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Report: Rescued climbers ignored several warnings
Ranger says climbing group of 13 was lucky more than one didn't die.

By Angus M. Thuermer Jr.

A report on last summer's rescue of five lightning-strike victims who were climbing the Grand Teton says the ill-fated group was warned by rangers of afternoon storms and told to leave their camps early.

The report, penned by Grand Teton National Park climbing ranger and rescue coordinator Brandon Torres, said weather forecasts should have alerted the group to the thunderstorm danger that developed the afternoon of July 26. A few minutes after 3 p.m. that afternoon, lightning killed 25-year-old Erica Summers, a mother of two, at the top of the Friction Pitch on the Exum Ridge.

Torres' report states that the group failed to heed rangers' warnings and advice and chose to commit itself to the climb even after being held up by slow, inexperienced members, as well as other climbing parties. The group advanced in partly cloudy weather, discounting the approaching thunderstorm until tragedy struck, according to the report.

The group of 13 ­ mostly from the Idaho Falls, Idaho, area ­ was made up of family, friends and coworkers from the Melaleuca Company, the report said. Their rescue that afternoon and evening by a crew of park rangers and two helicopters has been called the most spectacular in North American mountaineering history.

But the story of how the group got into its deadly predicament has so far gone mostly unreported.

Obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request, the 15-page Case Incident Record is the official Park Service account of the rescue and events surrounding it. In addition to detailing the warning issued by rangers, the report says the group was lucky its climbing practices did not result in a greater tragedy.

The document also says the group is fortunate that rangers were able to rescue all the injured climbers that afternoon and evening, a complex undertaking involving dozens of people and two helicopters that could easily have been stymied by weather or the smallest glitch.

Clinton Summers, one of the climbers and the husband of Erica, said in a telephone interview this week that he had read the report but did not want to talk to reporters about the event. "I thought they did a great job on it," Summers said of the report.

Rob Thomas, one of the leaders of the party who secured the permits for the climb, did not want to be interviewed.

"I don't believe there is anything more here to dig up, especially in causing more grief to any of us," he said in an e-mail response to a request for interviews with him and others in the party. "If you feel, for as you put it, there is need for more details of the trip, decision-making for educations [sic] sake. I suggest you wait for the book ­ we will be publishing a book that we [sic] detail the entirety of our trip."

Another party member did not respond to requests for an interview and indicated he and others had worries a story might jeopardize funding for a movie being planned about the rescue.

The series of events began July 23 when Rob Thomas secured two permits to camp in Garnet Canyon. The plan was to climb the 13,770-foot Grand via the Exum Ridge. One permit was for the Garnet Meadows at 9,250 feet, the other for the Moraine Zone at 10,800 feet. The group split itself between the two spots.

On the way into the campsites, the group encountered two Jenny Lake climbing rangers who would eventually help rescue them. Leo Larson, the first ranger to be lowered by cable from a helicopter to the Exum Ridge after the lightning strike, was on patrol with another rescuer, Marty Vidak. As is their job, the two engaged the group, according to Torres' report.

"While hiking in to Garnet Canyon the group talks with Rangers Larson and Vidak," Torres wrote. "They are informed about recent afternoon storms with the threat of lightning and are advised to get an alpine start for their climb in the morning."

An alpine start is a pre-dawn approach adopted by alpinists to reduce the dangers that become common as the day warms ­ falling ice and rock and thunderstorms. Leaving early also provides a cushion of daylight should a group be delayed.

Professional guides heading for the Exum Ridge try to leave their high camps, which are above the Meadows or Moraine, by 3:30 a.m. or 4 a.m. Such was not the strategy of the Melaleuca party, rangers reported.

"On the morning of the 26th those camping at the Meadows left sometime between 0700-0800 hours for their planned ascent of the Upper Exum Ridge," Torres reported. "The meadows group joined with the Moraine group at the fixed rope below the Lower Saddle [11,650 feet]. From the Lower Saddle the group members climb up at their own pace."

From the Lower Saddle, the group's next objective was Wall Street, a prominent but narrowing ledge that is the start of the Exum Ridge. But first the group had to climb the Needle, a tower most easily ascended via a switchback route that involves crawling under a boulder. The landmark maze is called the Eye of the Needle.

As the Melaleuca group was in this area, a Jackson climber and ski patroller who was ascending the Enclosure, a shoulder of the Grand, saw the group of 13. Kirk Speckhals started from the valley floor that morning with two friends, and said the Melaleuca group was off route when he caught up with it at about 9:30 or 10 a.m.

"They had missed the Eye of the Needle," Speckhals said. "They were taking packs off, handing them to the guy above and handing them to the guy above." Members of the team were even pulling one another up by hand, Speckhals said.

One woman ­ Erica Summers ­ looked "a little distressed," Speckhals said. He recognized her picture after it was published in the News&Guide.

Members of the group asked "Is Wall Street that way?" he said. Speckhals said the scene gave him and his partners doubts about the group's climbing ability, so the ski patroller expressed some of his worries.

"We said 'It's getting pretty late, the cloud tops are building,'" Speckhals said before pointing to Wall Street.

Missing the Eye of the Needle might not have been significant to the group's schedule ­ the party of 13 waited for others ahead when it got to Wall Street. But it was indicative of the speed and competency of the group, he said.

Speckhals went up to the Enclosure and took a picture of the Grand's summit, about 700 feet above him, at 10:32 a.m. The summit block is shrouded in fog.

Torres' report said the group of 13 reached the base of Wall Street by 11 a.m. "Other parties delay the group at the base of Wall Street for approximately 2 hours," his report says.

During his investigation, Torres found a digital camera in the daypack of one of the lightning victims ­ Rod Liberal. He was the climber most seriously injured, aside from Erica Summers, who was left dangling with his belly up after the lightning.

Liberal's camera had a picture of Wall Street with a time stamp of 12:15, Torres wrote. "A view of skies to the east of the Exum Ridge in this picture indicated the weather was partly cloudy around 1215 hours," he wrote.

Wall Street is considered a point of no return. After crossing it, it is a complex operation to retreat. Climbers are essentially committed to climbing to within several hundred feet of the summit before finding the next exit.

In the face of deteriorating weather, with slow climbers of its own and other slow parties ahead, the group opted to go on.

"What many said was, 'It didn't look that bad,' or 'We've been in way-worse weather,'" Torres wrote. In contrast, when Torres saw the peak from the valley after receiving a cell-phone call from the party in distress, he saw a different scene.

"I looked up into the mountains at a significant storm cell," Torres wrote. "I wondered if we were going to be able to fly a helicopter at all, and I wondered why these people were on the Exum ridge at 15:46 in the afternoon."

On the ill-fated climb, Dave Jordan led the first rope of three. Robert Thomas was next, leading a rope of four. Clinton Summers led his wife and Liberal. Robert's brother, Justin Thomas, led the last rope with Jacob Bancroft and Reagan Lembke, Torres reported.

"Once past Wall Street, other climbing parties on the Exum Ridge continued to slow progress for all teams," Torres wrote. "Everyone in the group carried a family frequency Motorola radio to help with communication."

About 20 minutes before the lightning strike ­ at a few minutes after 3 p.m. ­ it started raining lightly. Climbers, including those from two other parties, began to stack up at the bottom of the Friction Pitch, which had become wet and slippery. The first Melaleuca rope had passed the Friction Pitch. There was talk about lowering a rope to others to speed their passage.

"Soon it is decided to abort the summit attempt because of weather," Torres wrote. Members of the group knew how to find the descent rappel by cutting left without going for the top.

At that point, the 13 Melaleuca climbers in four separate roped groups were spread out with two other unrelated parties in their midst, the report said. Dave Jordan's group was above the Friction Pitch. The unrelated parties passed that obstacle, followed by Rob Thomas and his rope.

Climbers on Rob Thomas' rope belayed Clinton Summers up and he clipped into an anchor. He brought his wife up to his side and began to belay Liberal, Torres reported.

Then lightning struck.

The blast killed Erica Summers instantly and severely injured Clinton, who was sitting beside her, and Liberal, who swung out onto the face and dangled unconscious with his belly to the sky. The charge ricocheted down the mountain and knocked Justin Thomas, Bancroft and Lembke off their stances, ripping their anchor from the mountain and sending them tumbling.

Those three were fortunate to be caught by their gear, Torres reported. "Their fall was likely slowed by their rope, which had wrapped around rock horns and jammed into cracks," his report said.

Was the Melaleuca party just unlucky? The two unrelated parties who had been amongst them only minutes before went on to the summit ­ without any harm from the lightning or apparently even any knowledge of the incident.

Perhaps the group of 13 was unlucky, but the Melaleuca party also was lucky that a larger disaster didn't occur, Torres wrote.

Clinton Summers' anchor was constructed of two pieces of rock gear but was engineered so all the weight of a potential fall would come onto only one piece at a time. That was a small cam nut known as a .75 Camalot. This device held all of Liberal's weight and most of Clinton Summers' after the lightning.

But the last Melaleuca rope ­ the one led by Justin Thomas ­ also was connected to Liberal. A rope from Liberal's harness led down to the three who had just fallen about 100 feet. Had they fallen farther, the single Camalot at the top of the Friction Pitch could have been weighted by five people. It would have, Torres wrote, "sustained a significant force."

"The group was lucky however that a couple of other climbing practices did not result in a greater tragedy," the report said.

In his report, which includes an analysis, Torres said the group was too large and slow to ensure an ascent before the afternoon thunderstorms, even if it had not been held up by others.

"The Exum Ridge is undoubtedly the most popular route on the Grand Teton and thus on a Saturday during the middle of summer one is bound to encounter other climbers," he wrote. "It is very difficult for a group of 13 people to climb quickly. Getting to the base of Wall Street around 1100 hours with 13 climbers, many with no climbing experience, would surely have put at least some members of the group near the summit very late in the afternoon even if other climbing parties had not been encountered."

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