Trouble at Olympus

While in Utah in September for HERA Climb for Life (fundraiser for ovarian cancer research), I climbed in many different parts of the state. My climbing partner Keith and I were in Moab and it rained, Joe's valley where it rained, Zion...more rain, St. George...actually, no rain here, Salt Lake...rain, American fork...not rain. snow. We had a bad experience with a "walk off" that ended up being 4th class scrambles, to multiple rappels down places where it was almost impossible not to get your rope stuck, to 4th class down climbs early in the week. We still managed to get a decent amount of climbing in. Later in the week, just before the HERA even, Keith and I decided to have a relaxing day on a very exposed 5.6 13 pitch slab on Mt. Olympus. Now as you are reading this you are probably going to laugh and shake your head at the series of mistakes and poor decisions that could have cost us severe injury or death. The purpose for writing this is to entertain as well as stress the importance of proper safety and communication on and off the climb.

Forecast for the day was clear until around four, then rain and chance of thunderstorms. We figured it is a 5.6 and if we get out there early we can take our time with it. Well we didn't get there all that early, and the approach took about an hour. Just as we were arranging the gear and tying in, I received a phone call from a few of our friends telling us they were driving through a thunderstorm heading our way. Keith and I talked about it and decided that we hiked all this way and there was a good chance the rain would miss us by blowing around the surrounding mountain ranges. This ended up not being the case. 4 pitches down and 9 more to go, I looked to my right and you could see the rain coming towards us, probably about 25 minutes out. The 4 pitches were so long to get to anywhere to set anchors that there were a few times I had to climb up a bit while belaying Keith in order to allow him to not run out the 60 meter rope. Only having one rope and not many places to place gear, rapping off was not a great choice. We climbed a couple more pitches before it was sprinkling on us and we could hear thunder. Immediately we are thinking about the granite slab we are on and looking at the two trees on the climb that look like they had already been struck by lightning. We decided to Simul-climb. Keith is very cautious when climbing and takes his time, but during the remaining 600 feet to the summit, Keith placed only 7 pieces of gear.

With lighting and heavy rain all around us, we were anxious to get off the rock and start the descent. The rain finally let up, but the runoff made everything look like a trail. Just before descending, Keith gave me back his walkie-talkie. I had the only cell phone, Keith had the car keys...to a car parked a 45 minute walk away. This is where the series of mistakes began. Next, we decided to both look at separate ridges to see where the path was best to climb down. Mine ended up not being a good path, so I hiked back up to go down the way Keith was going. At this point he was only about 30 or 40 yards away from me. Knowing that I was quicker, Keith checked to see that I was following and continued down. Part of the hike was down a path of rock fall, and part down paths marked by cairns. Eventually I got off the path, knowing that the guide book said stay on the ridge, I tried to stay close by it until I could find a way to hike up to the top of it. Keith apparently had found an easier way onto the ridge. I down climbed a bit, and kept hiking through heavy brush and rock fall. Eventually it started raining hard again rendering it impossible to climb back up the way I just came. Knowing this, I continued down. I followed the trails of water figuring they would lead me to the easiest way down. By this time I was deep in the ravine and the ridge was impossible to hike up to. I continued my descent wondering if Keith was looking for me, or if he figured it was going to get dark soon, so he would go down and get help. I eventually came to a waterfall, with a slight 35’ slab and wall coming out of it adjacently. I didn’t really have any gear on me, and there were no trees big enough around to attach the rope to. I examined my options and figured I could down climb it by stemming the dryer part of it. I strapped on my helmet, tossed down my rope bag and started climbing down facing out from the face. I got down about ten feet and realized I was out of decent holds and I couldn’t climb back up. Looking at the bottom, there were a lot of loose rock and small branches sticking out to impale me. I looked for the best spot to fall, lowered myself as far as possible, took a deep breath and let go. I hit the rocks and slammed my head against the adjacent face, and knocked myself to the ground. I was a little cut up, but legs and ankles were fine and helmet saved my skull. I then sighed in relief only to stand up and stab myself in the ear with a large branch. My ear was bleeding pretty good, but I was still pretty good. I looked in front of me and finally saw a trail. My excitement lasted 15’. Then the trail ended. I called my friend Jess who had hiked up the trail before and asked her for help and told her the story thus far. Connection wasn’t too great, so the rumors started. She couldn’t give me much beta on getting back onto the trail other than to find the ridge. I began to hike some more only to find another cliff. This I was able to down climb a bit easier and only had to drop the last 5’ onto a boulder. I then continued to hike and saw a way to get onto the ridge. This time I was sure I found the trail, there was even a sign telling hikers not to climb down the way I just hiked up. At this point I knew it was late and saw that I was still about 600’ up. I started to run down the muddy, windy trail. Some portions had been washed away from the massive amount of rain.

Finally getting to the bottom, I began to hike up the road to see if Keith had made it down. Eventually, other climbers (Denny and Dave) picked me up, gave me water and a bigger medical kit, I took a headlamp and started to hike back up to find Keith. Jessica was waiting a little bit before calling the rangers. 25 minutes into hiking, I found Keith covered in mud hiking down the trail. He too had gotten off the trail somehow and had to rap off of cordellette down rain soaked rock. He slid down some muddy trails and was also worried about my safety. I called Jess and we made it down. Taramin took pictures of us, Jess gave us hot chocolate, and we drove back to the house we were staying at for hot showers and to dry our gear for the next day of climbing. The following day we stuck to bouldering. Stories of our journey spread pretty quickly through the HERA event coordinators and pros. We had to tell this story many times the following few days to explain what happened. We were both fortunate and grateful to be telling these stories.

Just to run through some important tips. 1.) Don’t climb when bad weather is predicted. 2.) Walking back down the ascent is much better than risking your life. 3.) Return walkie-talkies and gear AFTER descent. 4.) Never, Never, Never leave your climbing partners. 5.) If in unsure if you are on a path, stop and make sure. 6.) Do not take unnecessary risks.