LONGMIRE — One hiker died on Mount Rainier and two others were awaiting rescue today at Camp Muir, high on the volcano’s flank, officials at the national park said.
Park Ranger Sandi Kinzer and park spokesman Kevin Bacher confirmed the death. They declined to release the hikers’ names, saying park officials were having difficulty contacting the hikers’ families.
The three hikers were described as two men and a woman in their early 30s, all from Bellevue, east of Seattle. The dead hiker was one of the men, Bacher said.
Bacher said rangers received a call at 3:30 a.m. today that three hikers were trapped in a blizzard on the Muir snowfield.
Weather prevented a rescue attempt at that time, but one of the hikers reached Camp Muir at 7:15 a.m. and was able to direct rescuers to the other hikers near Anvil Rock, a large outcropping at the edge of the Muir snowfield about 500 feet lower than Camp Muir in elevation. Camp Muir, a staging area for climbers, is at about 10,000 feet elevation on the 14,410-foot mountain.
A helicopter was standing by to bring the hikers off the mountain, but officials were waiting for the weather to break, Kinzer said this afternoon.
After a winter of heavy snowfall that forced repeated closure of mountain passes, unseasonably cold conditions have continued long into spring in Washington’s Cascade Range.
Paradise, the jumping-off point for the trail to Camp Muir, received 2 feet of fresh snow overnight, with 5-foot drifts at Camp Muir, Bacher said.
The three hikers were all experienced in the outdoors, and two had reached the summit of Rainier previously, Bacher said.
Three doctors, clients of a climbing concessionaire in the park, were at Camp Muir with the two remaining hikers, who were suffering from frostbite and hypothermia, Bacher said.
Both were in stable condition. The third hiker had been unconscious before dying at Camp Muir, Bacher said.
“Right now, the best place for them to be is sheltered at Camp Muir, rather than taking the chance of exposing them to try to carry them down the mountain,” Kinzer said. “Since they are safe and stable where they are, we’ll wait until we get a weather window to get them off the mountain.”
Snow showers were forecast to decrease at the mountain by tonight, the National Weather Service said.
Guides for local climbing companies have been assisting park rangers with the rescue.
International Mountain Guides had eight climbing clients and four guides at Camp Muir, while Rainier Mountaineering Inc. had 15 clients and a handful of guides there today. Both companies said their employees and clients were doing well, but hunkered down awaiting better weather.
“I do know it was a tough night up there for the weather, just because of what they were forecasting — high winds and low visibility and snow,” said Jeff Martin, RMI operations manager. “Definitely not your typical June weather.”
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