Climber injured in avalanche rescued from Mount Shasta, California sheriff says

An avalanche injured two climbers on Mount Shasta in Northern California, requiring rescuers to be airlifted to their assistance, sheriff’s officials reported.

A climber called 911 at 12:21 p.m. Saturday, April 27, to report he and his climbing partner had been injured by an avalanche at 12,200 feet up the mountain, the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office said in an April 29 news release.

His partner, who escaped being carried away, suffered a knee injury, rescuers said. The caller was swept 800 feet down the mountain and broke his femur.

Strong winds and poor visibility prevented a California Highway Patrol helicopter from extracting the two climbers, the sheriff’s office said.

The helicopter instead dropped rescuers at the treeline about 3,500 feet below the injured climbers, the office said. Other rescuers began climbing the mountain.

Rescuers reached the pair at 6:20 p.m., finding the climber with the broken leg also showing signs of frostbite and hypothermia, officials said.

They evacuated the injured climber down the mountain, reaching the bottom at midnight, rescuers said. The other climber was able to snowboard back to the trailhead on his own.

The two men, described as “highly skilled mountaineers with extensive experience on Mount Shasta,” intended to reach the summit and then snowboard down a different route, rescuers said.

“Their ordeal, and the 11-hour rescue process that followed, are reminders that no amount of experience makes one immune to the hazards encountered on Mount Shasta, and that ever-changing mountain conditions can turn a rapid-extraction operation into a time and resource-intensive process,” the sheriff’s office said.

Mount Shasta is a 14,163-foot mountain about 60 miles north of Redding.

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