North Cascades National Park (WA)
Stranded Climbers Evacuated From Black Peak
...The two climbers who had summited could see their friends about midway up the ascent route, and observed that they were stationary for hours, well into the night. The two stranded climbers began flashing headlamps, presumably to alert their friends. ...
Early on Monday, rangers made a recon flight to Black Peak, making visual contact with the stranded climbers but unable to rule out injuries to either of them. By then, they’d been stranded at the same location for almost 24 hours, just before a steep pitch on the most technical part of the route.
A ranger team... evacuated each climber individually by short haul to their base camp. The rescued climbers appeared to be shaken up by the experience, but were uninjured. All parties agreed that steep technical mountaineering routes with thousands of feet of exposure above massive glaciers are much more difficult than the same level of climbing difficulty in a gym, which they were more accustomed to.
--The National Park Service, Morning Incident Report, August 5th 2013
http://www.nps.gov/morningreport/
Database Dated : 11/20/2025 8:43:47 PM