National Park After Dark - A Broken Neck and Endless Crevasses: Denali National Park

Episode Date: August 2, 2021

When Colby Coombs, Tom Walter, and Ritt Kellog head out on a mountaineering expedition together the weather proved to be a huge obstacle. With inches of snow falling everyday, huge crevasses, and avalanche conditions, this was no easy trek. When an avalanche hits, trajedy stikes and leaves one climber with a broken neck. Making it back alive is going to be nearly impossible.For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to this week’s partners!BetterHelp: National Park After Dark is sponsored by BetterHelp. Takecharge of your mental health. Listeners get 10% off their first month atbetterhelp.com/NPADFor a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Each year, avalanches kill more than 150 people worldwide. They are caused by four factors. A steep slope, snow cover, a weak layer of snow, and a trigger. They can reach up to 80 miles per hour in speed, and they are an unforgiving part of nature. The mere force of snow pummeling your body can kill you. You don't get to choose if you'll survive it, and if you're do, it'll be by pure coincidence. You will need to be in the right place in the exact right moment, and when it engulfs you or spits you out, it needs to leave you in the exact right place.

If you are one of the lucky ones, now you have a whole new obstacle. Your body shattered, your spirit broken, you need to find a way out. Nature's elements are still coming for you. And if you don't have the right skill set, you're still going to die. Welcome to National Park After Dark. Hey, everybody, welcome back to National Park After Dark. My name is Cassie. And I'm Danielle. We love coming on here because we feel like we have a whole new group of friends.

You know, I feel like you're all our friends. And every Monday we get together. It's story time. We have this really horrible dark morbid story. sorry, but we all enjoy it and we all get to talk and it's just something we look forward to every single Monday. So we're happy to be back. We're happy to be talking to you guys and we can't wait to hear your feedback on this episode. Speaking of feedback, actually, did you see that message of the girl that sent us the video and picture of the Mount St. Helens Ash that her mom had?

Yeah, I thought that that was so cool. That is so rad. Like I watched her video like three different times. I was like, wow, it's like a little glass bottle and it even had a label. I love the label. It had a picture of Mount St. Helens exploding. And then you could see the ash in it. And it's just so cool when we have these stories on the podcast and they actually, people were there when it happened and they know exactly what we're talking about. And I just think that that's really cool.

So before we get into our story for today, we just wanted to mention we did have July's Patreon Campfire Story air on Friday a few days ago. It is a very interesting one, but it is a story of an avalanche that happened in Lake Tahoe. And it's a very sad one. Yeah, it was a long one. It was time I remember sitting down at like 5.30. The light, and I had the lights off, like whatever, sun was shining. And then I'm so enveloped in this story. I already, like, I came back into my body and I realized I was sitting in the dark. The sun had long since set. I had not gotten up to turn any of the lights on.

I was starving. I was like in that chair for like three and a half hours. I'm like, oh my. Ian opens the door. He's like, hello? Like in the dark crying a little bit and you're like, leave me be. You're like, okay. Oh, my God.

Oh, yeah. So yes, it was a long one, but it was definitely worth it. So if you have errands to do or cleaning or some tasks that you can have a podcast playing on in the background, settle in because it was a really, really good one. And Cassie seems to be on a little bit of a kick because she's keeping the avalanche theme going. I don't know why I got on this kick this week. It just kind of happened this way with the way that I found the stories. But they are completely different. And I'm. I'm telling you they have absolutely nothing in common besides the fact that there was an avalanche in both of the stories. So if you're on Patreon and you're like, I just listen to an avalanche story. Now we're having another one totally different. Or if you're like, I don't know if I want to join Patreon for this story, if I'm hearing another avalanche story, I'm telling you they are so different from each other. They have almost nothing in common. So if you do want to hear the other story, it is on Patreon.

You can find our Patreon from our Instagram National Park After Dark and go to the links in our tab. Or you can go to NPAD Podcast.com and go to our Patreon link there. So we are doing an avalanche episode this week and we are heading to Denali National Park and Preserve. Amazing. We're revisiting a park. I love it. Yeah. And we're revisiting one of, I wouldn't say it's my favorite park, but it's definitely up there.

I love Alaska. it is located in Alaska and we're going to go a little bit into more about the park today. So if you missed our last episode which was one of our, it was our third episode we ever did. We headed to Denali National Park.

We're going to go back into it today and we'll talk a little bit about it. And our first Denali episode, we actually went to Denali and summited Denali. Today we're going to an entirely separate mountain inside the park. So as always,

before we go into this story, we're going to talk about the park a little bit. Denali National Park and Preserve is located in Alaska, and it contains the tallest mountains in North America. And that is Denali, which stands at 20,310 feet. The park itself encompasses 6,045,153 acres, which for kind of a size comparison, makes the park larger than the entire state. of New Hampshire. Really? Did you mention that in the first episode? No, I actually just learned it when I was re-researching this.

I was going to say, I don't think I've ever heard that. That's wild. Yeah, I thought it was cool since we're from there that we can relate it to the park. So the park was established on December 2nd, 1980. Because of the range of elevations located inside of this national park, there is a variety of types of landscapes. So when you're at the lower elevations, you can find forests there. And then as you get into the higher elevations, you head into this alpine tundra. And then at the highest elevations, there's glaciers,

snow, and rock. Denali is also home to lots of wildlife. There's an estimated 300 to 350 grizzly bears that live inside the park. And there's 2,700 black bears who also live there. This park also has has 13 separate packs of wolves, which estimate about 51 wolves that live inside of it. It's also filled with moose and caribou as well with thousands of caribou there. Actually, every time I've gone there, I've seen caribou off in the distance. A lot of people will grab binoculars and stuff so you can see them from the road, but there's a lot there. And I've actually seen moose every time I've gone as well.

And then there's also smaller animals like coyotes, beavers, red and Arctic foxes, lynxes, wolverines, and more. There's just an abundance of wildlife. If you go here, you visit it, it's a really magical place. You're going to see some type of wildlife while you're there. Yeah, that's kind of like Yellowstone in the lower 48. I mean, a lot of those animals are present in Yellowstone. That's a huge draw to that park and for good reason. Yeah, and with Denali, it's a lot less crowded. You know, when you go into Denali, there's not, well, first, you're not driving on the road and there's a bunch of bison that are causing traffic. jamms on the road. But when I was in Denali, I mean, there were people there. And I've also,

so I went there in the off season and then I went there during COVID. So there weren't people there either time that I went. So maybe it's busier in other seasons. But it was very different than Yellowstone and the fact that the tourism that is in Yellowstone is not in Denali. And I think that almost makes it like a much more pleasant experience because there is, like you said, all of that wildlife there. Yeah, for sure. Much more natural type of experience. And while Denali is certainly what the park is centered around, for this story, we are going to be heading to an entirely different mountain inside the park. Our story is going to take place along the slopes of Mount Foraker, the second highest peak in Donali at 17,400 feet, and it's the third highest in the

entire United States. It towers above neighboring glaciers and is only eight miles from Donali. The first time it was ever climbed was in August of 1934. This is an extremely dangerous and difficult climb. With its unpredictable weather patterns, extreme avalanche conditions, and steep cliffs, this is not a climb for the faint of heart. Today, we're going to tell the story of three climbers. Colby Coombs, Rick Kellogg, and Tom Walter. It was June of 1992 that the three friends decided that they would begin their summit of Mount Foraker. The three of them had decided to do this trip together as they were all very experienced climbers and they would make a really good team. Little background for each of them.

Kobe Coombs, he was 25 years old at the time and he was a seasoned climber, adventurer, and he was a seasoned climber, adventurer, and he was. was actually a professional outdoorsman. He worked as a guide for the National Alaska Outdoors Leadership School. And he had summited Denali for the first time when he was only 18 years old. That's quite the feat. Right? When I was 18, I was not summiting Denali. I was drinking too much Zankha and falling asleep on the floor. I just... Recurgetated in my mouth. Hearing the word Zanka, I remember... Oh, my God. I remember, I remember, thinking it was the coolest thing. Remember the wall in college, like you'd have the walls of empty alcohol bottles as like decor because it was so chic. It's like look at all the...

Like above your cabinets. They would all sit there and it was like all the different color. You'd have like UV blue, UV pink, Zanka, Smyrnaf Ice. All right, Colby, let's get back to him because he was... End of story. Like Colby Coombs is way cooler than what. we were from a very young age to now. And then another one of the climbers, Rick Kellogg, he was 25 years old at the time as well. And he was also an outdoor professional. So he was working as a climbing guide on Denali. And he also, in the summer seasons, he worked in Maine as a sailing instructor for Outward Bound.

And Ritt and Colby were best friends. They had been climbing together for years in Colorado, Utah, and Utah. Mexico. So they would rock climb during the warmer months and then they would set off for ice climbing adventures during the winter. So they had been doing this for a really long time. They both had a lot of experience. Tom Walter was a little bit older. He was 34 and he had an extremely impressive climbing background. He had years and years of experience backpacking and climbing in the Rocky Mountains. And he also worked for several seasons as a climbing guide in Alaska mountain ranges. And he also went out to Pakistan and there's a lot of climbing out there and he

created a whole new route of climbing out there as well. So Tom Walter had been doing this for years and he was said to be the most experienced climber out of the three of them. In June of 1992, Colby and Ritt had already been in the middle of a month-long mountaineering trip together and the plan was for Tom to meet up with them at their base camp at Cahiltna Glacier, which was the base camp, It was actually a base camp that shared the same area as Denali summitsers. So people who were summiting Forker and Denali all met at the same glacier and they separated off into their different routes. Colby and Ritt arrived to base camp first and they were there setting up their tents and they saw a helicopter fly above them and they watched it. It was the Park Service helicopter and slung beneath the aircraft were four body bags.

dangling. It contained the bodies of a Canadian team who had tumbled to their deaths on Denali a few days prior, a grisly reminder of the dangers that lived in the area they were about to summit. That's ominous like we just talked about on the Patreon episode with The Owl. Yeah, it's like from the very start, there's something dark going on here. This space camp that they arrived at was the same camp that was shared with climbers attempting to summit Denali. Holly. Hundreds of climbers from around the world would head here each season, and in the year of 1992, 1,100 people had come to the base camp. This area was full of fun and excitement. People were there eager to start their adventures. Friendships were made, drinks were had there, and it was this big social event.

Here was filled with people waiting to start their summit, or people who were waiting to be flown down, after their adventure. So to get to this base camp, you had to fly in. You couldn't hike out to it. On June 13, 1992, Tom arrived right on time. On the flight into base camp, Tom had been able to get a good view of the route that they were all planning to climb. What he saw was that it was unpassable. The route was in terrible shape and it looked extremely unstable. And this was most likely caused to the earthquake that Alaska had experienced the year prior. When he got there, he told his friends what he had seen and his thoughts about picking a different route. And they all agreed. So their first step in their mission was going to be to find and choose a different route. The three of

them skied to a nearby ridge to scope out the area. But as they looked around, nothing seemed to appeal to them more than the other. It was all icy chaos and unstable snow. There was no route that look safer than the other, and none of the conditions that they could see were favorable. That afternoon, they constructed a big outdoor kitchen and made up a big pot of spaghetti. They sat around the fire, laughing and eating, and making plans for their climbs. It was a beautiful night, and they were surrounded by colorful tents of other climbers, and they could see the beautiful peaks of the Alaskan ranges. Colby suggested a route along Mount Forrecker that was visible from base camp.

This route was known to be a long and difficult climb, but they liked the challenge and they thought that it would be fun. They all agreed that they would climb the east face of Mount Foraker through the Pink Panther route. That route received the name because the first party to ever complete the ascent had carried a stuffed pink panther for good luck. Almost the entire east face had areas that risked avalancheing. It had hanging glaciers and cornices. Cornices are an overhanging ledge of snow on the edge of a ridge or a cliff. The Pink Panther root was the only area that seemed to be mostly free from avalanche dangers or falling rocks and ice, but still, it was an extremely difficult route that was rarely used. The following evening, they set out down the southeast fork of the Cahiltna Glacier.

And I say evening, and that sounds kind of weird, but you have to remember that in Alaska in June, the sun doesn't ever fully set. There's light at all times of day, so there's really no time period that they can. can't be out. So all three of the climbers were roped together for their own safety and to minimize any risk. As they were crossing this glacier, there was a huge risk of coming across an unforeseen crevasse. And these crevasses could be covered in snow and they could fall through them. So when they were attached by a rope, it made it so it was less likely if one of them were to fall, the other person could catch them and pull them back up was essentially the idea behind that. Yeah, gotcha.

Colby was dragging behind him a small sled that contained a weeks worth of food and fuel while the other two carried everything in their packs. They skied across the four-mile-wide glacier and at 11 p.m., they reached the east face of Mount Foraker, and that was where their climbing would begin. They scanned the route they were planning and it seemed relatively stable. It was a serious climb with lots of technical areas and they were pretty, excited to get started. They saw steep ice slopes and ice-glazed rocks that stretched almost 9,000 feet. The roots seemed very capable for them. And they already had escape routes planned if any bad

weather were to roll in. Very quickly, after they began, they started to notice low clouds began to form in the mountains, and it was the first sign of bad weather in the past 10 days. But that's not uncommon, right? Or is that just common on Denali itself? Because in the first episode, we did about it. I remember you mentioning a lot that the weather changes super quickly and it's actually difficult to summit Denali because of that. So is it different here or not? It's the same here when there are signs of bad weather that can be something that you really have to look out for because it can become really dangerous really quickly. Yeah, you just said the first sign of bad weather in 10 days and I felt like in Denali, the first Denali, the first

Denali episode, I didn't know that it was nice weather for that, like, that long. Like it couldn't be. Well, Denali is also 3,000 feet higher in elevation than Mount Foraker is. So I'm sure that the weather patterns up there vary a little bit from Mount Foraker. Okay. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. So the beginning of their trek was long and steep and it had potential for loose snow that could create an avalanche and it was not a place that they would want to be stuck in in a snowstorm. So they decided that they needed to wait and see if this storm would worsen before that they would start this journey. And it didn't take long before it did. And it started to snow very hard. Colby and Ritt sheltered inside of a tent and Tom built himself an igloo shelter. They decided that they would get some sleep for

the night before they would continue on. Because remember, it's 11 o'clock at night and this weather rolls in and they're like, you know, before we go any further, let's just hunker down for the night. So they woke up the next morning and three inches of snow had fallen and it was still coming down. The snow eventually led up, though, very briefly, and the team was super impatient to get started. And they rationalized that the storm was clearing and the weather was improving so they could start. It was around noon on June 15, 1992, when they began their ascent. With them, they carried a small tent, two ropes, two ice tools each. ice and rock protection and enough food to last them five to six days on the mountain.

The first section of the route was steep and very intimidating, but the crew moved up it with ease. They were so experienced that this was just kind of this fun thing for them. Tom led the way, followed by Colby, and then writ. They were all still tied together with a 165 foot rope, and they had ice axes and crampons, and they just moved quickly up the steep snowfield gully, and they climbed and belayed each other throughout kind of the seamless transition up the mountain. That day they reached 10,000 feet in elevation, and they had put almost a third of the entire route behind them in just a single day.

It had taken the original climbers of this route three days to get to the same exact point that they had gotten to. Wow, that's really impressive. But I will say the, The original people who did it, the Pink Panther group, I'm guessing, didn't have the same sort of advanced equipment that these people had. To be fair. Yeah. To be fair. Definitely.

I'm sure that they have an advantage on that. I would hope that equipment has gotten a little better since 1934. But also not downplaying their skill set either. Yeah. Because collectively, they're just this. group that has so much skill, you know, that I'm sure they just zipped right up there, no issue. Yeah. So the following day on June 16th, they had more snow and it was a complete whiteout. Even with it being hard to see, they were able to tell that they had gotten two more inches

overnight. Before noon, the clouds started to dissipate and their visibility improved significantly. So they decided that they were going to take advantage of this opportunity in the weather. and they would move higher while they still could. Colby led the group. The ridge that they needed to cross was too narrow to walk on, so they trekked just below it, sidestepping on an ice slope. Their exposure at this point was extreme.

If they were to lose their footing at any point, they had a really long way to fall. Colby put an ice screws into the wall of the slope, and he let them and move quickly. They were all belayed. in to help protect them from any falls. After the day of climbing, they reached 11,000 feet to a rock buttress. The rock buttress had never been climbed by another party before, and they expected it to be the hardest part of their climb. They wanted to continue on, but the weather got worse again.

Clouds rolled in and made their visibility extremely low, and this was an area that they would need to be able to see well before they could climb it. They were forced to wait for better conditions. They each took turns digging a snow cave that all of them could fit in. They melted some snow with their stove to make soup and hot drinks, and they waited out the weather. Despite the weather conditions, the group was having a lot of fun. They made a very good team, and despite the stressors of the conditions, they were all a very laid-back group of people, and they were all extremely experienced. So they were able to laugh and joke throughout everything, and they were sharing their duties to keep everyone's

All of them were really confident and comfortable with their capability to climb even within these conditions that as a group they decided that they were going to continue on. The following morning of June 18th, more snow had fallen and an accumulation of about three inches had landed on the ground. And there was another whiteout. Again, it wasn't until noon when the weather improved and they were able to get started and decided it was time to climb the hardest part of the three. journey. The rock was steep and it was coated in thin and unstable layers of ice. In a matter of minutes of climbing, however, conditions deteriorated dramatically. Low clouds and fog rolled in. It was almost impossible to see more than a few feet ahead, but there was no place to stop. They had to continue on. Despite these conditions, they made it to the top of the buttress safely, and they were the first group

to ever climb this area. So the first group that had done this same route, they actually skipped this part and they went around it because it seemed too dangerous. But this group decided that they wanted to try it and they believe that they had the experience level. And they did. They got up it. Even with the snowstorm coming in, they were able to get up it together.

Yeah. Thanks for clarifying because I was getting lost because what is it, the Pink Panthers, that other group. Pink Panther root. Oh, yeah. The group that carried a Pink Panther stuffed animal. That group is named after. Okay. Then I was thinking about them like, wait, I thought they had already done that.

So, all right. So they just skipped around that, skirted around that because they didn't want to mess with any potential risk with that area. But these guys felt confident and pushed through. So that's imagine being the first people to conquer something like that. What an experience. Yeah, and they were super stoked on it too. You know, even though they were going there to summit Mount Foraker, this was the part that they were all looking forward to.

This was the part where they're like, we need to do that. We need to be the first people to do that. We're going to find a route and do it. So this was a really, really exciting moment for them. So now when they reached the top of this area, they found themselves at the bottom of a 1,400 foot ice slope. and it was steep, and it was standing at about 60 degrees. And now the weather conditions decreased dramatically.

There were now wind gusts at about 40 miles per hour, and visibility was almost zero. On this ledge, they searched for a possible place to take shelter, and there was none. The only option from here was to climb to a safer area where they could take shelter. They knew the situation was desperate. But despite these conditions and possible dangers, everyone was calm. Colby went on later after this story to say, Everybody was real mellow. I think all of us were a little worried about being on that slope in the storm,

but all of us kept that emotion in check. The thing now was to make the right decision, be smart, and do what was ever necessary. Nobody was on the verge of losing it. The thing about both Tom and Ritt, they're the kind of guys that even if the situation had been totally desperate, they would have just gotten more mellow. They knew getting hyper wouldn't help. They hated that. Everybody was pretty calculating, pretty even. Everybody felt okay.

The climb before that had taken a lot of their energy and they had been going at this point for about 15 hours. But as a group, they were still feeling pretty strong and they thought that they were capable of another climb. They also collectively realized at this point that summoning Mount Foraker was just not going to happen. These weather conditions were too extreme. They had to make a decision, and that was to use the escape route that was after this next climb. And like I had just kind of said, climbing that unclimbed route was their major goal in this anyway. So it wasn't a huge disappointment that they had made this decision.

They just needed to reach a safe place and shelter down, and then they would head down the mountain. So first they needed to climb up this icy slope. super smart also. Yeah. Because I feel like rarely in the stories that we research or tell, it's like that people push the limit or make decisions that in hindsight maybe weren't the best, but it seems like they had the forethought to know the mountain, know the conditions, and know when to draw the line. Plus, like you said, they already conquered what they set out to do.

Yeah. And they're all really experienced. You know, they recognize what's going on and they're like, you know, maybe this is past our limits now. Let's be safe and let's head back. So definitely, I think a lot of our stories are people made these really devastating choices that were past their capabilities. And it ended up in tragedy. And this group of men were trying to be really smart about this situation. So they headed up this slope and the storm was raging around them.

Tom Walter led the group, and he was tied into Colby Coombs, who was in turn tied into Ritt Kellogg. This unforgiving eye slope was where their experience and technique of the group really mattered. And keeping their cool was crucial. If any one of them slipped at this point, it could be a fatal mistake. If one person fell, they would most likely pull the other two off of the slope with them, and they would all die. They moved up the slope in unison. They climbed carefully and methodically, and they were moving surprisingly fast for the weather condition. They were almost two-thirds of the way up the slope, and Colby's calves were starting to burn.

He was getting very tired, but continued to climb. With hardly any visibility, he was just following the rope that he was attached to, that disappeared into the fog. They had been on the slope for hours. When the rope stopped momentarily, Colby stopped with it to avoid allowing any slack in the line and vaguely aware of the rope below him that Ritt was attached to. Suddenly, in a microsecond, he realized that something was terribly wrong. In a very brief moment, he saw slack in the rope that he was attached to, like it was falling down. In his mind, extreme alarms went off.

something terrible was about to happen. Suddenly, huge masses of snow smashed into his body. It happened so fast he couldn't form the words, but he knew exactly what was happening. Avalanche. Purely by instinct and reacting, he dug his ice axe into the slope, trying to slow his fall. But the avalanche blew him off the mountain. He was tumbling fast, and even though his fall was fast, he felt, everything in slow motion. Colby had time to think about what was happening, how he should not be

moving this fast. How could he be moving this fast? There was one outcome here. He was about to die. The snow hit a surface. Colby was launched into the air and everything went black. Monday AI agents took over my work. And I absolutely love it. Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, It's updating stakeholders. Agents handle the daily grind now. They live inside Monday.com. So they see the full picture, my work, my team, the whole company. And I don't have to worry about the data.

It's safe, which means I'm free to focus on the big stuff, knowing everything runs smoothly in the background. It's completely shifted the way we work. Create your own AI agent in minutes on Monday.com. Girl, winter is so last season. And now Springs got you looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes. Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs. You're thirsty for the sun on your shoulders. That perfect hang on the patio sundress. Those sandals you can wear all day and all night.

And you've had enough of shopping from your couch. Done hoping it looks anything like the picture when you tear open that envelope. It's time for a little in-person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic. Sometime that morning, Colby opened his eyes. He was freezing cold right down to his bones. His entire body was in a deep and constant pain. When he looked down at his hand, his gloves were no longer on them and they were numb, even though his glove liners were still on his hands. He couldn't remember what had happened, but as he looked around and recognized his surroundings, he quickly remembered. As he looked down, he realized he was hanging off the side of the mountain. About 10 feet across from him was Tom, suspended in the air,

at the same level as him, and he wasn't moving. The rope they had been attached to together had caught itself on a rock that was protruding off the slope, saving them from falling hundreds of feet down. They had already fallen about 1,000 feet down the slope. When Colby looked down at the rope, Ritt was attached to, the rope was still there, but Ritt was nowhere in sight.

Colby tried to move in every inch of his body hurt. He had never been in so much pain in his life. He had almost no use of his left shoulder, and his neck was so stiff and painful that he couldn't move it at all. His left ankle was throbbing, and he noticed the cramp on that he had been using on that foot was no longer there. His ice axe that he had had also disappeared in his fall. His mouth and throat were dry, and he was very cold. Tons of thoughts rushed through his mind. Could he get to Tom?

Would he be able to get down? Could he move at all? Colby grabbed his second axe that he had and began working his way towards Tom. He was only 10 feet away across the slope and normally wouldn't be hard to get to. But the pain he was in caused him to move very slowly. So just to kind of picture this, they were hanging off of the slope, but the slope is nearby. So the slope is very steep and at an angle. So Colby is able to reach out and hold onto it and put his. his feet down on the ground while still attached to this rope.

Okay, because at first, when you said that they were dangling from a rock that had caught the rope that was protruding from the side of the mountain, for some reason, I was picturing like a hanging man situation, that they were dangling off of the ledge of the mountain by the rope. So which is not any better than or worse. It's just I didn't realize that they were on the ground. That's exactly what I pictured too. And then as I read more into the story, I was like, wait, that doesn't make sense for what happens next. And then it kind of described it more. So I just wanted to paint that picture. So everyone's not as confused as I was when I was reading this story. So he moves really slowly and he got himself as close as he could besides Tom. And he anchored himself in. He quickly realized that Tom was dead. His body was stiff and motionless. And he could not find a pulse. Colby thought his face was covered in snow.

But when he went to wipe it off, he found it was a hard ice mask. It was a mask of white ice that had frozen firmly and he couldn't remove it. Below his body was a bloody streak that stained the slope that extended more than 30 feet. It looked as if his body had been drained of all of his blood. Oh my God, this is terrible. He was completely devastated. Thoughts of his friends, their adventures, and Tom's wife rushed in. to his head. Tom's wife was arriving in a few days to meet up with him in Anchorage to go on a

kayaking trip. He could hardly stand the thought of it. This was the first climbing accident he had ever been in, and the reality of it began to hit him like a ton of bricks, and grief overwhelmed him. As he began to spiral into his own thoughts and emotions, he pulled himself out of it. There was no chance of survival for himself if he went there right now. This was not the time to grieve. but to focus. Thoughts of his mother came into his head. Vanishing in this mountain and having no one know what happened to him was unacceptable. He needed to make it back so their loved ones would know what happened. He also needed to find writ, but he had a horrible feeling that he had died as well. He didn't know how injured he was at the time, just the amount of pain he was in. He had a lot of medical

training and realized that he had no bleeding, so there was nothing urgent that he needed to do to tend to his wounds. His only option now was to block out his pain and do the best he could to get off the mountain. He needed to get moving, but before he could, he needed to replace whatever climbing gear he could to assist him down the mountain. Slowly and painfully, he removed Tom's left cramp on to replace it with the one that he had lost. Everything hurt in his body. In doing this, took a long time. One of Tom's gloves were still on his hand, and he grabbed that as well. He didn't know what he needed inside of Tom's pack, so he grabbed the whole thing. There were still a rack of ice screws wrapped around Tom's neck, something Colby would need to use to descend down

the slopes. When he grabbed them, he noticed they were covered in Tom's blood. His next challenge would be to extricate himself from the roping system that was stuck on the rock above him. He was still half hanging from that rope and half standing on the slope. He decided his best option would be to cut himself off of that rope at his harness. That would leave him with almost a full length of usable rope that he could use for his descend down. Reaching down, he sawed the rope a few inches above the knot on his harness. What happened next was devastating. As soon as he finished cutting the rope, Tom's body dropped and barreled down the mountain out of sight.

He had thought that the rope they were connected to was caught on that rock and that Tom's body wouldn't move. It turned out, Colby's weight had been counterbalancing their weight, and when he cut the rope, it caused Tom's body to drop. He watched as the entire thing unfolded, and it was shattering. first to see his friend like that and because it was a decision he made, but also because it reiterated that one wrong move and that could be him. He maneuvered his way to a safer point on the ledge and he climbed into a bivvy bag, which is a windproof sleeping bag to shelter into. It wouldn't close all the way, but it would have to do.

His neck and shoulder were in immense pain. He was certain something in his neck was. broken. He was thirsty and hungry, but where he was, there was no way he could set up a stove to melt the snow. He wasn't even sure if he still had a stove. He yelled Ritt's name over and over again, hoping to hear an answer from him, but there was nothing. Every couple of minutes, he was filled with full body shivers. Something he knew was a sign of extreme hypothermia. He knew the dangers of getting hypothermia up there. It would distort his thinking and make his already slim chance of surviving even less likely. He needed to get warm. He huddled inside his bag that night,

and although he couldn't sleep and it didn't close all the way, it worked just well enough to gradually restore his body temperature. He also realized he was still wearing his climbing helmet and he took it off. The top of it was destroyed, showing the impact it had taken in the fall. And the fact that his head was still bleeding despite the helmet, showed how hard he had been hit. So that helmet saved his life. Yeah. Undoubtedly saved his life. Yeah.

Like if that wasn't on there, he would have, yeah, totally been gone. Fatal. Just shows you how important helmets are. I kind of just like, because I ride motorcycles and I see people without helmets on all the time. I'm like, it will literally save your life. Like, wear a helmet. And this is just, I know it's not a motorcycle, but it's just another example.

your head is fragile, wear a helmet. Yeah, people are fragile. You're not, you know, especially on a motorcycle. Now that you bring that up, my mind goes to a bike week in the conia. And just like the hundreds of people that are up there zipping around on motorcycles with no helmet. I mean, I get it. It's summertime. You want to feel the wind in your hair.

But like, is that the last thing you want to feel? Like, I don't know. I don't get it. I don't get it at all because you don't feel the wind in your hair. You feel bugs in your mouth. And, you know, like there's, I don't get it. Wear a helmet, you know. And not those stupid little just head helmets that barely cover anything.

Wear a full face helmet. Who wants? I have literally been riding my motorcycle before and driven through like a moth that splattered on my face. Like imagine if I wasn't wearing anything. I would have crashed just because there's a dead moth and its guts in my eyes and mouth. And also, I just don't get it. I think helmets look cool. Like, you can buy a sweet helmet and look badass on it. There's no reason to not wear a helmet if you're doing dangerous

activities is the moral of this story. And that includes, obviously, rock climbing or if you're on a motorcycle, it clearly saved Colby's life. Yeah. The weather had calmed down a bit and it was now time to search for Ritt. He was still attached to the rope that Ritt was attached to. but he couldn't see him. It was slow moving and excruciatingly painful, but he began to repel himself down. Heading in the direction he believed Ritt would be in was the opposite direction that he needed to go to get off the mountain,

but he needed to find him. He had descended over 100 feet when he first saw him. He was lying upside down and stuck at the bottom of a steep snow slope. The last 20 or 30 feet of rope he was attached to was wrapped tightly around his chest and torso. It looked bad. When he reached him, he felt for a pulse. His body was cold and rigid,

and he couldn't find one. He was dead. When he turned him over, he saw that just like Tom, his face was covered in thick ice. It masked his entire face. When Colby tried to remove it, again, he couldn't.

and again he found himself devastated. Ritt was his best friend. He had known him for years and been on so many adventures with him. Anxiety flew over him in grief. But again in that moment he realized he could not mourn. Not yet. If he allowed himself to feel the agony that he was feeling in that moment, he would never move and he would die right there next to him.

He had to survive. He had to get back and tell their story. He needed more supplies and he needed to get into Ritz back. He was so entangled in the rope it was impossible to open and he needed to unravel it the best he could. Remembering what happened to Tom, he was extremely careful while moving Ritt as he was afraid he would fall off the slope as well. He slowly moved him a few inches to get a better access to the pack. And as he did, Ritt's body became dislodged and fell off the slope. Oh, God again.

In complete horror, he watched his friend plummet down the slope, unwinding from the wrapping of the rope. Suddenly, the rope became completely straight and yanked Colby from his stance. The force violently grabbed him, and the shock was excruciatingly painful. Colby was left hanging there only attached by the rope that was secured off of two axes he had set in the slope. This presented another huge problem. Ritt's bag that was still with him held life-saving items that Colby could not descend down the mountain without. His bag contained the fuel, stoth, and tent, and he needed all of that to make it back down the mountain alive. After a lot of creative thinking and using his knowledge and climbing skills, he finagled his way down the slope even further, and he reached Ritt.

inside his bag he found a bottle of unfrozen water and he drank it immediately. He was severely dehydrated and he needed more, but this would have to do for now. He found the tent, fuel, stove, and some extra food and he was able to pack it all into his bag. After he gathered all of his supplies, he needed to figure out what he was going to do with Ritt's body because he couldn't take it with him, but he couldn't bear the thought of him for. falling down the slope further and never being found to be able to recover him. He decided to anchor its body to the mountain and secure him there. He then cut himself from the static line connecting them.

Even though this rope was extremely tattered from the fall, this would have to be the rope that he used to descend off of the mountain. He headed off to begin his voyage back down the mountain. He was in excruciating pain. He was dehydrated and he needed food and rest. His first goal was to find somewhere safe to set up camp. After hours of trekking along, using his one good leg, because remember his left leg, he's limping on and is in excruciating pain, so he's essentially climbing with one leg. He found a small rock face that would provide enough space for him.

He set up camp and his stove, melted the snow, and made some soup with the water. He needed rest, but he also needed to get down as quickly as possible for medical help. He was a long way from being safe and he was worried he wouldn't make it. He didn't know this at the time, but he had broken his neck in two places. He had unstable fractures in his C5 and his C6 vertebrae. It was a miracle his spinal cord even had remained intact. He hurt all over, particularly his ankle and his left shoulder. It would take days before he could make it back.

Over the next few days, he moved slowly and methodically. His energy was gone, but he continued moving. Before he had been moving about 18 hours a day with his friends, he was now capable of 12 hours of moving and just barely. Even with the 24 hours of daylight Alaska had to offer at this time of year, he slept at night. Every time he would lay down for the night, he would question if he'd ever get up again.

The constant agony of his fractures was nearly debilitating. During his rest, he would consume mug after mug of hot water. He would do double doses of meals trying to make up for the calories he was burning. He needed to stay hydrated and fed if he was ever going to survive this trek. When he slept, he slept with his left boot on. He knew that if he were to take it off, with injuries it had endured, it would most likely swell up to the point he'd never get his boot back on, and then he would risk frostbite.

His foot was concerning. He had no idea what was happening inside that boot. Was he bleeding? Were there bones sticking out? Was there enough circulation to his toes? There was nothing he could do. The weather cleared up significantly and he could now see the peaks of the Alaska Range. At times even, he was able to see in the distance base camp, which was still more than six miles away. He could even see the plane landing on the glacier airstrip. It was in this moment he really waited. he had brought a radio with him. Him and his friends had always gone by the philosophy that when you're in the wilderness, you're self-sufficient, and therefore you don't need a radio. He was regretting this decision now. He knew that where he was, a helicopter could easily scoop him off the ridge.

If only he was able to call them. But unfortunately, there was no way to call for help, and he knew he was entirely on his own. As he got further along his journey back, his attitude changed. He had adjusted to his pain and his environment, and he had almost gotten used to traveling in this way. He later went on to say, I viewed my situation realistically.

No one knew what had happened to our party. No one knew where I was. In some ways, the outcome was up to me. All it would take was a little slip, and that would be it. I died too. and no one would ever know what happened. But if I didn't make a mistake, if I could keep going, I just might reach base camp. That part was up to me. Other things were out of my control. I might get avalancheed again. I might suddenly die for my injuries. There was nothing I could do

about that. I was just going to keep going. At one point, as he was traversing across the slope, he saw something unnerving. Looking ahead, he saw avalanche shoot. and dozens of them. It was evident that debris from avalanches had been continuously falling down the same lines, but he had no choice other than to cross this path. Crossing this area was slow, and periodically he would look above him at the hanging glaciers, waiting for the possibility for more debris to fall. He moved as quickly and safely as he could.

He brought his good leg down quickly, and just as he prepared for his next step, his cramp on and his right leg slipped on the ice. He started to fall. As he fell, he knew below him was a 1,000 foot drop. If he went over the edge, he would die. His speed was increasing as he fell, and just as he had done in the avalanche, pure reaction, he drove his ice axe into the slope, forcing it deeply, putting all of his weight into it. It penetrated deep enough to catch his fall, and he stopped abruptly. And with a jolt, it ripped his already. torn shoulder. It was the most intense pain he had ever experienced and he thought for a moment he might pass out. He laid there. He almost died and he was so close to being out of the technical

part of the climb. He stood up, trembling and continued down the slope. What a badass. Holy shit. He's just like, I gotta keep going. Almost died. Like here we go. We're still up here. I'm just a imagining him like stumbling down to face camp, like broken neck, his shoulders messed up, his legs messed up, he's obviously bruised and broken and just like zombie crawling his way back into camp. Never mind even the physical part of it. The mental strength you have to have to get through that, me, like we were kind of going back to earlier, I mean, if I had a broken neck, okay, bye, RIP.

But he didn't know, right? He didn't know at the time. Yeah, he just knew he was an excruciating pain. Oh, gosh. Eventually, he made it off of the technical climb section. He was off that part of the mountain, but now he had a new challenge in danger to face. And that was crevasses. Here we go with the damn crevasses again. It's like they don't go away.

Every single mountain episode, here they are. Here they are. And they were here at the beginning, too. So he's back at where he had originally crossed with his team members. And usually on active glaciers, teams always move in groups. Like we were saying earlier in the episode and they were roped in. That way, if one climber falls into one of the crevasses, their partner can stop it. But now he's alone.

Covered in snow, there was no way to know exactly where the crevasses. were hiding, and this was going to be exceptionally challenging. He would only be able to make educated guesses on his past experiences and pick what he believed would be a safe route. He reached the point at where him and his friends had stashed some of their gear prior, and they had stashed their skis before they had started to climb. So I don't know if I mentioned that part when he first started, but when they got to that first original climb, they stashed their skis and gear that they didn't need to carry

while they're climbing, so he kind of came across that now. Ahead of him was five miles of relatively flat glacier, but this glacier held hundreds of crevasses hidden underneath the snow. He was so close to safety now, though. He could hear the plane flying onto the airstrip at the base. Colby put his skis on, and he grabbed the sled that he had previously used and loaded it up with a few supplies. As he crossed the glacier, he was a dangerous.

acutely aware of the dangers surrounding him. He crossed over a snow bridge and he felt his sled start to pull away from him. The snow had broken and his sled was starting to fall down the crevasse. That he had just crossed himself. So he went over it and then his sleds behind him and the sled is starting to fall in it. But oh my God. So he was able to save his sled. He grabbed a hold of it tightly and he got out of that area quickly. He continued across this glacier and this same thing happened to him several more times. It was 5 a.m. and June 24th. Five days after the avalanche had hit when he finally reached base camp. He saw a few people there, but he said nothing and passed by them. And he tried to pass off as seemingly okay. What? What? What?

okay like nothing to see here i'm just on death's doorstep he went in and he was trying to like kind of hide his limp and his like he had blood caked on his face and he was just kind of trying to hide it as he walked past these people and it was because he didn't know what to say he felt like he had this huge secret of this awful tragedy that had happened to him and he didn't know how to spit those words out. And when he did finally spit them out, everything was about to become real. He had been spending the past few days focusing on survival and not his grief. And as soon as those words came out, it all became real. So he walked past them. But he was also exhausted and he needed sleep. And it was early in the morning. People were sleeping. So he went into camp. He ate some spaghetti

and he went to bed. Stop it. I can't even be going from not knowing if you're going to wake up every time you fall asleep to now just heading back. You're finally in the arms of safety. You're like, I'm just going to grab some spaghetti and call it a night. It's just crazy. So a few hours later, he woke up and that was when he headed to the base camps manager's shelter. He thought of Ritt and Tom's family.

and how he could ever tell them what happened. He dreaded that thought. He walked into the base camp shelter and told his story. Immediately he was taken straight to the hospital. After this, he spent the next three months in a wheelchair recovering from his injuries. Then he spent another three months on crutches. He surprisingly didn't lose any limbs from frostbite, and he made a full recovery. I would have bet money that that foot was gone.

me too but he didn't he didn't lose anything he made a full recovery it was a long recovery but he did make it and today colby coombs owns and runs alaska mountaineering school that he had worked at at the time in telkeetna alaska and currently as of today you can look him up he is an expedition guide up denali and he specializes in mountaineering programs for active duty and wounded veterans. And he has also gone on to co-write two different climbing guidebooks as well. Wow, what a way to use your life for good. That is really great. Just everything he went through, he was such an incredibly strong and a skillful person, clearly, to get through what he did. So that's, yeah, that's my whole story for today. And I was excited to go back to Alaska. And I was pretty

stoked that he works and lives in Telkeetna because Telkeetna, Alaska, if you haven't been and you're going to Alaska, go to Telkeetna. I went there for the first time last summer and it's such a cool little town. There's lots of little restaurants and shops and they have helicopter guides that go out of there that go straight to Denali and a bunch of like cool outdoor things. And you can just walk down the street and there's this big river that runs through there and you can see Denali on a pretty day. And it's just, there's live music. It's just, there's really good vibes there. So if you're ever in Tokena, awesome. I think that's it until next week. Yeah, that's everything that I have for today. If you want to check out more stuff, we post photos and things like that on

our Instagram and our Facebook, National Park After Dark. You can find us on there. We also have a Twitter that we are getting more active on and you can tweet to us and talk to us. And we like that. It's at NPAD Podcast. You can find us on there. And also, you can shoot us an email if you want at NPADpodcast. At gmail.com and we try to get back to everybody. I think that's all our social media, right? Yeah, I think so.

Yeah. Awesome. Cool. Everyone, have a great week wherever you are. Do something fun. Get outside. And if you do go out for a hike, enjoy the view. But watch you're back.

Bye. See ya. You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you may not know yet. Drivers who switch and save with Progressives save over $900 on average. Pop over to Progressive.com, answer some questions, and you'll get a quick quote with discounts that are easy to come by. In fact, 99% of their auto customers earn at least one discount. Visit Progressive.com and see if you can enjoy a little cash back.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $946 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2024 and May 2025. Potential savings will vary.