Cutthroat Peak climber rescued on Sunday tells his story of survival

A day out in the mountains turned into a rescue mission after two climbers had to call for help Sunday. Thomas Gilbert and Philip Bond were ice climbing Cutthroat Peak in Chelan County. As the duo was rappelling down, the knot in the rappel ring came out of the system.

“The knot on the rappel ring came, rotated and came out of the system and so Phillip fell with the rope all the way down to the bottom of the route,” Thomas said. “What went through my mind when I saw him fall is, he’s going to die, and I’ll be stranded and he’s really struggling or really, really hurt and I have no rope and I can’t come down to help him.”

The two also had rocky talkies and were still able to communicate. Phillip was conscious but had multiple broken bones. Next, they called for help.

“The next thing we did is we both pulled out our Garmin InReach beacon and pressed the SOS,” Gilbert said. Garmin InReaches are satellite communicators and Vernon Nelson, of Chelan Mountain Rescue, said it’s a life saver.

“If they didn’t have some sort of satellite connectivity who knows you know, they would have probably not made it out alive,” Nelson said. They two were able to send messages and let rescuers know where they were. But they still had to spend a frigid night on the mountain.

“We both had an emergency bivvy bag or Phillip had an emergency blanket, we both had food, we both had water, we both had several layers of puffy, fleece, Goretex layers,” Thomas said.

Nelson and his team, all of whom are volunteers, hiked through the night and reached Phillip and Thomas early the next morning.

“Lowered him down, got him back down to the rest of our team down below in the snow field,” Nelson said.” And while we were climbing our team members were warming up the other patient and tending to his injuries.” A day like this is something many hope never will come, but when it does, having the right equipment and a team of rescuers means the difference between life and death.

“We want these people there to be willing to do it, we say thank you to them and I will say thank you to them for the rest of my life,” Thomas said.