A climbing ranger was airlifted from the northern slopes of Mount Rainier on Wednesday afternoon after he fell about 40 feet into a crevasse, park spokeswoman Lee Taylor said.

Sam Wick, 27, broke through a snow bridge at about 10,000 feet while skiing down from Rainier’s 14,411-foot summit. Fellow ranger Cooper Self, also a member of the Crystal Mountain Ski Patrol, was skiing with Wick and was the first to respond. Both men were on their scheduled patrol.

An off-duty climbing ranger and a guide from Ashford-based International Mountain Guides also assisted in removing wick from the crevasse, Taylor said. Guides from Seattle-based Alpine Ascents International also helped with the rescue.

Anne Keller, a former Crystal ski patroller, was the lead guide for the IMG party that helped with the rescue, IMG co-director George Dunn said.

An Aerostar helicopter landed on the Emmons Glacier and lifted Wick off the mountain at about 3:50 p.m. Wick was taken to Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center.

Wick may have a broken leg, but his injuries did not appear to be life threatening, Taylor said.

Wick is in his fourth season as a climbing ranger on Mount Rainier and is stationed with Self, 28, at Camp Schurman, located at 9,510 feet on the north side of mountain. Wick was honored by the park in 2007 for giving more than 1,000 hours of volunteer service.

Mount Rainier rescue rangers are reportedly working to rescue a skier who fell in a crevasse.

Our news partner, KIRO-TV, is broadcasting live footage from its chopper.

Click here to check it out:

http://www.kirotv.com/video/19919667/index.html

From the Portland Tribune:

A 27-year-old Seattle man was airlifted off Mount Hood Sunday afternoon after falling and breaking his leg near the Sandy Glacier area.

Clackamas County sheriff’s search and rescue members said Kristopher R. Haskins was taken off the mountain before 2 p.m. by an Oregon National Guard helicopter to Legacy Emanuel Hospital. Haskins is an employee of the University of Washington in Seattle.

Read the entire story here.

Hope you got a chance to read today's articles about Scott Richards' heroic 2004 attempt to save his best friend's life on Mount Rainier's Liberty Ridge.

As promised, here's the account of the incident from the perception of climbing ranger David Gottlieb who shared his story with The News Tribune in 2004, just days after Peter Cooley died.

By Craig Hill
THE NEWS TRIBUNE, 2004
The first sign he was getting close was the sound of a distress whistle piercing the thin mountain air.

After more than 40 hours on the precarious Liberty Ridge route up Mount Rainier, climbing ranger David Gottlieb finally was closing in on a critically injured climber and his partner.

As Gottlieb and fellow ranger Charlie Borgh approached the scene Monday afternoon, they were stunned by what they saw.

"It was an incredible situation," Gottlieb said.

Scott Richards, a veteran climber, had chipped a ledge into the icy face of the mountain and set up a small tent that hung over the edge. Inside, his partner, Peter Cooley, was wrapped in three sleeping bags and had an inch-deep wound on the left side of his head.

"Scott was excited to see us," Gottlieb said. "His situation was nothing less than desperate. ... His entire motivation was to get his friend out of there."

A climb that started May 13 went wrong about 6 a.m. Saturday when Cooley tripped and fell an estimated 30 feet down a cliff, injuring his head.

Richards called for help on his cell phone, launching a rescue attempt that involved more than 50 people at a cost of more than $100,000. After two days of fighting through rain and snow storms, the weather broke long enough Monday for an Oregon National Guard helicopter to pluck Cooley from the mountain.

But it was too late.

The 39-year-old married father of three died during the 15-minute flight to Madigan Army Medical Center.

The trip

Climbing brought Cooley and Richards together in the tiny southern Maine coastal town of Cape Elizabeth. Their mutual interest gave them an instant bond in a town where most of the 9,000 residents rarely climb anything higher than the steps of their famous lighthouses.

Together, they traversed areas more challenging than the place Cooley fell Saturday. In fact, they'd climbed this route previously, only to be turned back shy of the summit by nasty weather.

They were lured to Liberty Ridge by the same attraction that draws as many as 200 climbers to the route each year.

"It is a classic," said Mike Gauthier, the ranger who organized the rescue.

The steep ridge reaches pitches of 50 degrees in some places and splits two towering ice walls near the summit. Those ice walls - Liberty Wall to the right and Willis Wall to the left - are the edges of glaciers that are being pushed to the edge of the summit.

As often as three times each day, chunks of ice and rock "the size of houses fall off the wall and explode into smaller chunks" as they careen down the mountain, Gottlieb said.

What happened to Cooley, however, had little to do with terrain and much to do with bad luck.

Cooley apparently caught his crampon on his pant leg and tripped, something Gottlieb says is common. "It happens to me probably once a week," he said.

When it happens at 12,300 feet, it can be deadly.

Cooley was climbing the east side of the ridge, ahead of Richards, who was below him on the west side, attached with a 50-foot rope.

Richards told Gottlieb that after Cooley tripped, he cart-wheeled over a cliff and fell at least 30 feet, hitting his head on a rock at a point below his helmet line and sustaining an inch-deep wound that ran from above his left eye to his left ear.

The fall pulled Richards several yards toward the top of the ridge before he stopped. His friend's motionless body dangled from his harness.

What happened next shows how skilled an alpinist Richards is, Gottlieb said.

While holding his friend with one hand, he wedged ice screws into the ridge with his other hand. He transferred Cooley's weight to the screws, then rappelled down to inspect him. He moved his friend near a rock outcrop where he chiseled out a shelf about 2 feet wide. He then pitched a small tent.

Cooley was bleeding profusely and appeared to have a separated shoulder.

Richards spent the next 72 sleepless hours in the cramped tent, caring for his dying friend.

First crew out

Gottlieb was at a friend's house in Seattle on Saturday morning when he got a call from Gauthier.

The two, close friends since 1995, had returned Friday night from a climbing trip in Alaska. When Gauthier told him what had happened, Gottlieb picked up supplies, then met fellow climbing ranger Chris Olson at Longmire. The two packed light for a quick ascent, then drove around the mountain to Ipsut Creek and started climbing at 9 p.m.

The weather was uncooperative, and snow made it hard to discern sky from mountain. The conditions cost them at least an hour as they twice found themselves heading in the wrong direction.

At 1 a.m., and at about 7,000 feet, the weather forced Gottlieb and Olson to stop. They ate, melted snow into drinking water and waited for safer conditions. But the weather would not relent, and by Sunday night, the rangers were still 3,500 feet from the stranded climbers.

The next waves

At 3:30 a.m. Sunday, five climbing rangers led by Glenn Kessler, Greg Johnson and Borgh began their ascent.

They carried packs loaded with 90 pounds of gear needed to lower Cooley. They moved quickly in the trail broken by Gottlieb and Olson, and frequent radio contact made sure they didn't make the same missteps.

They and other rescuers established camp at the foot of Liberty Ridge in whiteout conditions and waited for the weather to moderate.

Helicopter-borne rescuers failed to reach the climbers Sunday night but were able to drop a radio, sleeping bags and food.

During another aborted attempt Monday, rescuers dropped an orange litter.

Monday morning, Gottlieb assessed the exhausted rescue crew to find the most prepared partner for a speedy two-man climb. He chose Borgh.

Soon four other climbers, including Kessler and Johnson, began climbing to Thumb Rock at 10,300 feet with heavy loads of gear.

They planned to climb to the injured climber Tuesday morning and set up an elaborate six-man lowering system that might have had Cooley at a hospital by Thursday.

That plan was never used. Around 1 p.m. Gottlieb and Olson reached the climbers. Two hours later, the weather finally broke.

The rescue

Gauthier was explaining the complicated rescue plan to the media at Longmire at 3:30 p.m. Monday when he was rushed into the building and told the weather was suitable for an airborne rescue.

Because of the gear dropped during the earlier attempt, it took just seven minutes to get Cooley inside.

The doors in the belly of the Chinook weren't wide enough to lift Cooley horizontally, so he had to be hoisted vertically. Still, it was a better option than carrying him down. There was no cheering when the Chinook pulled away.

"We weren't out of the woods yet," Gottlieb said.

Richards and the rescuers were fatigued and still needed to get down the mountain themselves. They descended 1,600 feet to Thumb Rock to spend the night.

The bad news

The news that Cooley had died hit the television and radio airwaves before it reached the mountain. Kessler was the first rescuer to learn of his death.

"It was a huge letdown," Kessler said.

Because Gottlieb had spent the most time with the climbers, he took responsibility for telling Richards. At 10,700 feet, both men wept.

"He didn't totally break down, because he knew if he did he would be a liability to us," Gottlieb said.

The men spent Monday night at Thumb Rock and started descending Tuesday, lowering the physically and emotionally drained Richards by rope. At 9 a.m., the weather cleared enough for a helicopter to lift them all off the mountain.

UPDATE From North Cascades National Park:

A missing hiker was found on Sunday afternoon in North Cascades National Park when he walked out of the backcountry under his own power after six nights in the Cascade Pass area of the park.

Mark Albrecht, a 22-year old resident of Everett, was reported missing on Thursday, June 18, when he did not return to work or check in with family.
National Park Service staff was notified late Friday that the missing hiker had planned to hike somewhere in the North Cascades range. NPS staff initiated a search and found that the missing hiker had obtained a backcountry camping permit for the Cascade Pass area of North Cascades National Park for the nights of June 15 and 16. His car had been located at the corresponding trailhead.

Albrecht stated that he became disoriented in the thick and low fog cover on Wednesday morning as he descended from Sahale Glacier camp, where he had a permit to camp. Realizing that he was lost by mid-morning Wednesday, he pitched his tent to await help. On Sunday morning, he made a successful attempt to find his way down a creek drainage to the Cascade River Road and to the rescue crews stationed at the Eldorado parking area.

Approximately 60 searchers, including two dog teams were involved in the search over two days, June 20 and 21. Teams of searchers included National Park Service employees and volunteer groups from Bellingham Mountain Rescue, Skagit Mountain Rescue, Olympic Mountain Rescue, Seattle Mountain Rescue, King County Explorer Search and Rescue, and Bellingham Summit to Sound Search Dogs.

From Kelly Bush, North Cascades Wilderness District Ranger:

On Saturday, May 23rd, a commercially-guided party of three mountaineers took a tumbling fall down Mount Shuksan's summit pyramid while roped together. The trio had reached the summit and were descending when the accident occurred. The guide had belayed his two clients individually down the first pitches of steep snow, then descended himself. As he was doing so, he fell and, unable to arrest his fall, pulled the other two with him for about 400 feet. Luckily, there was only one significant injury ­ one of the clients injured an ankle and was unable to continue. Climbing rangers on patrol lower on the mountain were picked up by the park¹s on-call SAR helicopter, an MD 500 from HiLine Helicopters, and flown to the accident site. The rangers were able to carry the injured climber across a section of the Sulphide Glacier, then fly her off the mountain. She was transported to a Bellingham, Washington, hospital for evaluation.

With a view a sweeping view of Mount Rainier, Mount Adams, Mount Hood and a massive lava dome, there are few place scenic plays than the crater rim of Mount St. Helens to take mom on her special day.

In fact, climbing to the 8,365-foot high rim has become a Mother’s Day tradition in the local skiing community.
The tradition is for the climbers to wear dresses – even the guys – and then ski down all in honor of their moms.

“We’ve received a lot of calls,” said Jeanne Bennett, executive director of the Mount St. Helens Institute. “But so far (as of April 28) only 35 people have signed up.”

Bennett says the small sign-up is likely because the most direct climbing route (10 miles and 5,000 vertical feet round trip) can’t be reached by car because of snow.

Climbers will use the winter route from Marblemount Snow Park adding making the hike about 13 miles and 6,000 vertical feet.

“I’ve never done it,” Bennett said, “but it sounds like a lot of fun.”

The event is not organized so you’re climbing party will be responsible for itself. National forest officials remind climbers not to get too close to the crater rim because of the massive cornice that could easily give way.

Bennett says don’t worry if you can’t find a dress for the climb.

“Dressing in drag is up to the individual,” Bennett said. “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want.”

A climbing permit costs $22 and can be ordered online at mshinstitute.org.

If you liked that, try . . .

Rock climbing: So you think your mom’s too old to learn new tricks. Not true. Tacoma’s Edgeworks Climbing is open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Sunday and is will to teach anybody who’s willing to try. One employee said they’ve had climbers in their 80s scaling the walls.
Routes range from easy to tough enough to challenge even the fittest moms. No Mother’s Day discounts. A day pass is $15. An extra $8 will cover the gear rental (shoes, harness, belay device and chalk bag). Edgeworks-climbing.com

Canoe Spanaway Lake: If your mom like to fish or just relaxing on the water, the Spanaway Park Boat House offers several options. You can explore Spanaway Lake by paddle boat or canoe for $6 per hour or by row boat for $4.25 per hour. All rentals require a $10 refundable deposit. 253-531-0555

Foothills Trail: The Foothills Trail runs 15 miles from Puyallup to South Prairie offering a slight uphill grade going toward South Prairie. The trail is flat enough for mom’s of all ages to enjoy a nice stroll or a casual bike ride. For hardcore mom’s you can easily tack on some hilly riding on the roads (particularly Tubbs Road) south of South Prairie.
For the most scenic section of the trail park in Orting follow the trail southeast. Piercecountytrails.org

(PHOTO BY PETER HALEY, The News Tribune)

Seven years after a dramatic rescue on Mount Rainier that included a helicopter crash, two local men were finally honored this morning in Washington D.C. for their heroics.
Climbing legend Dave Hahn received the Citizen’s Award for Bravery and Mount Rainier climbing ranger Chris Olson received the Valor Award from the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Ken Salazar, secretary of the interior, presented the awards.

So, what, took so long?

“The simple explanation is they were never nominated until now,” said Chuck Young, Rainier’s chief ranger. “… But the passage of time definitely does not diminish this.”

The men were finally nominated after Phill Michael of Edmonton won the Citizen’s Award for Bravery last year for rescuing two ill-equipped climbers on Rainier’s Muir Snowfield in 2007.

“Afterward Mike Gauthier (former chief of the Rainier climbing ranger program) relayed to me some of the rescues that took place here in the past,” said Young, who has worked at Rainier since 2006.

After hearing the stories, Young and Gauthier nominated several people for various rescues.

A panel in Washington D.C. picked Hahn and Olson for the awards.

On June 25, 2002, a climber was injured by a falling rock on the challenging Liberty Ridge route. As the helicopter approached the glacier below the ridge with Hahn and Olson it crashed.

Olson was struck by part of an engine that broke through the roof of the chopper. He was covered in oil, but was able to help Hahn rescue the pilot. The climbers then ascended the ridge with rangers who were already on site and rescued the climber.

“The efforts these two individuals took to complete the rescue of the critically injured climber during the 2002 climbing season was nothing short of extraordinary,” Young said in a prepared statement. “… Even after surviving the crash of the helicopter … and helping with the rescue of the injured pilot, they continued on with their mission to successfully complete the rescue at an extremely hazardous area of the mountain.”

Hahn was unable to attend the ceremony because he is currently guiding climbers on Mount Everest. Hahn, who guides for Ashford companies Rainier Mountaineering Inc. and International Mountain Guides, holds the U.S. record with 10 Everest summits.

The Valor Award is presented to Department of the Interior employees and the Citizen's Award for Bravery is for private citizens who risk their lives to save other people.

In June, Mount Rainier National Park will announce to its staff that the climbing program has won a safety award from the Department of the Interior. The award will be shared with the Rainier guide services and Tacoma Mountain Rescue.

Dave Hahn and Chris Olson were honored today in Washington D.C. for their part in a 2002 rescue. Hahn won the Citizen's Award for Bravery and Mount Rainier climbing ranger Chris Olson received the Valor Award from the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Hahn could not attend the ceremony because he is climbing on Mount Everest.

Here's the story we did on the rescue in 2002:

BY SKIP CARD and STEFANO ESPOSITO
The News Tribune

When the rescue helicopter lost its tail rotor, yanking it off Mount Rainier's Carbon Glacier and sending it spinning madly, mountain guide Dave Hahn could only hang on and hope.

"It started spinning faster and harder, and it was obvious we were going down," Hahn said a day after Tuesday's accident. "There was a moment or two when I thought I was dead."

In the end, Hahn walked away without a scratch.

Also unhurt were the chartered helicopter's pilot, whose name was not released, and climbing ranger Chris Olson, who ducked his head moments before the craft's transmission crashed through the roof.

Details of the high-altitude accident emerged Wednesday as shaken participants gave eyewitness accounts, investigators prepared to study the cause of the crash and crews planned to lift the wreckage off the mountain.

The crash of the single-engine Bell Jet Ranger helicopter occurred as a second set of rescuers hurried to the aid of Jesse Whitcomb, a Pennsylvania teenager who had been hit in the head by a falling boulder while climbing Mount Rainier's Liberty Ridge.

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Here's our story from Phill Michael's 2007 rescue on Rainier. He was the first person involved in a rescue on Rainier to win the Citizen's Award for Bravery.

His award inspired park officials to nominated past rescues for the honor.

BY CRAIG HILL
The News Tribune

Phill Michael couldn't see much as whiteout conditions descended on Mount Rainier on Sept. 16, 2007. He also had no idea what he heard in the distance was about to make him a hero.

As Michael descended from the summit to the Muir Snowfield he heard the voices of two ill-equipped hikers.

"I heard a woman saying 'We should have brought a better map,' " Michael said, "and a man who was vomiting and saying 'We are going to die.' "

The hikers might have been right had they not run into Michael. He built a shelter, and the three waited out the conditions for two and a half days before walking to safety.

On Tuesday, Michael will be in Washington, D.C., to receive the Citizens Award for Bravery from the Department of the Interior. The department presents the award annually to citizens who perform heroic acts in the face of danger.

Michael was nominated for the award by officials at Mount Rainier National Park.

"I don't really think of myself as a hero," Michael said. "I don't need an award, but if they're going to offer it to me, I guess I'll accept it."

Michael almost wasn't there to perform the rescue.

In 2003, he needed open-heart surgery to correct aortic valve disease that would have prevented him from leading an active lifestyle.

He's made the most of life since the surgery, making his own wine, kayaking, taking long-distance motorcycle trips and climbing mountains. He plans to start a quest to climb the highest summit on each continent next week when he leaves for Alaska to climb Denali.

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Sunday we are going to take a look at Movie's filmed in Washington's outdoors. While Washington's outdoor makes a glorious set for Hollywood flicks. We'll look at 12 places you can recreate where movies were filmed on Sunday.

Until then here are 15 other movies that are at least partially filmed in Washington.

In 2005 I spent a day skiing at Alpine Meadows on Lake Tahoe. While the skiing was good – very good in fact – and the lift tickets were cheap (a great combo), I was most interested in the stories I heard from the locals.

Whether I was hanging out in the lodge with ski instructor Vinny Distefano or riding the chairlift with Jim Cochrane, a 70-year-old former Oregon State University football player, it seemed everybody wanted to share the same piece of history about the ski area.

On March 31, 1982, Alpine Meadows was the site of the deadliest avalanche any American ski resort has ever seen. Inbounds avalanches are very rare at ski areas, but this avalanche killed seven people and resulted in several stories of heroism.

Now, Jennifer Woodlief, a former Sports Illustrated reporter and CIA case officer, is recounting the combination events that lead to the avalanche as well as the stories of those who died and survived.

Her book, “A Wall of White,” went on sale Feb. 17. It is $25 and is published Atria Books.