Wait for rescue draining
Climber bided his time in cave on Mount Terror
MARBLEMOUNT, Wash. – A climber rescued by helicopter after spending four nights stranded in the North Cascades said Thursday that he was looking forward to brushing his teeth.
Jason Schilling, 33, spent his time in a small cave on a rock face of 8,031-foot Mount Terror, about 24 miles east of Mount Baker. The Corvallis, Ore., man was stranded there until Thursday after he stayed behind to help his injured climbing partner, Steve Trent, who was rescued Sunday by helicopter.
Schilling had supplies and was reasonably well protected from the elements, but bad weather prevented rescuers from going back for him until Thursday.
He told the Skagit Valley Herald he was looking forward to brushing his teeth. He said he knew he’d be OK while he was up on the mountain, but that waiting for rescuers was mentally exhausting.
“I thought about food, beer, coffee, level ground and sunshine,” he said, adding that he also thought about his girlfriend, who was with him Thursday afternoon at the ranger station.
Rescuers who reached him didn’t have much time to celebrate. They immediately refueled the helicopter and headed for El Dorado Creek Basin, where a hiker had broken his leg while descending a boulder field.
Schilling’s ordeal began when Trent, one of the four people in his climbing party, fell. Steph Abegg, who was climbing below Trent at the time, posted on a Web site for climbers that a large chunk of rock had apparently given out underneath him, and he suffered a broken leg and a deep head gash as he plummeted 60 feet.
Abegg recalled seeing “quite a bit of blood running down the rock” as Trent dangled head-down at the end of the rope.
North Cascades National Park spokeswoman Kerry Olson confirmed that Abegg had written the item.
A helicopter reached Trent by Sunday evening, but it was too dark to go back for Schilling, who could not climb down alone.
He was well supplied and had a radio that rescuers had given him when they plucked Trent from the mountain, North Cascades National Park spokeswoman Kerry Olson said.
Trent spent several days in a Bellingham hospital but is expected to make a full recovery, Olson said.
As soon as rescuers returned from picking up Schilling on Thursday, they turned their attention to the southern reaches of the park, where a 67-year-old Bellevue man had broken his leg in the El Dorado Creek area Wednesday.