Dramatic details emerge after climber survives 400-foot fall that killed friends

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A stone climber who fell hundreds of feet descending a steep gully successful Washington's North Cascades mountains survived the autumn that killed his 3 companions, hiked to his car successful the acheronian and past drove to a wage telephone to telephone for help, authorities said Tuesday.

The surviving climber, Anton Tselykh, 38, extricated himself from a tangle of ropes, helmets and different instrumentality aft the autumn Saturday evening. Despite suffering interior bleeding and caput trauma, Tselykh eventually, implicit astatine slightest a twelve hours, made the trek to the wage phone, Okanogan County Undersheriff Dave Yarnell said.

The climbers who were killed were Vishnu Irigireddy, 48, Tim Nguyen, 63, Oleksander Martynenko, 36, Okanogan County Coroner Dave Rodriguez said. Irigireddy and Nguyen were from Renton and Martynenko was from Bellevue, officials said.

Tselykh was listed successful satisfactory information astatine Harborview Medical Center successful Seattle, CBS affiliate KIRO-TV reported Tuesday. Authorities haven't yet been capable to interrogation the him, Rodriguez said, truthful overmuch is inactive chartless of the autumn and his journey.

Falls similar this starring to 3 deaths are highly rare, said Cristina Woodworth, who leads the sheriff's hunt and rescue team. Seven years ago, 2 climbers were killed successful a autumn connected El Capitan astatine Yosemite National Park successful California.

The radical of 4 were scaling the Early Winters Spires, jagged peaks divided by a cleft that is fashionable with climbers successful the North Cascade Range, astir 160 miles northeast of Seattle.

The radical of 4 met with catastrophe that nighttime erstwhile the anchor utilized to unafraid their ropes was torn from the stone portion they were descending, Rodriguez said. The anchor they were using, a metallic spike called a piton, appeared to person been placed determination by past climbers, helium said.

They plummeted for astir 200 feet into a slanted gulch and past tumbled different 200 feet earlier coming to rest, Yarnell said. Authorities judge the radical had been ascending but turned astir erstwhile they saw a tempest approaching.

A three-person hunt and rescue squad reached the tract of the autumn Sunday, Woodworth said. The squad utilized coordinates from a instrumentality the climbers had been carrying, which had been shared by a person of the men.

Once they recovered the site, they called successful a chopper to region the bodies 1 astatine a clip due to the fact that of the unsmooth terrain, Woodworth said.

The helicopter's formation done 16 miles of rugged, mountainous terrain took longer than accustomed — astir an hr — due to the fact that of harsh weather, KIRO-TV reported. Video of the aerial betterment shared by KIRO showed the chopper navigating blustery winds and fog arsenic it made its mode toward the climbers.

On Monday, responders poured implicit the recovered instrumentality trying to decipher what caused the fall, Woodworth said. They recovered a piton - fundamentally a tiny metallic spike that is driven into stone cracks oregon crystal and utilized arsenic anchors by climbers - that was inactive clipped into the climbers' ropes.

"There's nary different crushed it would beryllium hooked onto the enactment unless it pulled retired of the rock," said Rodriguez, the coroner, noting that pitons are typically stuck accelerated successful the rock. Rodriguez added that erstwhile rappelling, each 4 men would not person beryllium hanging from the 1 piton astatine the aforesaid time, but taking turns moving down the mountain.

Pitons are oftentimes near successful walls. They tin beryllium determination for years oregon adjacent decades, and they whitethorn go little unafraid implicit time.

"It looked aged and weathered, and the remainder of their instrumentality looked newer, truthful we are making the presumption that it was an aged piton," Woodworth said.

Rock climbers unafraid themselves by ropes to anchors, specified arsenic pitons oregon different climbing equipment. The ropes are intended to apprehension their autumn if they should slip, and typically climbers usage backup anchors, said Joshua Cole, a usher and co-owner of North Cascades Mountain Guides, who has been climbing successful the country for astir 20 years.

Generally, it would beryllium antithetic to rappel disconnected a azygous piton, said Cole, adding that it is inactive chartless precisely what happened connected the partition that night.

"We eventually, if possible, would similar to get much accusation from surviving party," Woodworth said.

The spires are a fashionable climbing spot. The way the climbers were taking, said Cole, was of mean difficulty, and requires moving betwixt ice, snowfall and rock.

But the conditions, the magnitude of crystal versus stone for example, tin alteration rapidly with the weather, helium said, adjacent week to week oregon time to day, changing the route's risks.

Woodworth told KIRO-TV that it's important that climbers are "not taking immoderate of your instrumentality for granted and conscionable ever staying alert of your surroundings."