Seekin’ shelter from the storm

Boy Scouts Nick Eslick and Reed Holland provided much-needed assistance to Mt. Whitney hikers during last weekend’s unexpected storm. (Photo courtesy the Eslicks)

Every once in awhile, the Eastern Sierra saying, “If you don’t like the weather, wait 10 minutes,” does not ring true, and for those that get caught in the storm, the outlook can often look bleak.

Last Friday, July 29, Blair Oram and his two sons, Andy and Mike, along with numerous others, began the 22-mile round-trip hike up iconic Mount Whitney. The Orams got an early start, leaving at midnight, in an effort to make the journey in a single day.

Blair had hiked Whitney as a teenager and wanted to enjoy the experience once more, this time with his sons.

“I have a short ‘bucket list’ which also includes a hike across Grand Canyon and a few other items,” said the now-70 year old Blair.

“It was my dad’s idea to climb Whitney a few years back,” Andy, who came out from Alabama to be part of the hike, said. “I thought it would be cool until he said we were going to do it in one day … I remember thinking ‘I’m old and out of shape, but my dad is 70 so I really can’t complain.’”

And so the trip was planned. Originally, the Orams were suppose to be joined by other family and friends, but according to Andy, last minute conflicts kept them from attending, and so it was just the father and sons.

“We made it to Trail Camp around 5 [a.m.],” Andy said. As they neared the top, a storm began to roll in. They pressed on, however, and summited around noon. At the top, the threesome hoped to wait out what they expected to be a brief “Sierra Storm.”

“To my knowledge, there was nothing to indicate that the weather would be anything but normal. Sierra Storms are always expected, but ‘normally’ would not last long,” stated Blair, who has been in and around the Eastern Sierra all his life and lived in Bishop for seven years. The weather report the night before, according to Blair and Andy had been clear.

“We thought it would pass over in 10-15 minutes,” Andy added. Instead, the storm turned into the worst Blair had ever seen.

“Snow, rain, large hailstones, the whole mountain was ‘charged with electricity,’” he said. “The lightning and thunder began just before we reached the summit and continued for hours.”

Initially, the folks who were at the summit sought refuge in the Whitney Hut, but realized that they should be getting out as quickly as possible.

“The thought of escaping danger by huddling in a hut with a metal roof was not very encouraging,” Blair said.

He and his sons left the summit around 1 p.m.; by that time, any hikers that were still on their way up had turned around.

“The trail, by this time, was covered with ice and snow and as we worked our way down the ‘famous switchbacks’ to lower elevations, the trail became a stream unto itself,” Blair explained. “By the time we reached Trail Camp, there was water everywhere. Hikers were doing their best to help one another.”

“I think we were the last ones up there [on the switchbacks],” Andy remembered. “Dad was moving kind of slow. By the time we got to Trail Camp, he was disoriented and really cold.”

Blair had begun to suffer the effects of hypothermia.

“I have always carried some survival items, even on day hikes, but this time deleted a couple of light rain ponchos, which, as it turned out would have made all the difference,” Blair said of his wet and soggy state.

He described the hypothermia as a level of cold that he had never experienced before. “Shivering to a point where your whole focus is on the depth of cold that you are feeling. My sons say that I was briefly incoherent! Who wants to admit to that?”

 

Another father-son situation

 

At the other end of the trail, Whitney Portal, was Robert Holland. Holland was waiting for his son Reed to emerge from the trail. Reed had been on a 50-mile trek from Mineral King Sequoia to Whitney Portal with Boy Scout troops 562 of Sonora and 564 of Groveland. Robert had arrived to pick the troops up only to find that four of the 10 in the group had still not made it down to the trailhead. One of those four was Reed.

“The rain was pouring down,” Robert explained. “People were running off the mountain soaking wet, shivering. The rivers were overflowing and there was water in Whitney Portal campground.”

Even though extremely worried about Reed, Robert tried to help others by giving rides in his 15-passenger van.

“They [the Boy Scout Troops] had hoped to come out on Friday, but thought perhaps it would be Saturday, so I knew he was prepared for another night,” Robert explained.

 

A tough decision

 

Back up at Trail Camp, Andy and Mike had decided that they needed to find shelter for their father.

“We needed to get him out of his wet clothes,” Andy explained. Luckily for Blair, they stumbled upon father and son, Ken and Nick Eslick, also part of the Boy Scout 50-miler group. Nick is also best friends with Robert’s son, Reed.

“They had a two-man tent, and were able to get dad into dry clothes,” Andy explained. But the shelter was not going to accommodate all five men, so Andy and Mike made the tough decision to leave their father in the hands of these strangers and make their way down the trail to try to get help.

“It didn’t feel good to leave him behind, but we had to recognize the reality of what was going on,” Andy explained, crediting both his and Mike’s formal Marine training as the source of strength that helped them assess the situation.

“We realized that if we didn’t pick up the pace, we’d freeze too, and he wasn’t able to pick up the pace enough to create warmth for himself,” Andy said. “You, of course, just hope you’re not leaving him with psychos.”

So the Oram sons began the journey down the washed out mountainside.

“You couldn’t see the trails,” Andy explained. As they picked their way down, they looked for a cell phone signal to try to reach Blair’s wife, Joan, who was waiting at Boulder Creek RV Park just south of Lone Pine, expecting the group back sometime between 6 and 9 p.m.

Before hearing from Mike and Andy, however, Joan had already become concerned during the day, watching the dark clouds over Mt. Whitney. Lightning was visible from Lone Pine and she said it looked very bad.

Once Mike and Andy reached her via phone, she made contact with Dan Lucas, a good friend and neighbor in Hot Springs Village, Ark., where Blair and Joan now live. Lucas had been the former Sheriff of Inyo County, and remains well connected to his former colleagues. “Having contact with Dan and Jana [Dan’s wife] was reassuring to Joan,” Blair said. Lucas also made some direct calls to current Inyo County Sheriff Bill Lutze and Undersheriff Keith Hardcastle on the family’s behalf.

Joan’s nephew, Mike Galvin, who lives in Bishop, was also able to make the drive down to Lone Pine to be with Joan and help her cope.

 

Back on the trail

 

As Andy and Mike continued to pick their way down the Whitney, they ran into a man and a teenage boy as they hunted around for the trail near Mirror Lake.

These two had proper gear to set up camp for the night and were helping other hikers.

“They said they had seven hypothermia cases in that camp,” Andy said.

The boy was Reed Holland, and the man was Mark Houghton, a Boy Scout Leader. They were helping the day-packers in a similar fashion to the way the Eslicks were helping Blair: they’d put them in their tents and helped them get dry.

Reed and Mark did not think that the Orams would make it down the trail, but Mike and Andy pressed on anyway, stating that they would send help if they got out.

When they reached Lone Pine Lake, the logs were washed out and what had been 6-8 inches of water that morning was now waist-deep.

“The waterfalls looked like fire hoses laid across the top of the mountain, spraying water everywhere,” Andy described.

They eventually made it back to the Portal around 9 p.m. where they ran into Robert Holland, who saw them approaching and asked the strangers what it was like up there and who they had seen along the way.

“Blair’s sons gave me an update and said they had seen two people helping the day-hikers at Mirror Lake,” Holland explained. “I hoped it was Reed.”

Back at Trail Camp, Blair spent the night sandwiched in a tent with Ken and Nick, which provided the warmth his body needed to pull out of the hypothermia. While never fearing for his own life, he was concerned for his sons.

“I am not a fearful person by nature and I have a strong faith, however, not knowing what was happening ‘out there’ was my focus whenever I would wake up. Not knowing if the boys made it through and out, not knowing how I would get out. Worried about my wife, Joan and whether or not she was receiving information and knew what was happening. Did the boys get there OK?”

A helicopter attempted to get to Blair Friday night, but lost daylight before it could locate him. Search and Rescue team members reached him on Saturday morning and called in the helicopter.

“The helicopter crew was amazing,” Blair said. “We were in a rocky area at Trail Camp and they landed on top of a large, fairly flat area on the rocks themselves and the Search and Rescue team helped me to climb up to the copter.” Blair was taken to Southern Inyo Hospital to be checked out and was then sent home for some much needed rest.

 

The scouts

 

The Eslicks, as well as Reed Holland and Mark Houghton made it down the trail the next morning. According to Robert, his son looked much better than those hikers who had coming rushing out the night before.

“Everyone pulled together and helped how they could,” Andy concluded. “It was refreshing.”

According to a press release from the Inyo National Forest, 21 people and two helicopters were involved in Search and Rescue efforts from Friday night through Saturday morning. Involved in the effort were the China Lake Mountain Rescue Team and their helicopter, Inyo County Search and Rescue, Inyo County Sheriff’s Department, and Inyo National Forest employees and their helicopter.

Inyo County Sheriff Bill Lutze was on scene, thankful that everyone made it down off the mountain safely. “Under such adverse conditions, and with the large amount of water coming down the trail, we are very fortunate … there were no more injuries or fatalities,” he stated.

The Mount Whitney Trail was closed from 9 p.m. on July 29 through 1 p.m. on July 30.