BY JOHN HABERLE
In spring 1979, I was contacted by the Public Affairs Office at Fort Lewis about whether the Army Reserve would be interested in doing a docudrama for NBC television.
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John Haberle |
It would be called “High Ice” and star the now deceased David Janssen, star of the original “Fugitive” series. It would be shot at Whitehorse Mountain near Darrington.
A Hollywood producer and his wife, Eugene and Natalie Jones, wanted to do a movie about a mountain rescue that really happened in the Cascades. I was public affairs officer with the 124th Army Reserve Command at Fort Lawton in Seattle, and we had helicopters that could be used in the docudrama.
My commanding officer, Maj. Gen. Charles Palmer, said that as long as safety could be maintained for pilot and crew, it was OK. We also got approval from the Department of Defense.
Our copter pilots were exceptionally qualified, and most were combat veterans in Vietnam.
The producers arrived at Paine Field in Everett in a rented Bell helicopter to fly up to Whitehorse. A state office that aids filmmakers helped them select the site.
One morning in late summer, the producers flew to the mountain in their private Bell chopper, while the reserves went in our Huey.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. The movie team did a one-skid landing on a small ledge, an outgrowth on the side of the mountain. Eugene Jones, who was also the director, got out, walked on the ledge and said it would work just fine. It was about 1,000 feet to the glacier below.
The story called for four mountain climbers to be stranded. One dies in an avalanche, and the other three are trapped when their climbing equipment drops to the glacier floor.
Janssen plays a mountain ranger who battles with Army Reserve brass over who is in charge of the rescue. Whitehorse is his mountain.
Dorian Harewood, who is still acting today, plays one of the reserve pilots who made the daring rescue.
Time was critical. It was getting cold, and the climbers had to be rescued before nightfall.
The copters lowered a hoist to the stranded climbers. But one of them panicked and pulled the copter into the mountain. It exploded in flames and fell to the glacier floor.
To do this stunt, Fort Lewis had given us the hulk of a Huey, which was positioned on the mountain with charges of TNT set to go off. But a cable broke, and it fell before the TNT went off.
We had to do it again.
Carpenters from Hollywood built a fake copter out of plywood, painted it green and placed it on the mountain.
Time magazine photographer David Hume Kennerly, who was foiled in his first attempt at the shot, took photographs of the exploding fake copter the second time. Kennerly was President Ford’s staff photographer.
Time did a full-page spread on the movie, which was billed as the most daring mountain-rescue movie ever made.
Later, the copter piloted by Harewood made the one-skid landing on the ledge to save two of the stranded climbers. One of them hung onto the skid as part of the ledge fell. She dangled from the skid as the copter flew off. What you didn’t see was a metal plate attached to her chest with a cable to make sure the stunt woman didn’t slip and fall.
Late in the movie, Janssen gets stuck on the mountainside between a ledge and the cliff. But he helps save the last stranded climber. He tosses her a line, and she swings from one ledge close to the mountain to another one farther out.
The rescuers are able to save her, but not Janssen, who heroically cuts the rope when they run into trouble. He is left overnight because of darkness and poor weather. When the copter returns the next day, he has died of exposure.
The film ends with his frozen body hanging by a cable from the helicopter.
The community center in Darrington was used as a base of operations. The Hollywood crew built a ledge in the center with snow all around it. Many of the mountain scenes were shot there – only six feet off the ground.
NBC showed the film in 1980, and 25 million people watched it.
Capt. Errol Van Eaton, one of the main pilots during filming, went on to become a brigadier general in the National Guard. This story is dedicated to him. He was killed in a helicopter crash while on a United Nations mission.
John Haberle is a retired lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve. He lives in Marysville.
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