North Shore Rescue pulls pair from area near the ‘Widowmaker’

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NORTH SHORE (NEWS 1130) – North Shore Rescue crews have pulled a couple off Crown Mountain, capping off a very busy long weekend for members of the volunteer service.

This morning’s operation involved two people near a peak called the “Widowmaker.”

The distress call came in at about 8 p.m. yesterday, from a satellite phone with a spotty signal. A man and woman were stuck on a sub-peak of Crown Mountain.

Haigh says her hiking companion managed to reach her. “They were together and they had to stay together because she couldn’t move.”

The woman has an injured ankle.

“Not serious injuries, but serious enough that she couldn’t walk. It’s a possible broken ankle. Possible rib.. fracture — we don’t know. She slid apparently about 150 feet down a slide on ice,” says Peter Haigh with North Shore Rescue.

The two were apparently on a training climb, preparing for a trip to Denali, Alaska.

“It’s an area which is actually closed to the public at the moment, so they really shouldn’t have been back there. But that doesn’t seem to stop people,” says Haigh.

“They are experienced outdoors people… they were well-equipped with the beacon they had — which is what alerted us… It could have been a lot worse, if they had not been as prepared as they were.”

Ground crews went in last night, trying to make voice contact. Volunteers reached the stranded climbers early this morning and were long-lined out after the sun rose.

This was the sixth call North Shore Rescue had to deal with over a busy Family Day long weekend that saw a lot of people venture into the local mountains.

 

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