1940 hrs
Decision made to continue throwing out drop kits and then place four climbers at Empress.
2025 hrs
Successful first drop, second and third.
2049 hrs
Radio Call “This is Hotel Middle Peak. Mark lost feeling all toes, no food since Wednesday. Phil, two big toes frozen, sched in thirty minutes.”
So they were alive! And still with a sense of humour.
The five toll lines out from the village were immediately jammed by the media and Park Headquarters had great difficulty in getting through to Dr Price, but the huge public interest that had people hanging on to every bulletin was working for the rescuers as well.
Dr Price was whisked by police car to the Oamaru Airport at speeds normally associated with the most dangerous hit-and-run cases. Over the next week repair men thought nothing of driving 300 kilometres to fix broken office equipment at Search Headquarters or oxygen equipment distributors travelling from Dunedin, also 300 kilometres away, with some urgently needed gauges and cylinders.
But those minutes after the news came through that they were alive were hectic at Search and Rescue Headquarters. The first drop bag had been lost over the edge of the bergschrund and new ones hastily prepared as the light rapidly faded. One of the most relaxed people appeared to be Phil Doole’s mother. Upon being rung in Wellington to be told that her son was alive, she replied that she always knew he would be and that he was good for a few more days yet, and she didn’t want anybody taking any risks on his account!
Rescuer Ken Joyce explained later how they had spotted from the helicopter one person waving from a small bergschrund below the main Middle Peak bergschrund as Ron worked out how to ride the express train that was the wind pouring over the summit ridge. They tried dangling the drop kit out on a rope but the wind kept trailing it up towards the tail rotor. Next they tried bombing. Ken held the bag out the door and let go on Ron’s command. The bag landed near the entrance to the bergschrund, teetered briefly on the edge then rolled off down the slope. Returning with three more kits they tried the same procedure. Ron put just enough bite on his blades to avoid windmilling them past the safety limit and with the engine barely idling they rode an escalator of wind up towards the bergschrund. Ken held the first bag out over the skids and let go when Ron called. The bag plumbed down right on target. Two more shots – two more successes – the last bag landed right on Phil Doole.
So they had been found and supplied with sleeping bags and food but the storm and the wind were back in full force the next morning so there was no hope of rescue. If the wind wouldn’t allow a helicopter rescue, then it was going to have to be done on foot. So a plan was prepared in the event that they would have to be lowered off Mount Cook in a stretcher by ground parties. This would involve a lot of manpower, complicated rope work and again some respite from the weather. The prospect of bouncing those frostbitten feet, now susceptible to damage as they re-warmed in the sleeping bags, all the way off the top of Mount Cook, wasn’t appealing either. Four alpine guides were brought in to swell the numbers of the rescue teams and a group of volunteers put on standby in Timaru, two and a half hours’ drive away.
For Inglis and Doole, as they entered the second week of their stay, their ordeal was in some ways worse than the first. Up to the moment of being found they were engaged in the simple primitive art of survival. Once warm and fed and in radio contact with the base, their horizons broadened and they became concerned about the wider implications. What was going to happen to those frozen lumps at the ends of their legs? Would the rescuers carry things too far and a serious accident occur? Mark’s wife Anne spoke briefly on the radio and messages were sent from Phil’s family in Wellington.
These messages affected the climbers’ morale, bringing in a flood of feelings that had been kept in abeyance during the bitter struggle to stay alive in a hole in the snow at 12,000 feet, lying on a thin mat with feet jammed into the bottoms of packs, as the thermometer dipped to –20°C during that succession of long nights. When rescued Mark had a frostbitten finger from the constant pressing of the light button on his watch that measured the slow passing of each night.
But the weather that made 1982–83 such a freak season throughout the world, which enhanced the droughts in Africa and Australia and produced hitherto unknown hurricanes in Hawaii, continued in the same pattern; 200-kph winds from the south-west quarter lashed Mount Cook with rain and snow to low levels.
By now all New Zealand was following the drama via their TV sets and radio news bulletins. But there was so little to report. After two more days radio contact was lost with the pair. Although it was probably just battery failure, the lack of contact increased the anxiety.
By Friday 26 November, four days after they had been found and eleven days since they started climbing, a partial respite on the lower slopes of the mountain allowed the climbing team at Gardiner hut to be brought out, but that was all. Saturday the 27th was a repeat of all the other days but the forecast was for the south-west jet stream to weaken finally on Monday and be completely clear of the region by Tuesday. Dr Price gave two to four days’ grace before any serious medical problems would develop.
The next day Bert Youngman decided to bring in an RNZAF Iroquois helicopter to help in ferrying climbers, as the option of having to do a long stretcher lower was a real possibility. It arrived just after 6.00 pm, when the weather began another one of those “race against the dark” evening clearances. The sky was still threatening to the south but the area around the top of Mount Cook began to clear back. So it was decided to establish a group of strong climbers on the Empress Shelf, a snow plateau about 1,500 feet (450 metres) below the stranded pair. If the rescue couldn’t be effected that night at least rescuers would be able to get up to the pair even in difficult conditions the next day.
Events over the next hour moved swiftly.
Ron Small took off in the Squirrel with a load of rescue personnel. He landed them in fresh knee-deep snow on the Empress Shelf and then flew up to the summit ridge. To Ron the configuration of the snow slope seemed to have changed and he thought the bergschrund had collapsed on its occupants and he could see bodies lying out on the snow. He radioed that he was coming back and could Bert Youngman come out to the helicopter to meet him. The Search Headquarters was under virtual siege at this stage by reporters who sensed that something dramatic had happened.
Just as the Squirrel swung away from whatever had happened at Middle Peak Hotel the Iroquois came in to land at the advance base on the Empress Shelf with the rest of the rescue party. As the pilot put the machine into a hover in preparation for landing, the blades blew up drifts of the new snow. The pilot lost his horizon in the swirling whiteout, the tail plane hit the ground and the helicopter flipped on to its back, the tail plane and rotor hanging over the 1,000-foot drop to the lower Empress Shelf.
The park mountaineers burst out of the side of the stricken machine, followed by the Iroquois crew. Apart from some minor injuries no one was hurt. For Ron Small, hovering above, after two weeks of dawn-to-dusk standby and some very difficult mountain flying, this was getting to be the last straw. He had to leave the mystery of the Middle Peak bergschrund and now rescue the Iroquois crew. Daylight was fading fast and a southerly front was sweeping across the Mackenzie country. It was snowing heavily only twenty-five kilometres away from Mount Cook.
Inside the chill confines of Middle Peak Hotel Phil Doole was trying to keep a record of the passing time. It was the evening of Day 11:
Waiting. Watching mossy threads of spindrift overhead. The light of another dawn spreads into the tunnel. Waiting. Listening. Just the slightest shiver runs across the roof. Silence. Is it really calm outside . . .?
Stirring. Searching for the transistor radio amongst the clutter. The two RTs are kaput. Station 3ZA has the only steady signal, no surprise – it’s a direct line of sight to the transmitter at Kumara, only 145 km [90 miles] north of Mount Cook. Familiar sounds of We
st Coast breakfast radio. Have a nice day. Sure, anytime. But our isolation is quickly blown away by Morning Report: a wrecked Iroquois lies on the Empress Shelf. What! We trade expletives and wait for the rest . . . thoughts zeroing in on people, mates, lives. Anxious, we want to know more from this noise invading our hole. No more . . .
Meanwhile, another drama was unfolding at Search Headquarters:
To take the pressure of reporters off his back, (they knew that Ron had reported something strange) Bert Youngman sent a member of his staff out the door to the press to say that despite appearances hope was not given up for the climbers. For instance, in cases of severe hypothermia even people who appeared clinically dead had been revived.
A reporter at the back of the group picked up on these words and raced off to ring his office with the dramatic news that after all the struggle the two mountaineers overdue on Mount Cook were “clinically dead”. Even the news reader who had to read out the bulletin on TV looked dubious as he read the words but the mistake had been made and the news was broadcast around the country. The shaken parents and relatives tried to ring through for verification of the dreadful news but once again the phone lines to the small alpine village went into overload.
Darkness was nearly upon the scene and time had run out for a proper rescue attempt that night. Ron Small managed to make one flight back in after bringing out the Iroquois crew. Another drop bag went over the side to the entrance of the bergschrund and, unaware of all the drama the premature news of his demise was causing, a figure in a blue jacket strolled out of the cave, picked up the bag and disappeared again. The two bodies that Ron thought he had seen were empty drop bags that the conscientious pair had staked into the snow to mark their exact location.
Monday the 29th just had to be the day. The forecast at 4.00 am indicated the lowest wind speeds yet at 3,000 metres. At dawn the team on the Empress Shelf reported that everything above them was clear. They had finally snatched some sleep at 3.00 am after digging snow caves most of the night. They weren’t digging just a shelter for themselves but a potential field hospital in case evacuation only got that far before becoming bogged down by the weather. Dr Price was there with a full medical kit including oxygen and a portable defibrillator.
The only problem was that everywhere on the east of the Main Divide there was a thick sheet of low cloud. It hugged the ground around the Mount Cook village and spread far out into the Mackenzie Country. The temperature at Mount Cook was 0°C and then it began to snow, fine above, atrocious below. The forecasters were predicting a break in the clouds but it wasn’t appearing. The worst possible scenario was for the rescue to get under way and then for cloud to form around the machines as they were lifting people out. Ron Small had decided that after the previous night’s events he needed some support from the people he knew well. Bill Black, the legendary bush pilot from the rugged Fiordland area, came through with his Squirrel and brought with him Rex Dovey who had taught Ron how to fly.
Back to Phil Doole at Middle Peak Hotel:
7.30 am Radio New Zealand news: Middle Peak Hotel has the lead: No mention of the wreck – that’s old news. The Chief Ranger outlines today’s rescue plan for the nation to digest. Better get ourselves organised, lad. Sounds like this could be it.
I find the overboots which arrived in the last airdrop, last night. Pull them on over cold socks. I read the name – borrowed gear. So was the transistor radio, I find out later. Long laces and lots of hooks, clumsy fingers. Quiet communication between us: some worry, some anticipation of the action. Wonder who’ll be on the strop? Laces just tied and we hear the chopper. Gotta go.
Outside it’s brilliant. The crisp air wakes a weary, troubled mind. An early-morning glow and the Tasman Sea glittering not so far away. The sun lets me feel warm.
A new RT comes down by rope. Calling Hotel-Whisky-Whisky draws no response; where’s the chopper gone? On to the other channel, and it takes Search Control a little while to react. Put it all on hold, fight the worry trying to burst out. Asking the question: “Who copped it in the crash?” The answer comes unexpectedly from Lisle Irwin, senior ranger, back from vacation: “Everyone’s OK, Phil.” All right then. We’re ready for a lift. Don’t push it.
By 7.30 am the cloud in the Hooker Valley was still holding a ceiling of 2,700 metres and the decision was made to go. It was 3,200 metres out over the Tasman riverbed before the two Squirrels broke into sunlight and swung back towards the Hooker. A quick recce flight lowered another radio down to the bergschrund. Soon Phil’s strong voice reported that he could be lifted out on his harness but that Mark should be moved in a stretcher.
Ron landed on the shelf and the strop system was set up, first developed by Canadian rescue teams. The helicopter takes off with the rescuer dangling twenty metres below, which enables him to be flown into tight locations with the helicopter hovering above. The sensation of flying this way is not unpleasant. It’s similar to parachuting, usually lasts longer and there is no nasty thump at the end. So long as the pilot is doing his job.
The senior mountaineer, Don Bogie, had developed this system at Mount Cook along with Ron Small. It had been in use for two seasons but so far had been tried only with rescuers picking up bodies in dangerous locations. Now it was Bogie’s opportunity to try it out on some climbers still very much alive.
Also as an aid for a quick pick-up, Bogie had adapted another Canadian modification of a European compact stretcher. The Bauman bag is a large nylon bag opening its full length with a series of attachment points that join it to the bottom of the helicopter strop. This simple bag can be carried on the rescuer’s hip, quickly unpacked, the patient rolled in and attached to the strop with the helicopter hovering above. This way the rescuer doesn’t have to detach from the strop and the helicopter spends the minimum time in the hover in a dangerous location.
So, with the cloud boiling up below them, a white wall of southerly snow showers on the horizon and the first sign of clouds already beginning to appear over the Caroline Face just above where Mark and Phil were trapped, they set to work.
Phil Doole again:
Alone, back in our tunnel. Our hole is a mess of gear, empty gas canisters, unused food, and yellow snow. Gathering together the RTs. Leaving everything else behind, even my ice axe, when the chopper returns again.
Smack on the shelf! Don unclips our harnesses and is gone. Alone again for a moment, body tuning to this new locale. Whisto crouches in the snow. A quiet grin from a face dark with stubble: “Gidday, man.” Dull awareness of activity about the landing pad; proficiency typified by a line of safety pickets leading out to the wreck.
Don Bogie reported later:
We landed on the Empress Shelf and set up the strop, tying each end of the two strands to the fixed bolts underneath the helicopter. I clipped my harness on to the other end and two minutes later was dangling in the –20°C air over the bergschrund. Ron lowered me to the snow right at the entrance. Mark was in a sleeping bag about three metres inside so I asked Ron to give me more rope. I went inside and dragged Mark back to the entrance so that I could work on him in the open. Ron was hovering about fifteen metres above as Phil came out of the cave to help me get Mark into the Bauman rescue bag. I checked all my attachments then the stretcher attachments before asking Ron to take off. We flew down and landed by the others on the shelf. I unclipped Mark and then returned up to Porter Col. This time I clipped Phil on to the strop directly by his harness. We were only on the ground fifteen to twenty seconds. As we landed by the others the cloud was starting to spill over the top of the mountain from the Tasman Glacier and around the West Ridge.
A last word from the joint proprietor of Middle Peak Hotel, now closed for the season:
Finally – slumped in the front passenger seat of HWW. They didn’t let me walk; no one realising the damage was already done, long before. Fumbling again with the belt fastener, just like the last time. Chewing on Dick’s liquorice, staring alternately at the instrument panel and Ron – ta
lking to his headset – wondering what he is saying. Bill’s out there somewhere, flying back-up in HMV. I remember Don told me that, coming down on the strop.
Snug, isolated in the machine, away from the mountain and the cold, watching the dials. A glance out through the windscreen. A jolt back to reality! Where are we going? Above Haast Ridge, spiralling down towards the Tasman Glacier, to find a way home under the wall of snow clouds. Stunned – realising then the incredible commitment these guys have made – my tears roll freely as Dick leans over with more liquorice. His grinning nod says Mark is OK too.
A month later on Christmas Eve both climbers had their frostbitten feet amputated. Five months later after learning to walk on their artificial legs, Mark Inglis was back at work at Mount Cook National Park Headquarters and Phil Doole left with a climbing team on an expedition to the Peruvian Andes. Ron Small was awarded the MBE for his part in this and many other rescues. Ken Joyce was later killed in a plane crash on the Tasman Glacier.
Rescues in the Grand Canyon
Hamish MacInnes, Tammie Keller, Tom Clausing
This great channel in the earth’s crust, even impressive from space, is one of the wonders of the world. Surprisingly, its cultural history goes back a long way, 3,000–4,000 years. Now it is visited by up to three million tourists a year.
The Canyon is not noted for its good rock climbing, yet there is evidence that prehistoric man climbed here, not for pleasure or thrills, but probably for flints or while escaping from enemies. However, its verticality, white water and unrelenting heat, result in many technically difficult rescues which come under the wing of a friend of mine, Ken Phillips, Search and Rescue Controller of the Grand Canyon National Park. It is to Ken and his colleagues that I am indebted for this selection of rescues. These park rangers must be fairly unique in the fact that they go downhill to conduct their call-outs. The following call-outs are from various recent reports of the day to day rescue work of the Park Rangers. It is their task to look after those that get into trouble in this remarkable place.
The Mammoth Book of Mountain Disasters Page 51