Helpers Patrol Rainier Climbing/Skiing

Mount Rainier, Washington’s 2 3/4-mile-high wilderness of rock and ice, is well-known for burying people in snow, swallowing climbers in crevasses and disorienting skiers in storms of fog and blowing snow.

That is why a half-dozen members of the Washington Ski Touring Club patrol the Paradise area’s popular backcountry ski routes each weekend in a cooperative program with National Park Service rangers.

More than two dozen skiers have volunteered since the patrol was launched last year following the death of a skier who became lost in a storm.

Participants - all seasoned backcountry travelers and many trained in mountaineering-oriented first aid - are given avalanche training and are familiarized with Paradise-area terrain.

“It is a great way for club members to get to know the mountain and sort of give something back in a way that makes it safer for the people who come here,” said Gerry Erickson of Seattle, a club member and this year’s patrol coordinator.

So far, the patrol has not participated in any extraordinary rescues. But it has done things such as locate a skier whose father took ill and was needed at home, find four climbers who had to bivouac in a severe storm and help rangers haul out injured skiers on toboggans.