EDEMA

In the summer of 1975, each trip went through Camp Sherman, up the Emmons Glacier and back down through Camp Sherman. This climb, in mid-July, was a typical smooth Camp Sheppard climb; we made a camp at 12,000 ft and most people slept out under the stars. On any Camp Sheppard adventure, tents were the lodging of last resort - a sleeping bag on a couple of insolite pads was the first choice. It was easy to lay out and pack up, and looking up into the heavens as you drift to sleep can't be beat. A tarp kept the rain off on hikes, but when you are in a storm on the glaciers of Rainier, it takes an igloo or a sturdy tent to survive the night. After several years on the High Adventure staff I assumed that anyone who enjoyed the backcountry would prefer sleeping under an open sky. Not so- most people hide from the night sky, and set up a tent every night - it never crosses their mind to sleep without one.

This mid-July night on the summit was cold, windy and threatening so the whole party was sleeping in tents. I woke around 1:00 AM and heard talking in the next tent. I asked if everyone was OK. No, one scout was having trouble breathing and when the talking stopped I could hear the gurgling. Time to start making decisions. Even with the wind flapping the tents and me being fifteen feet away, I could hear the damning gurgling of advanced pulmonary edema. I put my boots on and started discussing our possible options with Dave Kruse, Vic Smith, Tom Bjornsen . . .It was 1 am, and we were alone on the summit with someone in the advanced stages of pulmonary edema. We knew the way back to Camp Sherman and the trailhead at White River, but midweek there would be no one on that route and we felt this fellow needed immediate attention. The Muir route would probably have other climbers as well as the guide service and a climbing ranger at Camp Muir, but none of us had climbed it that season so we didn't know which path to take through the maze of crevasses.

The night was clear so I decided to try to descend immediately. I felt this fellows' condition was serious and deteriorating rapidly and I didn't want to risk waiting until morning. We got the group packed and roped up ready to descend. I decided that we were definitely going to need some assistance and that the night was clear enough to find the route down to Camp Muir. We headed to the point on the south rim of the crater where we had seen climbers come up on the Muir route. I had arranged the rope teams so that my rope was first with another Camp Sheppard staff on the downhill end of my rope picking out the route. We divided the sick scouts gear among the staff and stronger scouts and put him on a rope with a Camp staff and the strongest adult from the troop. Descending the first thousand feet was smooth and clear under bright starry skies, but after that, clouds started roiling up the mountain enfolding us in a dark cloud. As it got darker, we could no longer make out yesterday's crampon scratches in the ice and we soon lost the trail. I decide to loose elevation as quickly as possible in hopes of giving our suffering climber some relief. We descended for another 1000 ft, slowly finding our way around crevasses, trying to keep a bearing for Disappointment Cleaver and the Muir route.

Travel was slow and the scouts were getting chilled waiting for us to find a way. As the party got tired and cold from the slow descent, our sick climber was doing even worse. We came to a small step where snow had drifted below an ice cliff leaving a tiny level protected spot. Beyond the step was a gaping crevasse, I decided to stop here and make a camp. My plan was to put the scouts into the tents, warm them up, feed them and decide on our next move. The level area was about 2 ft x 20 ft and we set to enlarging it for our tents. When the first tent was up, we put our sick climber, the troop adults and some Sheppard staff into it. The staff was to start cooking and monitor the edema; the adults were the primary caregivers. They were the ones giving the TLC and emotional support, making sure he was comfortable. Without them, I might have shouldered more of that load, maybe. As it was, I was deep into my own problem of figuring out how to get everyone off the mountain alive. Handling the mountaineering and medical logistics took 100% of my attention. I was so intent on being a technically skilled mountaineer that I remained ignorant of the importance of interpersonal skills.

After more chopping and clearing, we got the second tent set up. By 6:00 AM everyone had gotten a hot drink and some breakfast, two tents were up, the scouts were getting warm and rested, the sun was up and it was starting to clear off. We were now 1/3 of the way down the Muir side of the mountain, but we had lost the route. We knew for certain how to get back to the top and down to the radio at Camp Sherman Ð 3 hrs away. We were laying out a rope for Vic and Dave to go to the radio at Camp Sherman when we saw a climbing party thirty yards below our tents. The bad weather that morning had kept all other parties off the mountain. I trotted down the slope to see if they could describe the route down to Camp Muir and provide any other assistance. The party was a Rainier Mountaineering Inc. (the guide service) five-day seminar and the leaders were two of RMI's top guides. There at our doorstep were two of the strongest climbers on the mountain! They agreed to take our sick climber down immediately.

Having turned over our ailing climber to RMI, the rest of the trip down was a pleasant descent on a sunny day. At Muir we learned that our sick friend had made it down to the gap between the Ingraham and Cowlitz glaciers and was unable to walk beyond there. The lead RMI guide, Joe Horiskey, carried him across the Cowlitz glacier to Camp Muir. At Camp Muir they radioed for a helicopter evacuation and put him on a sled down to Paradise. At Paradise, he was airlifted to Seattle where he spent three days in the hospital before flying home.