In the late afternoon of September 15, 2019, hikers on the Piute Pass Trail outside of Bishop, CA reported to the Inyo County Sheriff’s Office that they heard calls for help and saw people waving their arms on the rugged Southeast Face of Mt. Emerson. The Sheriff’s Office dispatched two Inyo County Search and Rescue […]
Mountaineer’s Route Broken Leg
In the late afternoon of August 24, 2019, a 27-year-old female was descending the Mountaineer’s Gully on Mt. Whitney after summiting the peak via the same route with her climbing party. At about 13,900 feet, near the top of the gully, the female dislodged an approximately 2,000-pound, three-foot-diameter boulder which rolled over her entire body, […]
Palisade Glacier Fatality
On August 23, 2019, a party of four climbers were attempting to ascend Mt. Sill in the Palisade Range of California’s Sierra Nevada via an unknown route (possibly the North Couloir). The climbers got off-route on the upper section of the climb and were descending a short distance to reassess when a large block fell […]
E-Ledges Tumble
Around 8:00pm on August 1, Sheriff’s Dispatch received a call for a subject who had taken a tumbling fall down the Eberbacher Ledges on the North Fork of Lone Pine Creek, the trail that accesses the Mountaineer’s Route on Mt. Whitney. The subject, an experienced hiker who had summited Whitney multiple times, took a small […]
Powell Search
GRANDVIEW CAMPGROUND, CA. July 15, 2019 – On day four of a massive multiagency search, missing hiker Sheryl Powell was located alive by ground search team members near the Montenegro Springs area (below where her dog was located earlier that same day). Powell and her small 5-pound dog were reported missing by her husband on […]