Policing the Fringe. Charles Scheideman

of the snowfall.

      The other two were within a few yards of him in spite of their ropes having been cut in several places by the grinding rocks in the snow. His male companion had died before the slide stopped, having received a crushing head injury. The female member of the group had come to rest near the other two, but still partly beneath the fallen snow. The trunk of her body and her head were under the snow. She struggled for some time, but was unable to free herself from the heavy, and now rock-solid, snow. She suffocated in a few minutes while the doctor was unable to do anything but watch.

      The doctor found himself in extreme pain and started doing whatever he could to avoid going into shock. It was now after noon and he knew of no others who had chosen to go into the area he was in; without help, death was only a matter of time. He thought, briefly, that perhaps his companions were more fortunate to have gone so quickly. He chose to do whatever he could. He knew he had to get assistance. Sound will carry beyond belief in some circumstances; here, the air was relatively still, clean and silent. The doctor began to yell as loudly as he could, and tried to yodel along with his yelling for help. He called in short bursts and then gathered his strength for the next call.

      Another party from the camp had set out at about the same time as the doctor and his companions. This group had stayed to the left rim of the glacier bowl. Near midday, the group on the left had also chosen to go onto the glacier. Their route down was entirely over bare rock, and comparatively easy. After arriving on the glacier, they were sitting around in a group enjoying the experience. Suddenly one of the group alerted the others to what sounded like a call for help; they all listened with concentration and clearly heard the calls. No doubt someone was in trouble and there was also no doubt that the calls were coming from out on the glacier. It did not occur to any of them, at that time,that the voice could be coming from all the way across the icefield. The two groups were later calculated to have been six miles apart when they first heard the calls.

      The rescue group prepared to go farther out onto the ice. They roped themselves together and moved in single file, the lead climber watching closely and using all his experience to keep the direction of travel so they would cross a crevasse rather than walk along the length of it. This situation left them no choice but to constantly angle to the left and then right of their intended course, much like a sailboat running against the wind. Their progress was slow, but they did not expect to have to go far to the source of the distress call. After travelling about one and a half miles, they expected to be near the voice they had heard. Some time was spent in careful listening and finally the call was heard again. The voice was now almost impossible to make out. The group of rescuers was familiar with the mysterious ways that sound will travel and echo in glacier and mountain environments, so they decided to stay in the direction the sound seemed to be coming from.

      When they reached about the middle of the glacier, they listened again but were unable to hear anything. Several of the group tried yelling and yodelling to see if they could get some response, but all they could hear was silence. There was a small hill of ice nearby. Three of the group made their way up, scanned with binoculars, and made further calls and yodels. They heard nothing, but they were able to see where a bordering snowfield had broken and fallen onto the glacier. The last calls seemed to have been from the direction of the snow slide. They hurried toward the slide site as quickly as the dangerous terrain would allow.

      Meanwhile, the injured man was weakening and the pain from his feet was all but unbearable. He had been calling on five and ten minute intervals for about four hours. His hope was fading fast and he expected that he would soon go into shock and lose consciousness. He was searching in his pockets and pack for something to write a farewell letter when the air was filled with yodeling and people calling out, asking if anyone could hear them. The voices were so clear that he thought they must be in sight of him. He yelled as loudly as he could and tried to see where they were, but no one was in sight. His calls received no acknowledgement; however, he received a great boost from hearing the calls. He was now aware that someone had heard him and he was confident they would be there soon.

      The sight of the snow slide raised fears among the rescue group that climbers had been involved in it. This and the fact that they did not hear any reply to their calls caused them to use less caution in the remainder of their crossing of the glacier. In just over an hour, they arrived at the accident scene. They started the action that finally got word out to Golden, and the helicopters on their way.

      Some of the rescue group started toward the main camp to get help while others stayed at the scene. They used all clothing that could be spared to protect the injured man from contact with the snow. A small tent was set up over him and a shift rotation was implemented to monitor his condition. Hot food and drink was prepared. The arrival of the rescue group allowed the injured man to rest for the first time since the fall.

      The group from the accident scene arrived in the main camp well after dark. They were greeted by the entire camp population. During the afternoon another party of climbers had been near the lower face of the glacier when they heard cries for help. The direction of the sound could not be determined from their location, except that it originated somewhere up on the icefield. They had listened in frustration, not knowing how to help. They tried to find a vantage point to better hear the sound, but nothing they tried made any improvement. They returned to camp with the news that someone was in trouble on the glacier. The only positive information they had was that some of them were quite sure they had heard voices from two locations. The one call seemed to be a single voice while there were several in the other. This left them hoping that some assistance effort was underway.

      A daughter of the injured doctor was at the camp. She would have been the fourth member of the fallen group, but she had felt ill that morning and decided not to join them. There were no family members of the two deceased climbers in the camp.

      At first light the daughter started for the Big Bend highway to summon help. She ran most of the fifteen miles down the creek valley, uncomfortably aware that once she got there she might have to wait several hours for a vehicle to drive by. At that time the new Rogers Pass highway had reduced traffic on the Big Bend to almost nil. Fortunately, as she staggered out onto the road, a radio-equipped BC Forest Service truck happened along. The rescue effort began to move swiftly from then on.

      The helicopter from Calgary arrived about an hour after we did. The injured doctor was moved onto a stretcher and loaded into the machine; he requested that they go directly to Calgary University Hospital where he reasoned he would have the best chance of surviving and saving his feet.

      The helicopter from Calgary had brought two body bags. We placed the bodies in the bags and lashed them, one at a time, onto the skid of the little helicopter. I waited on the glacier while the bodies were taken down to a vehicle on the Big Bend road. The helicopter was refueled and returned to take me home to Golden.

      The doctor recovered, but lost one foot at the ankle and most of the other except the ankle joint. We received very little information about him but there was an indication that he would be quite capable of walking again with prostheses. Judging by the way he dealt with the situation on the glacier, I expect that he was probably jogging after about a year.

      At the time I found it hard to understand why there was no radio communication from the Alpine Camp to the outside world. Over the years my view has changed; the technology was certainly available at that time, but they evidently preferred to experience that pristine wilderness without the distraction of modern technology. I would not be surprised to find that there is still no radio at that camp.

      Landslide on Lillooet Road

      The Fraser River cuts through the heart of British Columbia from Prince George to Hope, and then through the more open Fraser Valley to tidewater near Vancouver. The walls of the upper end of the river canyon are a combination of clay and rock that is continuously sloughing into the river; this is particularly evident in the canyon between Lytton and Lillooet. The clay of that region is very water soluble and becomes almost liquid during the spring and fall rainy seasons.

      In the early seventies, the road from Lytton to Lillooet was forty-two miles of winding two-lane asphalt surface with a few sections of gravel where the soil was too unstable to be paved. One of the gravel areas, known locally as the Big Slide, was about