Rescue of Injured Hiker
March 16, 2024
Mt. Baldy
2024-004
Written by: Richard Yocum
The mutual aid request through the California Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) was for additional alpine rescuers to assist San Bernardino County’s West Valley SAR team in the rescue of a hiker who had gotten off trail and injured on Mt. Baldy. The young man who was immobilized due to an ankle injury had been hiking mostly alone but fortuitously had a been discovered at about 7 pm by another hiker who was also off trail. That other hiker was later able to report the subject’s location in Goode Canyon.
RMRU assistance was requested at about 10:30 pm. I made the 2-hour drive from San Diego and arrived at the Command Post in Upland at 1 am, where Matt and Tobias were waiting. We listened to the radio comms as the first SAR team in the field had just made voice contact with the subject and a brief time later reported their patient assessment, including that he would have to be evacuated. Our deployment in the field was delayed about 45 minutes until it was determined that helicopter support would not be available until 6 am, given crew ability and concerns about icing conditions. A brief winter storm was rolling in, due at about 3 am.
Our RMRU team of 3, the fourth field team deployed, was driven to the Manker Flats trailhead and at 2:30 am as it started to snow began our climb up the trail to the Sierra Club Ski Hut, pausing to don crampons at about 7,400 feet elevation, and then up the switchbacks on the west side of the Bowl and over the ridgeline where we met with Team 2, sheltering from the storm at 8,790 feet elevation. Meanwhile, Teams 1 and 3 had been managing the patient’s ankle injury and hypothermia. All field teams sheltered in place for several hours (conditions 27-degrees with gusty winds) as we anticipated air support starting at 6 am. Unfortunately, the winds became stronger after dawn and attempts to reach the scene by two different San Bernardino rescue helicopters were unsuccessful because of the high winds and strong downdrafts.
Without a helicopter hoist, the ground teams were faced with the challenge of raising the patient up about 1,300 feet (vertical elevation gain 520 feet) up the steep hard snow slopes, over the ridge, and then lowering at least to the Bowl or Ski Hut. Teams 1 and 3 had already completed two raises and then one lower. Teams 2 and 4 set an anchor below the ridgeline and lowered their 600-foot rope that the teams below tied to their 400-foot rope, and the patient was raised on a snow sled over those 1000 feet to a flatter area. About that time and as the winds were subsiding, LA County’s Air Rescue 5 helicopter arrived on scene and was able to hoist the patient.
While Team 1 remained near the ridge in anticipation of extraction by Air Rescue 5, Teams 2-4 descended the ridge and arrived at the Ski Hut just as Team 5 came up the trail with some much appreciated and still-warm breakfast sandwiches. Teams 6 and 7 had aborted their climb up the Ski Hut trail after the hoist was completed. As a group the remaining teams descended the Ski Hut trail to meet our motorized transports back to the Command Post.
RMRU Members Involved: (Matt Frenken, Tobia Moyneur, and Richard Yocum)
Other Agencies Involved: (West Valley SAR, Sierra Madre and other San Bernardino County SAR teams, San Bernardino Aviation, and LA County Air Rescue 5)