Tragedy on the Tetons

It started with a strange hum, a soft fluttering as if grasshoppers had suddenly gathered on the mountain. This wasn’t a symphony of Wyoming nature, but a prelude to disaster.

The sunny morning had given way to afternoon rain. The granite walls of the Grand, the highest peak of the Grand Tetons, had turned slick.

The climbers were disappointed as they looked toward the 13,770-foot summit — so close now — and realized they wouldn’t quite make it.

The 13 climbers, mostly co-workers and family members, had planned this trip for a year. But now, with some first-timers in the group, they could take no chances. They had to get down. Soon.

Rob Thomas had just scaled Friction Pitch, a sheer 100-foot wall that rises to within 800 feet of the mountaintop, and he was scrambling up to another spot.

“Honey, did you hear that?” he asked his wife, Sherika, standing below.

His words were barely out when a jolt of electricity ripped through his body. It squeezed every muscle like a death grip.

Thomas spun around. He began sliding down ragged rock on his back.

Five feet. Ten. Twelve.

“Rob!” his frantic wife screamed, reaching for him. “Don’t you fall!”

“

The lightning took everyone by surprise.

Just moments earlier, the climbers had been enjoying an eagle’s-eye view of the snowcapped Tetons, glaciers and their home state, Idaho, to the west. But with a storm possibly moving in, Rob had radioed that it was time to retreat.

They were in four teams, spread across several hundred feet of mountain — some ahead of Rob, some below, one about to start up the face of Friction Pitch.

The split-second flash from the clouds set in motion a harrowing day of grit and courage, a day that would test the resilience of the climbers and the skills of a team of undaunted rangers with decades of experience saving lives on these mountains.

Rod Liberal, the climber ascending Friction Pitch, was having a hard time finding holds to grip as he moved up the moist, smooth wall.

He was about halfway up when lightning struck. It blew him off the rock and swung him around the ridge leaving him dangling by his rope, about 13,000 feet up.

His body was twisted in a ghastly upside-down V, his head and shoulders hung backward, his stomach toward the sky.

“

The jolt hit the three climbers below Friction Pitch like dynamite.

In an instant, Reagan Lembke’s body stiffened. Pain coursed through him, as if he were being electrocuted.

For a moment, he couldn’t see or hear. Then he was falling. His backpack and helmet clanked and scraped against the jagged rocks. His arms and legs flailed.

He was sure he’d die. He thought of his wife and two infant children. What will they do without me? he wondered.

Then, THUD. He was on his back, legs snarled in a nest of climbing gear.

Ropes attached to his harness had wrapped around a boulder twice, swooped down to his two climbing partners — Jacob Bancroft and Justin Thomas, Rob’s younger brother — and then back up again. Amazingly, that had stopped their fall.

Lembke heard moaning below. “Is Justin there?” he called. “Is Jake there?”

More moans.

“We need a cell phone!” he shouted. “We need helicopters!”

There was nothing but silence.

“

Above Friction Pitch, Sherika Thomas stopped her husband’s slide. She pressed her hands on Rob’s chest and pushed him against the wall.

Then came a scream — the loudest, longest one he had ever heard.

Rob knew the voice: It was his best friend, Clinton Summers. Rob crept past an outcropping, then moved along a ledge toward the anguished cries.

Clinton, who had blacked out, was sitting, unable to move his legs. His wife, Erica was leaning in to him, unresponsive. Clinton turned and grabbed his wife’s face. There was no sign of life.

Rob Thomas dropped to his knees and pulled off Erica’s climbing helmet. It was melted and scorched inside. Her lips were swollen, black and blue. Her clothes looked as if they had exploded from the inside out in some places, melted in others.

She had no pulse.

Clinton sensed his wife was already gone, but he and Rob attempted CPR. There was no response.

“

Rain was falling hard below in the town of Moose. Park ranger Brandon Torres was on the phone in his office when the news came from a dispatcher:

“There’s a lightning strike in the Grand. There’s CPR in progress and possibly six injuries.”

Torres, rescue coordinator that day, asked the dispatcher to order a helicopter and page Jenny Lake rangers who had the day off.

The Jenny Lake area is in the heart of the Tetons. Though a dozen rangers were working last July 26, they were spread across a stretch of mountains with dozens of climbing routes and 220 miles of hiking trails.

Torres glanced out his window. Dark clouds.

At 3:46 p.m., the dispatcher connected Torres to the 911 call. Bob Thomas, Rob and Justin’s 51-year-old father, came on the line.

He was atop Friction Pitch, he explained. CPR was being administered to one climber. Another was hanging off the mountainside. Three more, who had been on lower ledges, had simply disappeared from sight.

“

Rod Liberal was hanging 50 feet below the top of Friction Pitch.

He gripped his rope with his right hand and tried to lift his twisted body. It was useless. He thought he would die.

He managed to unhook his 30-pound backpack and let it drop. His legs were numb. He felt as if knives were digging into his lower back.

Rob Thomas shouted down: “Stay alive! Remember your boy. Breathe. Come on, buddy. Help is on the way.”

Then Rob moved around the ledge to see if he could spot Justin and the other two missing climbers. He hollered into the emptiness.

He saw an empty rope. Silently, he pleaded with God many times. Again and again, he shouted. Then, half bent over, he yelled with every bit of lung power he had.

Finally, Reagan answered, from about 200 feet below. Something about a broken rope.

Then another worrisome silence.

After five long minutes, Rob heard his brother’s voice through the radio. “I think both of my legs are broken,” Justin Thomas said. “I’m bleeding pretty good.”

“

Mid-afternoon, when the lightning struck, is when summer thunderstorms are most common in the Tetons. Park rangers generally advise climbers to be off the summit by noon or 1 p.m.

The climbers in trouble had started out around 8 a.m., later than those who use professional guides. But they were moving quickly until they were delayed about three hours in getting to Friction Pitch because so many others were ahead of them.

The group had taken one of the most popular routes on the Grand, along the Upper Exum Ridge, an alpine climb considered moderately difficult.

Many were colleagues in their 20s and 30s, working in computer technology at an Idaho health products company. They all loved being outdoors — enjoying everything from hockey to skiing to climbing.

“

At 4:31 p.m., helicopter pilot Laurence Perry took off for a reconnaissance mission with two rangers: Dan Burgette, chief of the Jenny Lake group, and Leo Larson, who carried a digital camera to photograph the scene so other rescuers could see where the injured were located.

As they soared toward Friction Pitch, they saw Rod. Burgette feared that the way Rod was hanging, the climber’s breathing and circulation might be interrupted. And Rod’s tongue could have rolled back, blocking his airway.

Nearly an hour had passed since the 911 call. Burgette figured Rod was dead. But as the chopper moved in, they noticed something.

The fingers on Rod’s right hand moved.

At the helicopter controls, Perry shouted: “That guy’s alive!”