LONGMIRE — One hiker died on Mount Rainier and two others were awaiting rescue Tuesday 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 dead hiker’s family.
The three hikers were described as two men and a woman in their early 30s, all from Bellevue. The dead hiker was the woman’s husband, Bacher said.
Bacher said rangers received a call at 3:30 a.m. Tuesday that three hikers had been trapped in a sudden blizzard on the Muir snowfield as they were descending from a day hike to Camp Muir.
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 below Camp Muir in elevation.
Camp Muir, a staging area for climbers, is about 10,000 feet up the 14,410-foot mountain.
The others were brought to a shelter at Camp Muir by 8:30 a.m., but one man was unconscious and later died, Bacher said. All were suffering from hypothermia and frostbite.
Two helicopters were standing by — an Army Chinook from Fort Lewis and a private chopper — but the weather did not improve for long enough to attempt an evacuation by Tuesday evening. The attempt would resume at 5 a.m. today, weather permitting, Bacher said.
“We’re optimistic, given the forecast, that we’ll be able to make better progress at that time,” Bacher said.
Officials didn’t want to attempt a ground evacuation, to avoid exacerbating the hikers’ injuries, he said.
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 Monday night, with 5-foot drifts at Camp Muir, Bacher said.
The three hikers were all experienced in the outdoors, all had been to Camp Muir previously 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, Bacher said. Both were in stable condition.
“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.”
Guides for local climbing companies assisted 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 Tuesday. 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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