical facility. They are not certified to administer medications—except, in certain locations, oral glucose and epinephrine autoinjectors— nor to administer intravenous substances. EMT-IIs train for at least 306 hours. This certification level is uncommon in California, however; EMT-IIs work mostly in rural counties where the case numbers do not justify using paramedics. EMT-IIIs undergo 1,032 hours of instructional and clinical training to become paramedics. The training is broad—how to take blood samples; how to perform emergency interventions, such as intravenous procedures; how to administer a large assortment of prepackaged drugs, such as morphine and nitroglycerin; and more.
After Hoog completed his EMT-I certifi
cation in Santa Rosa, he considered studying to become a paramedic. Linda Crozier also had undergone a rigorous EMT-I course that spring. Her teacher, Dr. Ben Shrifrin, was an expert in wilderness emergency medicine and rescue; he had lots of experience in outdoor-related medical emergencies and was an avid mountaineer. A co-teacher in Crozier’s class was Bill Bryant, a good friend of Shrifrin’s who had a similar background in mountaineering. Bryant and Shrifrin had served together on the Tuolumne County Search & Rescue Team.
Their instruction would be put to good use on Half Dome.
AT RED BUD, Rice’s group of seven awoke to a crystal-clear summer sky. A full day of hiking was on tap, ruling out a side trip to Paradise. They tossed their gear into the vehicles and left for Half Dome.
The caravan entered Yosemite Valley thirty minutes later. Accustomed to the low, rounded mountains of the East, Weiner was awestruck by Yosemite’s granite spires and domes. Then, at the distant end of the park, there it was—Half Dome. He had difficulty visualizing himself atop that overpowering mountain, and wondered silently if he could really accomplish such a feat.
They gorged themselves on a buffet breakfast in the cafeteria at Camp Curry, then loaded their backpacks with gear, clothing, and food. It was a two-mile march to the trailhead at Happy Isles.*
The sky was blue when the group headed out except for a single cumulus cloud floating above Clouds Rest.
Each hiker hefted a full backpack. The exception was Weiner, who carried the only pack he had, a book bag with two shoulder straps; it contained a few food and clothing items. Frith packed forty-five pounds of his and Weiner’s gear, a load they would take turns shouldering. The seven hikers reached the trailhead and began their journey. Fifteen minutes later, they were at the bridge where Vernal Fall is first seen, and hoofed it up the Mist Trail, “doing the staircase.”