What do you do after falling off a mountain, losing your climbing partners, and suffering life-threatening injuries?
If you’re the unnamed 38-year-old climber from Seattle, you somehow get up… and walk out.
In an accident that reads like the opening scene of a survival thriller, a group of four climbers was descending the Early Winter Spires.
They were in Washington’s northern Cascades.
What Happened?
Their gear failed—sending all of them plummeting 400 feet down rock, snow, and dirt.
Three didn’t survive. The fourth? Battered, bleeding internally, and concussed, he hiked out and drove over the Cascade Range.
He finally found a payphone—yes, a payphone—to call for help.
“He didn’t realize how badly he was hurt,” Undersheriff Dave Yarnell told Climbing magazine.
“He actually refused medical help at first.”
Turns out, he’d taken the long way—60 miles west—unaware the nearest town was just 15 miles east.
But with his brain injured and shock setting in, it’s a miracle he made it anywhere at all.
Investigators say a failed anchor—specifically, a piton that tore loose—likely caused the deadly fall.
The rugged terrain made recovering the bodies possible only by helicopter.
