THE LOST RESCUE OF '77

WHEN THE ROCK GAVE WAY AND SO DID THE SYSTEM

Photo by Triston Schwab.

BY Earl Lunceford - Reader Contributor - SANDPOINT READER

In 2017, Fremont Shields and I were developing the first new route on the remote North Face of Gunsight Peak in 39 years. The wall has no established trail leading to it and the shadow of its 850-foot north wall harbors the last permanent snow field in North Idaho. In 1999, a climber attempting the wall burnt his fingers to the bone arresting his partner’s fall just in time to keep him from cratering into the ground. The aura, mystique and commitment factors on a route with this character were heightened as we flaked the rope into the talus that day. Sensing the consequences of an injury in that place, I asked Fremont, “What happens if we get hurt out here?” 

“You don’t,” he responded. 

On Sept. 11, 1977, four Spokane-based climbers were attempting new routes on the east face of Chimney Rock — a 500-foot-tall, free-standing granite spire along North Idaho’s Selkirk Crest. The climbers formed two rope teams, with David Sather and Paul Stevenson on one, and Tim Ray and Randy Jamison on the other. At 2 p.m., not far below the summit, Sather was following Stevenson’s lead, employing a pendulum, when perhaps a more controlled lower-out would have been safer. His rope swiped and dislodged what was in Ray’s words, “A Volkswagen-sized rock” that ensnarled Sather’s right leg. When I interviewed Sather in 2022, He described the rock hitting him:

“I saw a flash of light and felt myself get pushed backward and raised my head, yelling up to Paul for him to warn me if another rock might fall because I’d just gotten hit. When my feet went to brace back against the wall, I looked down to see that my right leg flopped, and my pants were soaked in blood.” 

Jamison and Ray quickly rappelled down from nearby to help. The hamstring was lacerated down to the femur, a fingernail-sized chunk of bone had been sheared from his kneecap, the calf was nearly severed and six inches of the tibia and fibula were sticking out. Describing the wound, Sather deadpanned, “The leg looked like it had been chewed on.” 

Ray’s dad was a former PJ-turned-survival-instructor and flight leader in Cusick, Wash., after an injury caused him to lose his dive status. “PJ” is short for “pararescue jumpers.” They are Air Force special operators trained to rescue downed airmen and render emergency medicine in any environment. 

Ray had rescue experience on Mt. Rainier and was a patroller at Mt. Spokane. He also taught some climbing classes and was later approached by the Spokane Fire Department to instruct their first high-angle rescue course. It was natural that patient care fell to Ray. 

Still on the wall, he was able to splint Sather’s leg with a dead tree padded by jackets and secured with webbing. The team coordinated two lowers, which safely returned Sather to the ground. Stevenson was sent for help in Coolin, while Ray and Jamison held direct pressure on Sather. Ray knew of the Air Force’s resources at Fairchild Air Force Base through his father; and, before he left, he told Stevenson to request a helicopter. By this time, Chimney’s east face was casting a growing shadow, the sun forsaking them in the talus at 6,500 feet. 

As the second week of September set in, evening temperatures began to plummet. With hypothermia, acidosis and coagulopathy stalking the trio, Ray and Jamison built a fire and filled hot water bottles, stuffing them into Sather’s armpits and between his legs. They also applied a loose tourniquet and pressure dressing. 

In just under an hour, Stevenson was able to sprint back to the trailhead, drive into Coolin and successfully contact the Bonner County Sheriff’s Office, which relayed a call for rescue to Fairchild. While anxiously awaiting a response from the Air Force, Deputy Ketner assembled a ground team as Plan B. He recruited foresters and wildland firefighters from the Sandpoint and Priest Lake offices of the Idaho Department of Lands, and had an ambulance driven up from Priest River. Everyone assembled at the trailhead and prepared for a grueling night hike. 

The Air Force declined the mission, despite having an able helicopter and crew 40 miles away in Tacoma Creek. Their official position on civilian rescue at the time was that it was secondary to their PJ program, and was limited to Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. The Washington State Patrol also declined the mission, claiming it was outside of their jurisdiction. The Army Air National Guard was ready and capable of making the flight but was never notified. The Air Guard had recently performed multiple rescues for WSP, as reported by the Spokesman Review at the time.

Doctors later transfused four units of blood — a third of his body’s supply — just to stabilize him. It underscored what those on the mountain already knew: He wasn’t just hurt; he was dying. The lack of deliberate action from either the USAF or WSP caused any potential air rescue to be a night flight, which was untenable given the technology at the time. 

It took hours to assemble and organize; but, finally, at dusk, 11 volunteers coming from both the Pack River and Horton Ridge trails were able to reach the climbers, who were emotionally anguished to see flashlights instead of a chopper. 

What had happened, they wondered? No time to worry about that. They loaded Sather into a green, canvas Army stretcher. Ray’s makeshift tourniquet was removed, and a proper one was applied in case the jostling of transport ruptured a clot. 

Using pocketknives, they slit the edges of the stretcher and laced Sather in using tubular webbing. They decided to evacuate him over the saddle between Mt. Roothaan and its northeast cirque wall. Even experienced climbers must use their hands to negotiate the saddle there. A slip could have meant disaster and, in those days, they were not wearing La Sportiva approach shoes. 

Even with Sather’s shocky, altered level of consciousness and darkening vision, he remembers the labor and the sweat pouring off the foreheads of the under-equipped crew members — some of them wearing cowboy boots. 

By the pale orbs of their Kel-Lites’ glow, the crew would finally deliver Sather to the waiting ambulance at the Horton Ridge trail head 13 hours after being injured. The ambulance reached Coolin at 4:20 a.m., and David’s wife, Carol was finally notified. An unknown, good Samaritan doctor in Metaline Falls, Wash., who was out early on his boat, overheard radio traffic related to the incident on his ham radio and rendezvoused with the ambulance as it was pulling out of Coolin. He administered antibiotics and pain meds before the ambulance departed for the Newport ER. 

Sather arrived at Sacred Heart Medical Center at 6:30 a.m., where he underwent two emergency surgeries to save his leg. The operations went well, but Sather’s leg would never be the same. Through his own tenacity and willingness to train, he returned to skiing and climbing, albeit at a slightly slower pace. He was placed in a half-cast to allow for infection monitoring and spent his 30th birthday in the hospital.

The incident became a public relations scandal for the Air Force and Washington State Patrol. The public’s eyes were opened to the shortcomings of the systems they believed would help them during an emergency. A lot of frustrated phone calls were made, and local and state officials were pressured for change. 

In 1977, bureaucracy almost killed a 29-year-old, but his story accelerated the development of rescue protocol across the Inland Northwest. Today, The USAF, WSP and Two Bear Air all work together and have performed rescues and recoveries of climbers in North Idaho. 

Two years after the accident, Sather and Stevenson made the first free ascent of the Twin Cracks route (5.10a) on Chimney’s west face. A climber ironically just broke their heel in a fall on this route and self-rescued by limping and crawling back to the trail head. Thankfully, today air rescue is available but is not a substitute for competence, preparedness and the willingness to hold yourself accountable.