Date night gone wrong.

[David Thomas]

In Alaska, it can be tough to get away for a date night. Harder still to keep it out of the paper:

40 inches of snow already another 20 inches NOAA forecast thru tonight 40 MPH winds shredded his tent yesterday, so they built a snow-cave last night. Emergency rescue called off efforts on Saturday due to white-out conditions on mountain . . .

“Holding our own for now deep in snow cave. Entrance is marked by a ski . Bring shovels and probes…and pizza… message from: Lat 59.982777 Lon -149.99402”

An upside is reading FAA, Coast Guard and National Guard news releases becomes more interesting when you see your friends mentioned.  We know Jenny, the local newspaper publisher quite well.  Her new guy, less so.  They are both very experienced and level-headed, so the vibe in town is concerned rather than worried.

The hikers reported Sunday by satellite text message that they were in a makeshift shelter but running low on supplies.

(This is just a file photo from tidewater that the paper ran with the story.  They’re actually at 4300 feet)

2 hikers stranded on glacier near Seward since Friday

Searchers on Monday were seeking two day-hikers trapped on Bear Glacier in Kenai Fjords National Park after aircraft were unable to reach the area due to poor weather over the weekend.

[Stephen M]

Your formatting is all screwed up.

[David Thomas]

Stephen: I cut&paste off FB.  I think I cleaned up the formatting gooblygook.

Looking at the Lat & Long, I’m suspicious that someone may have drunk the Kool-Aid of the Degree Confluence Project.

http://confluence.org/confluence.php?id=979DCP: 60 degrees north, 150 degrees west

Because we now have unusually robust documentation that someone has finally gotten to that lat/long location, apparently for the first time in human history. Guess they’ll have to share that achievement (and some of the pizza?) with the rescuers.

I say “drunk the Kool-Aid” in an explorer-positive sense of the phrase, seeing as how I’ve been to all 50 states 6+ times and 3,411 of the 3,413 counties in the USA.

[Gary Dunckel]

Wow, David, you folks in AK know how to have fun! I hope they end up OK (and the SAR folks as well), with a great story to tell.

But tell me, just which two US counties haven’t you been to yet? They must be something else–hard to get to, no good restaurants or places to stay, no natural beauty, and no industrial spills? They seem like good places to do a couple of GGG outings, right?

[David Thomas]

Gary: I haven’t been to Duke (Martha’s Vineyard) or Nantucket Counties off the coast of Massachusetts.

Kind of hard to drive to (although obviously airplanes were involved for the Hawaiian counties and the boroughs of Western Alaska).

I’d actually booked a trip in June to MA for that purpose (and to visit friends in Western Mass) but then the BIL got engaged so we’re in Italy and returning through Iceland for a chunk of this summer.

[Gary Dunckel]

Ah, David, you’re in good shape then. I was thinking of maybe Gerlach, NV or Powderville, MT, places like that.

Let us know how the date night finally turns out.

[David Thomas]

They’re back in town now. A little cold but okay.

[Mitchell Ebbott]

Glad to hear it! If they happen to post any sort of recap of what went wrong/right, I’m sure I speak for all of us when I say we’d love to see it.

[Steofan M]

What went right: the words “snow cave” and “bring pizza” used in the rescue call.

David, “to” all 93 counties in Nebraska or just flying over?

[David Thomas]

Here’s a link to an NPR story with audio.

http://kbbi.org/post/skiers-survive-four-days-kenai-peninsula-glacier-credit-gps-locator-beacon-rescue

Here’s a partial cut&paste:

Two skiers were whisked off a glacier on the eastern Kenai Peninsula Tuesday by an Alaska Air National Guard helicopter. Crews found the pair after they became stranded for four days.

It’s a trip that Jenny Neyman and Chris Hanna of Soldotna had wanted to take all winter – hiking and skiing on the Harding Icefield in Kenai Fjords National Park near Seward.

“We are well aware that the weather on the Harding Icefield is super dicey, so we’d just been keeping an eye on the forecast looking for a completely clear, calm-wind day with nothing coming anytime soon,” said Neyman.

Neyman says they thought they’d found that day on Friday, although there was a weather system predicted to hit the area later that evening, around 8 p.m. But they figured they could go up, ski for a few hours, and fly out long before then. So a friend with a plane dropped them off for a day of adventure late Friday morning.

“We were skiing around. You know, we had three awesome hours up there. It was phenomenal. It was just beautiful ​– the snow was amazing. We were having a blast and I kept thinking, man, this is the experience of a lifetime – being able to cross country ski on Harding Icefield looking out over Kenai Fjords. I just didn’t realize at the time that that lifetime was potentially going to get much shorter in the near future,” said Neyman.

But around 2 o’clock the weather changed quickly, says Neyman. At nearly 4,500 feet, she says, the glacier seemed to create its own weather.

“These clouds just started materializing right behind the mountain, right on top of us. That weather just popped up literally out of blue sky within 15 minutes, right over us,” said Neyman.

They tried calling their pilot friend to come get them but by the time they heard him overhead the clouds had descended and he couldn’t land. Then the snow and wind started. They grabbed their gear and decided to try to head on foot 20 miles to the north toward Exit Glacier and a road near Seward.

“We only made it about six miles by 8 o’clock at night. The weather had just kicked up so bad. We had like 10 feet visibility. It was snowing so hard and the winds were blowing about 35-40 [mph] at that point,” said Neyman.

They had no choice but to hunker down in their tent and camp for the night. The weather was even worse in the morning. Neyman’s companion, Chris Hanna had a GPS satellite locator beacon and a cell phone. They let a friend know via text message that they were in trouble and asked him to let search and rescue know they may have to push their SOS button on the beacon. Late Saturday afternoon he pushed that button, sending out his coordinates. That evening their tent failed, they built a snow cave and got inside to wait and think about how they had gotten in such trouble.

“We had nothing to do but stew about that the entire time we were in there. It’s not like we brought a deck of cards,” said Neyman.

Alaska State Troopers handed the case over to the Alaska Rescue Coordination Center at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. The 210th, 211th and 212th National Guard Rescue squadrons loaded into an HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter, and an HC-130 King aircraft used for refueling. Rescue crews began communicating with Neyman and Hanna via text.

Staff Sergeant Edward Eagerton, a spokesperson for the RCC, says the satellite locator beacon that Neyman and Hanna carried with them was crucial in helping rescue crews find the two.

“They were able to communicate their situation to other people and they were able to communicate their location and so it gave us an idea of where to go as opposed to having to wait for the weather to clear so that they could perform a search which, you know, with the size of the area, could have added days to finding them if at all. So in this case it gave our people the ability to know exactly where they were going,” said Eagerton.

Bad weather and difficult terrain hampered rescue efforts for three days, but Monday night four Alaska Air National Guard rescuers were delivered by helicopter onto the glacier. They camped overnight and located the two hikers just after noon Tuesday and flew them to a hospital in Soldotna.

Neyman says the satellite locator beacon was key to the rescue.

“That thing 100 percent saved our lives. We would not be here. Nobody would have found us. Nobody would have even found the remains of us without being able to get our GPS coordinates out,” said Neyman.

Neyman says she and Hanna are both in good condition and are grateful to the rescue crews and for the outpouring of care from the Kenai Peninsula community and from people across the state. She says they’re resting and recovering from the ordeal and they’re not planning any more glacier adventures any time soon.

“Yeah, I don’t think either of us have any interest in ending up on the icefield anytime soon. My skis are now definitely put up for the season,” said Neyman.

Editor’s note: Neyman is a longtime journalist on the Kenai Peninsula where she is the owner and editor of the Redoubt Reporter. Neyman has also worked for KDLL public radio and the Peninsula Clarion newspaper in Kenai.

 

[Gary Dunckel]

Thanks for posting the follow-up, David. Man, what an ordeal, but it looks like they did everything right–the snow cave, the communication with friends and the SAR unit, and keeping their heads clear. I hope they got their pizza in the end. It is sweet that the national guard serves as your SAR response up there.

You Alaskans are a different sub-species altogether…

[David Thomas]

For an afternoon of skiing, to bring sleeping bags, a tent, InREach, food, stove&fuel; well, we’ve got a few normal day hikes up here, on trails, but once you go beyond a very few trail corridors you’re out there.

There were some comments in some news reports, not from locals, along the lines of, “Who’s paying for all this?” and that is also a little different up here.  It’s not the Sheriff’s department doing lots of overtime, and it’s not contracting for a helicopter.  The National Guard and the Air Force everywhere have training budgets.  Elsewhere they train.  Here they mostly go on real rescues.  A friend from my Boy Scout troop did 145 rescues while with USAF SAR in Alaska.  Sure, a few service members after a plane crash or who didn’t return from a hunting trip, but mostly they were plucking civilians off mountain tops and out of rivers.

I think Jenny’s best take home message was, “That thing (the InReach) 100 percent saved our lives. We would not be here. Nobody would have found us. Nobody would have even found the remains of us without being able to get our GPS coordinates out,” said Neyman.

[David Thomas]

It take a village. . . .

Here’s their Thank You to the rescue personnel and broader community.  It’s long (a lot of people were involved), but Jenny writes well so you might want to keep this in mind if you ever get your butt hauled off a mountain:

There’s a big difference between being buried alive and being buried, but alive. For Chris Hanna and I, one would have become the other on the Harding Icefield this week if not for the selfless, courageous and absolutely relentless efforts of the agencies, organizations and individuals listed below.

For every person who participated, coordinated and advised, countless others were offering their services. For every plane, helicopter and snowmachine employed, other resources were standing by. And for all our friends and family who sent us warm thoughts and love while they worried and waited, more people than we can comprehend were doing the same.

It is nothing short of staggering, and though we’re afraid of missing anyone for justly deserved recognition, we’ve got to at least try to offer our thanks. For as long as we live — which, thankfully, no longer has an impending expiration date — we will owe these people our deepest gratitude. More than that, we owe them our lives.

The Alaska Rescue Coordination Center at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson and the Alaska Air National Guard 210th, 211th and 212th Rescue Squadrons. The Guard says that, over the course of the mission, three HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters, two HC-130 King refueling aircraft and approximately 40 personnel were involved in the coordination and execution of the mission, including the four pararescuemen who were dropped on Skilak Glacier on Monday and skied about 13 miles up the glacier in whiteout conditions toward us, and the helo crew that dug us out and flew us home during a break in the weather Tuesday.

Alaska State Troopers, which plotted, assisted and attempted a variety of efforts to reach us: Sgt. John Brown, Trooper David Lorring, Trooper Eric Jeffords, Trooper Hunter Hull, state pilot Ken Reiser, public safety technician Jim German, Soldotna E Detachment Deputy Commander Lt. Dane Gilmore and state Search and Rescue Coordinator Lt. Steve Adams.

Matt Green and the Alaska Mountain Rescue Group.

Bear Creek Fire Department: Emergency Rescue Team members Nick Lester, Colby Lawrence and Cole Peterson, Fire Chief Connie Bacon, Katie Lester, Wolf Kurtz, Rocky Elhard and Andrea Morris.

Special thanks to our lifeline, JJ Bristow, who communicated with us via Chris’ InReach GPS beacon, coordinated with search and rescue agencies and local volunteers, and provided us with this list. To Cole Peterson, of the Bear Creek Volunteer Fire Department, who was a valuable advisor and helped lead an attempt to fly snowmachines and Bear Creek volunteers up Exit Glacier via an Alaska State Trooper helo. John Stauffacher and Mike Litzen, who spent many hours collaborating with Bristow on local area challenges and rescue options, as well as Mike Culver, Steve Job and others who contributed local knowledge. Kenai Peninsula pilots Mike Litzen, Jim Craig, Doug Brewer and Jay Mahan for weather flyovers and information. And to JJ Bristow, Abby Hanna and Jay Mahan for helping keep our friends and families updated.

You all moved mountains to get us off one. We can’t thank you, and anyone we’ve missed, nearly enough.

[Author]

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