National Park After Dark - A Fatal Lightning Strike and the Jenny Lake Rangers: Grand Teton National Park

Episode Date: April 19, 2021

Check the weather before you head out on this adventure and leave any metal objects at home. In this episode we head to Grand Teton National Park and follow the journey of a group of climbers from Idaho who head out to summit the Grand Teton. When a lightning bolt hits 6 climbers at once, their only chance of survival are the Jenny Lake Rangers, the most elite group of rescue climbers in the entire US National Park system.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!For a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In cloud-to-ground lightning, the energy seeks the shortest route to earth, which could be through a person's shoulder, down the side of the body, through the leg, and to the ground. If the lightning does not pass through the heart or the spinal column, the victim will often survive. Lightning current can pass through tissue and not cause harm, as long as it is tracking an uninterrupted route and doesn't get slowed down. If a bolt gets caught inside, the body and spends time there, however, it can burn and cook from the inside out. The dispatch call came in. 431, Teton Dispatch Respond to a report of a lightning strike on the Grand Teton. Five people down.

I'm trying to get out better locations for you. The party appears to be on friction pitch on the grand. One person not breathing. One person hanging upside down and not breathing. Three people missing and not responding to verbal. Welcome to National Park After Dark. Welcome back everyone to another episode of National Park After Dark. My name is Danielle.

And I'm Cassie. And happy National Park Week, everybody. We are so excited. It's the happiest day. Happiest day. Happiest week of the whole year. Golf clap. And it's happy and we're excited because we're doing our second giveaway.

And we put a lot of thought into this one because we're given away a few things. in this package. We have like a little bundle going on. Yeah, and it's up now. You can sign up. If you're interested, go to our Instagram page. Look at the rules. You can sign up to enter. It will be up all week. And this week's exciting too because we are going to be really highlighting different parks all throughout the week. We're going to be posting about them information. We're going to try and add some things in conservation for ideas where you can help out in different parks. It's just a fun week. It's National Park Week. It's what we're all about on this whole episode, this whole podcast. So we're really excited for it. And we're going to try and bring fun things to you guys every day.

And also, that being said, every national park is free to the public, whether you have a park pass or not. They waive entry fees. So we encourage you to go out and explore the closest national park to you. If that's something that you can do this week, please share your favorite folks. You can send us an email at NPAD Podcast at gmail.com or DMS directly on our Instagram National Park After Dark because we want to put together a little something as well in regards to listener photos. So please do that this week and enjoy whatever park you have closest to you. And speaking of National Park Week and our theme of this podcast is National Parks. last week, Danielle went to her favorite park, which is Yellowstone. And my favorite park happens to be 10 miles south of Yellowstone. Grand Teton National Park is where we are going. Today, we are

going to explore my favorite park this week. How many times have you been there? A couple? I don't know, because I lived in Jackson Hole for a little while. So I was pretty much in the park. all the time. All the time. Yeah. I mean, Jackson, if you drive a little bit out, if you go into like Moose, Wyoming, you're pretty much in the park anyway. Well, I'm pumped to hear your story today because I know that you've been putting a lot

of time and effort and research into the story. You read a whole book on it. So I, and I know that you've been working on it in the background for a few weeks now, almost a month. Yeah. So. So I actually. found this story because I found a book about it and it is called A Bolt from the Blue. It's by

Jennifer Woodleaf. The introduction to this episode are little tidbits directly from the book and I want to go right into the story with you guys. It was such a cool book to read. I am going to be telling the story of the book. I really wanted to do this story for this week for National Park week because this book really highlights the Jenny Lake Rangers, which are the most elite rescue group in all of the national park systems. And it really highlights a rescue effort that they did and what they do for a living. And I thought that that was really cool to highlight such an important part of our national parks. Yeah. I mean, they're the men and women that we rely on as guests of national parks to keep us safe. Before we go into this whole story,

I just wanted to go into a little bit of a background of the Grand Teton's. And, and the National Park, especially if you have never been there, highly recommend going. It is just, it's breathtaking every part of the park. But the Grand Teton National Park was established in 1929, and it is located in the northwestern part of Wyoming, and it consists of approximately 310,000 acres. It is actually, the bordering of it is only 10 miles south of Yellowstone. So if you're visiting Yellowstone, go to the Grand Teton's. You won't regret it. It's so beautiful. And this park includes some of the major peaks that are in the Teton range. And this park was actually named after the tallest peak in the Teton range, which is the Grand Teton. And it originally got its name from the 19th century French-speaking trappers that were in the area. They named it Lace Trois Teton's, which means three Tets. And the name was later shortened to

teetons. I support that. Shortening. The three teets. Well, it's funny because one of the things, if you're local in Jackson or maybe if you just visit there often, you'll know that the locals say when the clouds are out, the clouds are gone and the sun's shining, they'll be, they'll say the teets are out as, you know. Look at that. Fun fact that I never knew. Yeah. But the Grand Teton, which is the highest peak of the Teuton range, it raises more than 7,000 feet above the town of Jackson, and it's a pretty dramatic climb. It is flat.

If you've been in Jackson, the area is flat, and then there's just huge mountain ranges that are right there. They go up pretty fast. And the park itself is filled with lakes, part of the Snake River, and it also has some small glaciers. Some of the rocks in this park are older than any other national park in the entire U.S., they are estimated at 2.7 billion years old. The Grand Teton Park is also known to home ecosystems of both flora and fauna that have existed since the prehistoric times, and these are still found there.

Wow. Am that cool? That is really cool. And I'm kicking myself, I've never been. You're like, it's only 10 miles away. Yeah, I've never been. Oh, my God. It's upsetting.

You have to go. I would go, even though I've been there, I've lived there. If you wanted to fly and go, I would totally go again. Okay. I just, I love the Teton's. I think they're amazing. It's actually the first park. It was my first national park that really made me fall in love with national parks.

It's just, uh. Anytime I picture someone saying the Teton's, I envision that classic photo of that barn. The barn. Yeah. With the mountains in the background. It's the first thing that comes to mind. Mm-hmm. The three teets.

The three teets. Yeah, that barn is like, there's a ton of bison that herd around there too. So there's bison, the barn, the titans. I saw, even though living in New England, we have moose. The first moose I ever saw was in Jackson. And Jackson is actually, and the teetons are one of the best places in the United States, to see, and maybe the world, I'm not sure, to see moose, you will not go there and not see a moose. They'll actually cause traffic jams in Jackson. That's how many there are.

Yeah. They're everywhere. There's also, there's antelope. When I lived there, it was really cool. I lived on a horse ranch there. And over the mountain side from where we were, there was a wolf den. And every night, when I would go to bed, I would hear the wolves howling. I never saw one. It's the best sound. Such a cool sound. It's the sweetest lullaby ever. It's a little haunting. I was going to say, it's haunting. Yeah, it is.

But it's really cool. I could talk about the Grand Teetons forever. And a story, just go there. It's amazing. But so the park is very popular destination for hiking, fishing, and also mountaineering. There are more than 1,000 drive-in campsites and over 200 miles of hiking trails that also provide access to backcountry camping areas. Wyoming is also the number one state in the whole country and lightning deaths based on population.

Each national park has their own rescue crew, but inside the Grand Teton National Park, there are the Jenny Lake climbing rangers, and this group is the most elite and well-trained group of rescuers in all the national parks across the United States. When the park opened originally, they had four staff members in the entire park. And after World War II, tourism picked up, but it also brought in a lot of new climbers and new routes that were being explored in the park. So in 1948, backcountry rangers, Doug McLaren, Ernie Field, and Dick Emerson, based on their experience as veterans in the U.S. Army 10th Mountain Division, decided that they wanted to form a search and rescue team named the Grand Teton Rescue Team, which was later renamed the Jenny Lake Rangers. These men were skiers and climbers who trained in the Colorado Rockies in Mount Rainier and realized the benefit of having experienced climbers for positions in the park.

So since they began in 1948, they have been considered the best rescue team for mountain rescues across the country. And in 2003, when this story is based, Reni Jackson was their leader. They've built up quite the reputation throughout history for kind of being. Best of the best in their field. Yeah, they are known as the best of the best. They're the most athletic. They're the most fit. They're the most experienced climbers.

You have to go through a certain test to be part of their team. It is, they're not easing conditions out in the Grand Teton. So you have to be the most elite to be there. So in 2003, their team included. And I want to make sure I say there are a lot of people in this story. and I'm going to say their names and you don't have to keep track of everybody's names, but there are certain people that are going to come up over and over. So I just want to say their names and hopefully you can all kind of keep track of who is who.

And I'll try to do my best to make sure that that's obvious. So in 2003, their team included Rennie, who was the leader of the group, Brandon Torres, Leo Larson, Dan Burgett, Jim Springer, Jack McConnell, Chris Harder, Craig Holm, George Montioli, and Marty Vittek. All of these men were very experienced climbers, and they were highly trained in rescue operations. Every single one of them had summited the grant, which again is that highest peak in the Teeton range, and spent a lot of their time in the park and along many other climbing expeditions. They were in climbing expeditions ranging from Nepal, some trained in New Hampshire, which I thought was

really cool. Mount Washington. Yes, Mount Washington and up in there's actually a lot of climbing up in northern New Hampshire, especially when you get into Rumney. They have a lot of bouldering up there. And then there's Mount Washington. There's the notch. There's a lot of climbing up there.

Which, of course, you know, now that you say that, it's kind of like, duh. But as far as training in difficult conditions, Mount Washington came up first in mind just because of the changes and dramatic changes in weather that that mountain experiences. Yeah, they have rock climbing, ice climbing. They have some of the worst weather in the world there. Certainly a place to train. So they had people on this crew that trained in New Hampshire, Yosemite, Mount Rainier. They all had different backgrounds and jobs. Some came from medical jobs. There were wildlife biologists. There were wildland firefighters. There were climbing instructors, ski instructors. All different walks of life came. to this job, but what they had in common was their love for climbing, their experience in climbing,

and their dedication to being really fit and to being the best of the best in these training situations. So all of these men were trained in technical climbing, high altitude rescues, emergency medical care. They were setting anchors, raising systems, patient packaging, and high-risk helicopter operations. So these men were all in top physical shape, and they were capable of really long-distance running, hiking, climbing, mountaineering, and they were very experienced in survival skills.

So as far as outdoor, if you need to be rescued, you want these men somewhere nearby. Right. Sounds like it, yeah. This job is actually not something people do for the money. The money, in fact, for this position is, extremely low. They get paid as little as $30,000 per year, and it's a seasonal job. All of these Rangers actually have jobs that they work on the off season as well, because it does not pay for them. And they've all seen their fair share of gore and traumatic rescues. All of them have

collected body parts off mountains. They've scraped brain matter off of rocks. They've had to package them up and package pieces. Most of these victims that they come across are not old. They're all young. They're athletic and they're out pursuing their passion and being in the outdoors. They do these missions. They see these horrible things not getting paid very well, but they all really care about their job. And there was actually one occasion that was noted that the rescuers came to a body and they realized that the wife of the victim would really want to see her husband and hold his hand one more time. So up on the mountain, this group took out some of their saline, their gauze, their paper towels, and they actually cleaned up the blood from his hands and fingers.

So when they brought him down and his wife saw him, he would be cleaned up and she could hold his hand and not be as traumatized. That's very thoughtful. Yeah. There are a really dedicated group that are in this. park and in every other national park seasonal employees aren't likely to return for a long time, maybe for a season or two. However, the Jenny Lake Rangers have a very low turnover rate and people will stay there for many, many years until they even retire.

There's a level of maturity, brotherhood, and a sense of community that is unparalleled to any other team and any other national park. As far as turnover rates and things like that, with this, group of people based on what you go through with one another. I was just going to say it reminds me of a brotherhood and definitely a sense of community that you develop. When you go through traumatic things with people, you form bonds with them and you bond over shitty situations. I mean, we, not to this extent, as far as in veterinary medicine, we see a lot of horrible things, a lot of horrible situations, you bond with your team members over that in a really weird way, you know? And

like you form this sense of your small community or small worlds that despite low pay, hard conditions, traumatic things, you come back over and over to help because it's not the money. It's the reward that you get for helping those need. I can imagine that they're the best kind of people. They're the people that you would really want to know, I guess. And just you know that they are really wonderful people to even be doing this type of job. So this job is attractive because it allows them to be paid to climb and climbing is a huge part of all of their lives. But it also gives them the opportunity to save lives while they do it. So not only are they doing something that they love, but they're really impacting others while they do it. For these climbers, it's not

just a hobby, it's a way of life for them. And for them, climbing is what makes life worth living and worth the effort. So this is what they see as the best type of job. A former Jenny Lake Ranger, Pete Sinclair, wrote a book called We Aspired, the Last Innocent Americans. And in this book, he said, After you've climbed in one area a lot, you have the feeling that the mountains tell you how they ought to be climbed. You climb in a certain way because of the nature of the rock or terrain, weather, the history, the tradition of the place, and something you own, which asks for something more graceful than just surviving. If it works, you feel that you have done something beautiful. So in July 2003, getting into our story of one of these rescues that this elite team went through,

we're going to talk about it and we're going to dive into it because the brotherhood and the work between these men were really incredible and inspiring and did save lives. So I wanted to tell this story. So we're taking it into July of 2003. And Rob Thomas and Clint Summers, who were from Idaho, planned a trip with their wives, Shrika and Erica, to go to Grand Teton National Park and climb the Grand Teton. Rob and Clint had been best friends for years and they both worked together at the same health care company. This trip was originally planned because, it was Clint and Erica's fifth year wedding anniversary, and they wanted to do a couple's trip into the mountain. But quickly, this went to the four of them to inviting 11 of their other

friends, family, and friends of friends who also wanted to join this climbing trip. So they were joined by Rob's dad, Bob, his father-in-law, Steve, his older brother, Justin, and his stepbrother Reese, and Reese brought his friend Kip. And then they were also joined by some of Robin Clint's coworkers, Jake, Reagan, Rod, and Dave. So this ended up being a 13-person climbing trip that was planned. Instead of a double-date trip to the Teton's to climb, it turned it to a 13-person trip. I mean, that can happen easily. Any trip, it's like, you want to come, you want to come, you want to come, you want to come, let's all do it.

You say something and everyone's like, wait, I want to come, I want to come. And it's like, all right, let's go. So Erica, who is Clint's wife, she was really nervous about the trip actually, and she confided in Rob's wife, Shrika, about her thoughts. And she was nervous because a woman had just died a month before on the same climbing trip that they were planning after falling 800 feet to her death. And even though Erica herself, she was a very experienced and talented climber, she did lack some self-confidence. and she was a very talented and experienced sport climber, but she didn't have as much experienced mountaineering. So she really wasn't feeling confident about her climbing skills out on the teetons.

Okay, this is going to sound very naive, and I'm sorry to all the climbers out there, but just to clarify, so the difference between sport climbing and mountaineering is sport climbing more so in a contained environment, like at a climbing, gym or just on like when you go out bouldering and you know you're not you're not scaling a mountain you're just doing a short run it can also be doing climbs where there are already anchors set up for you along the route where mountaineering is more you have to set up all of your own stuff and there as you go as you go yeah okay july 23rd 2003 rob thomas was able to get a permit for their 13 person group to camp at Garnett Canyon and Garnett Canyon is the final area before the ascent to the summit of

the Grand Teton. So inside this area, there are different camping zones and the most popular and where most climbers camp is called Lower Saddle and it's the most popular because it's the closest to where you begin the difficult climb up the Grand Teton. Lower saddle at this time, it was completely full and the group had to be separated into two different base camping area. One, which was called Meadows, which was just over 9,000 feet in elevation, and the other one was at Moraine Camping Area, which was 11,000 feet of elevation. So they had to separate into two groups to camp for this. Two days before their trip, they stopped at the Jenny Lake Ranger Station, and it was here that a member of the climbing group spoke with the Jenny Lake Ranger Leo Larson. And Leo warned them that because they had such a large group that they needed to get an early start onto the

grand because of how long it would take them to do the climb because they would each have to go through sections and they'd have to do it in smaller groups so he just told them when you do this make sure you're getting up there early so you have plenty of time to do it during the daylight hours and actually the day before the climb while the group was hiking up to their base camps they actually ran into leo and another one of the rangers marty on the trail and they spoke to them for a little bit and the rangers actually inform them of the recent afternoon storm cycles that were bringing in lightning storms and this was pretty common in the teetons in the summertime they get lightning storms throughout the day it's nothing new but they did tell the climbers that they needed to get an alpine

start which meant a pre-dawn approach to climb so leo told them that they should be on the lower saddle which is the highest space camp area by no later than dawn which was at six o six o'clock 6 a.m. And he warned that getting an early start would reduce a lot of the dangers that they would face as the weather warms up. So that would include as the weather's warming, falling ice, rocks, and the thunderstorms tended to come later in the afternoons. So he suggested that it would be best again to leave as early as possible so they would have as much daylight as possible in case the group were to get delayed with how many people they were going with. So as the groups near the base camps, they separated into their perspective groups.

And that was Rod, Jake, Reagan, Reese, and Kip. They camped at Meadows, which was a couple miles lower than the Marine site, where the two married couples plus John, Bob, Steve, and Dave were camping there. So from Marine site, they were about a half-hour hiking distance away from lower saddle where the real climbing point began and where they wanted to be the following morning. Okay. So on July 26th, just before 6 a.m., Rob and Sharika woke up, and they woke up Clint and Erica as well. And shortly after the other climbers in their group emerged from their tents and they all sat around and they heated up some water, started cooking some breakfast.

It was a pretty slow moving, quiet morning. They were pretty tired from their hiking from the days before. and it wasn't until they started packing up their climbing gear and all their ropes and harnesses that they had gathered and their helmets that they began to start getting really excited. So now they were like, okay, they're waking up, they're getting excited, they're getting all their gear. And while they were waiting for the other half of their group, because they're still waiting for the other half of the group at the lower camp, they started deciding what type of clothing that they wanted to wear for the day. So the past six weeks it had been really warm, and there had been days that it was 90 degrees even close to the summit. So there were days that you could hike and climb in shorts and a t-shirt up there. And there were no signs of bad weather at the time, but there were a few of the hikers in the group, especially Erica.

She was preparing for cold weather. She brought tons of layers where some others thought shorts and a t-shirt were fine, and they kind of ranged. from what they had decided to wear for that day. This is giving me anxiety because weather is always a factor in almost every story we've ever done. And I go through the same conundrum literally every time I go for a hike. It's like it's going to be warm. It's warm here. What about in the mountain on the mountain or at the base of the mountain versus at the top?

Am I going to get cold? Am I going to get hot? Is the weather going to turn? It's like I'm dressing for every season. I have every season's worth of clothing either on me or with me. In my bag, I always try to pack a jacket like a small overlayer jacket, well, depending on the time of year, but if it's summer, and a rain jacket. I always keep in my bag whenever I'm hiking just to be on the safe side.

So it wasn't until 8 a.m. that the other group met them there, and they headed up towards lower saddles. So if you remember, the ranger had told them that they should be at low. lower saddle by 6 a.m. And it's 8 a.m. The group of 13 people, they broke up into four separate teams and they made it so they would have an experienced climber in each of the groups. So each team was led by a person who had submitted the grand before, which were Rob,

Justin, Dave, and Clint. And Dave led the first rope team of three, followed by Rob, leading four climbers. Each team carried a radio to talk to each other and they used these radios mostly for climbing commands. Some of the climbers were very new to climbing and it was actually Jake's first time ever climbing was a few weeks before that. So this was his second climb that he had ever done. This climb was considered to be very strenuous, but every single person in this group was very athletic and they were all in very good shape and they had experienced climbers and they didn't think that it was going to be an issue. They actually have group tours almost that will take you

up to this climbing and they'll bring not very experienced climbers up to this climb and it's not considered a really really difficult climb there are difficult sections but there are fairly newer climbers that do climb this and i don't think it's super recommended but people pay to do it and they do do it they thought with all of them being in pretty good shape that they would be fine well and all the support of everybody else in the group being an experienced climber. The logic was probably, yes, you may not be that experience, but with all of us combined, we'll help you out, it'll be fine, type of deal. Exactly. The group had decided that they were going to take the Exume Ridge route to the summit, and this was one of the most famous routes in all of America for alpine rock climbs.

So it was a beautiful day. There were bright blue skies. It was such. It was a little brisk out, but the route was crowded with people. There were groups taking their time and being in a large group. There was just no way for them to get around them. So they weren't moving as quickly as they had planned. By the time they actually made it to the flat area of Wall Street, which is the name of this part of the rock face, it marks the beginning of the Exume Ridge route. And by the time they got to that area, they actually came to a.

complete stop. There were more than a dozen climbers trying to maneuver their way around the technical climb and the whole area was backed up to the point where there was a line of people in front of them and behind them. Kind of just like a traffic jam. Yeah, which is kind of crazy to think they're 11,000 feet in elevation and they're in traffic essentially. Yeah, like hanging on the side of off the side of a mountain in bumper to bumper traffic. Yeah. That's kind of weird to think of it that way. It's the most popular climbing route in the U.S. So I guess it does make sense. So while they're waiting, they pass the time by eating snacks and taking photos of the beautiful views.

And they were really excited for this day. But as they're waiting to do this climb, their anticipation was growing. This climb they were about to do was actually the most technical part of the entire route. So after they had been sitting in line waiting about an hour, their excitement, they started to be. become really anxious. And Erica was debating if they should just turn around at that point because she was cold. She was tired. And this was taking a really long time. She didn't know if it was a good idea to keep going forward. But the group was cheering her on, telling her she could do it. She was already nervous from the get-go. So they were like, no, you can do it. We're already up here.

Like, let's go. We're not that far away at this point. Let's go. And so she sat and she watched a lot of the other climbers doing the route and after waiting for a while and watching, she decided that she was okay with the climb. But it was at that point that Clint, her husband, decided that it might help Erica feel a little bit more comfortable if the groups changed up teams because Clint and Erica had been climbing with Jake, who was the newest climber of the whole group. So Clint asked Rod, who was a much stronger climber than Jake, if he would trade places and climb with him and Erica to make Erica feel. more comfortable on this climb instead.

And Rod agreed to that. Just ease the nerves a little bit. Yeah, she's been nervous this whole time, have her just climbing with really experienced climbers instead of Jake who just didn't know as much as the other people did. So when they reached the sheer rock face of friction pitch, which is the upper part of Exume Ridge, dark thunder clouds were building in the northwest.

And it's very common, like I said before, in the titans for thunderstorms. to suddenly come into the ranges on the summer afternoons. And it was around 3 p.m. It started to sprinkle. And shortly after that icy rain drenched the group. It's cold. It's 34 degrees.

Now they're suddenly drenched. Clouds are coming in. And at this point, Justin, Rob's older brother, he suddenly came over with this horrible feeling of dread that he was about to die. And he felt so strongly about this that he actually pulled out his cell phone. He was crying. And he called his wife and told her that he loved her. That is how strongly he felt like he was about to die.

Well, because you also said some people were dressed for summer. Shorts, T-shirt, you're in all of a sudden 30-something degree weather. You're on a rock face. There's nothing sheltering you going from that stark difference. All these things were starting to come around. and he's up on this mountain, and he's seeing it all kind of unfold, and he just got this horrible feeling. So the first team, which was Dave's group,

had ascended the slick and wet granite a friction pitch. So the rocks are all wet and slippery at this point. And when he reached the top of this pitch, he actually called Rob to discuss what the next steps would be with this weather. And they discussed if they should continue on to the summit. And the problem here was that whichever decision they made, all of the groups needed to go to the top of friction pitch first, which is the most difficult part of the entire climb,

before they could descend down safely. If they were to go down the way that they came, they would have to set up anchors, and it would have been really dangerous for them to do that, and it also would have taken hours for them to do. So the only way down was for them to go up and then down the escape route. Okay, so they're not just backtracking. It's a whole different type of descent.

Yeah, it's not like a trail where you can just turn around and go back. You have to go down a safer route. Then you come up. Rob and Dave decided that it was time to call off the summit climb. The rocks are wet. Clouds are coming in. It's rained. They're soaked. And they just had this overwhelming feeling that something was very wrong. And both of them had done this climb before and they trusted their instincts. And they knew that mountain well enough to know that if you feel like something's wrong, you turn. around, you don't keep going. As the clouds continued to roll in and the weather was worsening, Jake and Reagan actually made a joke about Justin and Rob's trekking poles. So they had their packs on and they were sticking up and out of their packs and they actually made a joke that they would make excellent lightning rods in the storm. When they said that no one on this trip actually thought that at 13,000 feet lightning strikes were a real possibility. So that was just a a joke. A terrible, oh my. The worst kind of joke. So Dave, already being at the top of friction pitch after they decided to call the hike, he immediately started leading his group down the escape

route and the safest way. So they start repelling and going down that way. At this point, two other climbing parties actually cut off the climbing group behind him, and it was a group of two and a group of four. So cutting off climbers on a route is extremely rude and not following climbing etiquette. So this was a huge no-no. They shouldn't have done that. But they cut off the group and they had to wait for them to go beforehand. So they're sitting there. It's taking them longer now because they were cut off. And then Robb ascended friction pitch first and he set up metal anchors for the other climbers so he could actually belay them up himself to quicken the process. So instead of them climbing up and hooking in and whatever, he would just belay them up and help pull

them up and it would be a lot faster that way. Lastly, he belayed Clint up, who then anchored out the top of the pitch to belay his own group up. So he switched the leader of the next group hooked in, belayed his group up, is essentially what they were doing. So Rob then headed towards the traverse where he could repel down, and his team was spread out above friction pitch, climbing unroped in an easier section of the rock. So his group's not roped in at this point. They're just kind of, they're on an easier pitch, and they're going down to where they can start repelling down.

And then Clint's group started their sent up friction pitch. He was grouped with Rod and Erica, as we talked about earlier. And first, Clint belayed Erica from below. and brought her up to him and Rod was waiting at the bottom. Also waiting were Jake, Justin, and Reagan, and they were all tied in a single point anchor at the base of the pitch. So they were their own group before them as well. Clint belays Erica up and her climb up went smoothly

and she was drenched from the rain and she was shivering in the wind and she sat down to Clint and she cuddled up against him. So for a few moments it was just them together on this ledge and they just sat there taking in the views together as husband and wife. They gazed over the views of the Teton Valley and side by side, hip and thigh pressed together, they felt like they were on top of the world. Erica looked at Clint and said, it was worth it. Clint then told her how beautiful it was and how much he appreciated this moment with her on the sledge.

Then Erica and Clint both focused their attention on Rod. Erica moved slightly over, but still touching against Clint's thigh, but to give him more room to start belaying rod. And it was at that very moment that they were struck by lightning. The next moment, Clint was screaming. Looking around, it took a moment to figure out where he was. His eyes were blurred and he couldn't figure out where the screaming was coming from until he realized it was his own screams.

He looked to his left and his wife was sprang. brawled out on top of him, not moving and not breathing. He started to yell again, screaming her name over and over with no response. He then started yelling for help. Rob suddenly came up to the scene where he saw what was happening and he immediately looked over and he saw Erica's body. And I want to warn you all, I'm going to describe this scene and it is very graphic and it is hard to listen to. So if this is something that you do not want to hear, I recommend fast forwarding about 30 seconds. So he saw Erica's body and what he saw. He saw her eyes were bulging out of her head. Her lips were black. The entire right side of her face was very badly burned. Her clothing

was shredded and melted. Rob came over to Erica and he tried to feel for a pulse and he couldn't find one. He unclasped her helmet to find her hair was matted with blood and fluid leaked from her ears. He started to begin CPR, but the lightning strike had taken moisture from her body and her throat was dry and blackened. Her body was burned, bright pink and red, and when Robb turned her over, she was black and blue. Her body quickly began to swell and puff up. Both men continued to give CPR, even though they could tell that she was gone. Rob's father, who had showed up, continued attempts, and he switched on and off with Shariqa, but it was clear she had been directly hit by a bolt of lightning.

The bolt of lightning hit Erica and then traveled into Clint, snapping his leg. It then continued down to Rod, blasting him into an inverted position. That's a lot to take in. Yeah. It's a really graphic description, but this is the story. It's what I read directly out of the book. If you do buy this book, it is in the book as well. And I understand it is what happened, but it is just a really difficult scenario to envision, especially the attempts from her loved ones to try and revive her, even though mentally they knew she was gone. I just can't imagine being. in that position of trying just based out of desperation. Like, this can't be happening.

It's really sad. And they actually, they tried for 45 minutes. Oh, wow. And CPR is no joke also. It's not easy. If you're doing CBR correctly, it is physically taxing. You need to be switching out every minute to do. two minutes with someone else and to be doing that consistently for 45 minutes in the conditions

that they're already in is crazy. Yeah. So as all this is happening, they then realized that they were missing three other men from their group, Justin, Jake, and Reagan. And they began yelling over the side of the mountain for them and calling over the radio and had no response. Rob at this point calls the National Park Service to report what has happened. Eventually they were able to get through to Justin on the radio who confirmed that they were all alive but very injured. Jake was unconscious but breathing. They had fallen off the pitch and caught onto another one just barely and were all crammed together on top of each other. Somehow their rope had anchored into some of the rocks that they fell down and held them from falling completely off a cliff. So they're just dangling

there essentially. They fell onto a ledge, but it's a very small ledge and they're essentially all kind of on top of each other. Okay. They were all suffering injuries that range from broken bones, deafness, blindness, paralysis. Justin revealed that he had a deep laceration in his thigh and that he couldn't stop the bleeding. Bob then, who is Justin's father, decided that he needed to repel down to try and help him. Now meanwhile, the Jenny Lake Rangers got the dispatch called the lightning strike on friction pitch.

431 Teton dispatch respond to a report of a lightning strike on the Grand Teton. Five people down. I'm trying to get a better location for you. The party appears to be on friction pitch on the grand. One person not breathing, one person hanging upside down and not breathing, three people missing and not responding to verbal. And immediately, the range. knew that this was going to be a huge rescue mission just based on the description.

This was the kind of mission that the group had been training for their entire careers and no one wanted to miss out on this. So as soon as they got this call, there were Rangers coming in from whatever they were doing, wherever they were, and they headed straight to the Rangers station to get ready because they knew how big of a call this was, especially when they said that There wasn't just one person down, but there were multiple people down. They were able to get into contact with the climbers, and they were able to get more information about what happened. And based on their description and their locations, they knew that this was going to have to be a helicopter rescue mission. So there are two helicopters in the Grand Teton's at a time, and usually in rescue missions, there's only one available because there's often one of them is assisting in wildfires,

or they're on other type of mission in the area. On this day, however, both helicopters were available. So Lawrence Perry was brought in to help this rescue mission to extract the climbers from their site, and Lawrence Perry was one of the best of the best of pilots. He was an extremely experienced pilot with skills that most other helicopter or plane pilots just do not have. To join the Jenny Lake Rescue team, you have to pass a series of tests and interviews because you have to be compatible with this team because you have to have your utmost trust in the pilot.

The pilot has to have trust in the team because they're working together to navigate these conditions and also flying around the teetons. So the dynamic basically has to work for everyone, but the pilot also has to be extremely skilled. These conditions of the mountains were especially hazardous because of wind flare-ups and high altitudes, and there were many pilots that couldn't handle these elements. In addition to this, not many pilots would agree to short-haul rescues, and short-haul rescues are when you attach a person to the end of a 100-to-200-foot rope, and you fly them out on the helicopter dangling from underneath. And many pilots will not agree to do that because there's so much risk with that.

There are also a lot of pilots who aren't comfortable flying into a place like the Grand Teton's where they basically have to park their helicopter in the air and hover. This is especially hard because with these conditions and the shapes of the mountains, pilots have to be really aware of their depth perception so that the propellers of the helicopters don't hit on rocks and they don't crash in these. So these are really hazardous conditions. And on top of this, pilots need to test to get onto a team like the Jenny Lake climbers. And the test is challenging. Most pilots won't even take it because it's that challenging. And they have a series of challenges that they need to do and that they need to go through.

And this book actually explains all of those challenges. So if you want to know more about it, they really go into depth about this testing. They have to do this assessment and they have three minutes to pass and perform. And Lawrence, being the extremely skilled pilot that he was, he had three minutes to pass this test and he passed in only two. Wow. So the first step in this mission was to get an accurate picture of exactly what was happening on friction pitch. and the only way to do that was to fly up there and get pictures that they could bring back to the crew. So they could see what was going on and they could form a plan to rescue them.

So Lawrence flew Leo and Dan up to assess the scene and they went up there. They took photographs and as quickly as they flew up, they were back down. They were on time constraints here. So immediately they're going as quick as they possibly can. So they come back, they bring these photographs. and one of the photographs that they bring back was of Rod, who at the time, when rescuers saw this photo, they referred to him as the folded man. Rod was folded into a position in mid-air hanging from a rope, his belly was up towards the sky, and his feet and his head were hanging below him. I was envisioning him the other way around.

Me too, when I first read it, and then they described it that way. way and the rangers saw this and they were like it how can he be alive how can is he alive how can a person be in this position his back must be broken yeah i was envision it envisioning it the other way around like you're just hanging of course he's i'm envisioning he's hanging from his harness just like dangling with his butt up and his It's the worst way. Opposite. Opposite way, yeah. His bellies up, his feet and his head are both hanging down. And the ranger's first concern, assuming that he is still alive, was his ability to breathe. Being in that position, it must be affecting his airways. So they were immediately concerned about him. The team started to plan their rescue attempt. And they divided into different groups based on their skill levels and their abilities. So they were, were planning who was going to be the medic who was going to come in who is going to be performing the extractions they were coming up with a plan for what they wanted to do first they go out lawrence takes

leo up to put him into the scene to get him there and they arrive and there are just clouds surrounding the whole area they can't see anything and they have to turn around at that point jack and jim who were on the team decided that they needed to go by foot. And they decided that they were going to run and that they were going to climb up the Grand Teton to them on foot to help them out. Do you know how long it took the original groups to get from where now the Jenny Lake rescue operation personnel are starting to that point at which they're stuck? It took them overall about seven hours to get there.

So they're just like off. They're like we're just doing it. We're getting up there. Okay. Yeah. And remember, they are only two people. They don't have to wait on a group of 13. And they're also extremely fit people who, I mean, these are the elite of the elite.

They can probably move a lot faster than these other people. But they are in shorter groups, but they are carrying a lot of gear with them as well. Yeah. It's not an easy feat by any means. No. It was at 6.09 p.m. 2 hours and 23 minutes after the initial call for help that Lawrence was able to drop Leo at the scene to begin a rescue attempt. And he was the first one on the scene at that point. Okay. So there's people coming from the helicopter at this point because Lawrence is the pilot. Okay. I just want to, there's a lot of people in groups and situations going on right now.

Yeah, there's a lot of people that I have it straight. Jack and Jim are running up to try and get there, and they were able to put in Leo before they got there at 6.09 p.m. So Leo gets there, and he starts to assess the seam, and when he gets there, it's clear. It's a horrible accident. The climbers were completely shattered looking, just so overwhelmed. They're covered in blood. They're disoriented. They're cold. They're confused. and Leo gets there and his first mission was to assess each climber. He needed to find out who was the most critical because he needed to get the most critical person out first.

And at this point, he's fighting time. Because it was late in the evening now, it was essential to get the climbers out that wouldn't make it there throughout the night. So he had to find the most critical people to get out before nightfall because after nighttime hit, helicopters legally weren't allowed to find. fly because it was too dangerous to be up in the mountains during the night and not being able to see. So that gave him until 9.32 p.m. from 609 p.m. to 9.32 p.m. to extract all of these people off the mountain. And at this point, hypothermia was a big concern. So the first person he assessed was

Erica. And the group told him that she was dead. And he went over and he could tell right away that she was gone, but he checked her pulse, looked her over, caringly, and he very quietly pronounced her dead. He then turned his attention to Rod, who they referred to as the folded man, and he asked a group if he was still alive. And the climbers confirmed that he had been moaning and responding to them when they were yelling to him. So Leo yelled to him a couple times, and after a couple times effort, he did hear a couple low groans and moans confirming that he was still, in fact, alive hanging there. Alive and responsive to something. Barely. Yeah. At 615, Lawrence short hauled Craig into the scene with medical equipment,

and he did the short haul in a total of six minutes. So they're moving. They're moving as fast as they can to get this. Because if you remember, Leo was dropped in at 609. And, And the helicopter dropped him, went back, picked up Craig, and got back all within six minutes. Wow. So they are moving. They're hustling. And this pilot is extremely talented because he has to hover over the exact spot to drop in these people where they're on this really small rock face, too. Yeah, the talent, you know, that that man has.

Yeah. And while Leo was explaining the conditions of everyone that he had seen. So far, Lawrence continued to short haul rescuers into the scene two at a time. These rangers were moving incredibly swiftly and efficiently at the scene, and they were bringing in oxygen masks, IV lines. They were bringing in things to warm the climbers up such as sleeping bags and heating packs because of the real concern of hypothermia up there. Then the second helicopter, because there's two helicopters that are on scene, the second helicopter, which was flown by Rick Harmon, was able to drop off more medical supplies. So he drops them off at the scene.

And the rescuers, it's starting to get later and they need to move fast. They're trying to get everyone off the mountain. And a big concern at this point is that they're just not going to have the time to. They're assessing people and trying to decide who can go. And ultimately, they decide that the four climbers, who were their friends that were not struck by lightning, were the lowest priority to rescue and they were not going to rescue them. And they needed to climb back down themselves. They didn't have time to rescue them and they were going to risk hypothermia overnight.

They weren't struck by lightning. They were in fine physical condition. Emotionally, they were not, but they said you need to go down. And they agreed. They said, yes, save them, we'll go. You have to commit your time and resources to those most in need. Yeah. At that point, they had decided that Rod was their top priority mission to assess because of his

compromised airway. and Craig began to repel down to him with medical gear to assist him. His first step was to give him oxygen and he began to talk to Rod in which at this point he would mostly just moan. Craig was just trying to talk to him and trying to talk to him and at one point he does tell him, get me out of here alive. I have a two-year-old at home. Oh my God, my stomach just turned. Meanwhile, during this, Dan was assigned as the medic for the lower site, and that was where Justin Jake and Reagan had landed. Dan starts rappelling down there to get there, and he is shocked that when he gets there, Jack and Jim, who were the men who had ran and climbed to them, had gotten there first.

As we said before, this climb took this group seven hours to get there. For Jack and Jim, it took them a total of 45 minutes to reach them. Wow. That is insane. Isn't that insane? I just picture like two Spider-Men like up the mountain, like insanely. I mean, is talented the word, skilled? Skilled. Skilled, for sure. 45 minutes, the physical shape that these men had to have been in to do that.

And they did, it wasn't just, there was a big portion of hiking and there was also a part of climbing too. and they got there in 45 minutes. Yeah, and the adrenaline, knowing that people's lives are at risk is definitely a factor as well. Definitely motivation to get there as fast as you can. So they reached the three climbers and they realized that the lightning bolt had ricocheted off of the mountain and knocked the three climbers off their balance and down a 100-foot rock face where they landed altogether. And when they got there, it appeared that Justin had to be there. a bilateral thigh fracture and what he was originally concerned about with the bleeding from his

thigh wound had actually almost completely stopped bleeding by then so they thought he had maybe his femoral artery was bleeding out they were really concerned about Justin and when they got to him they realized he wasn't as injured as they had originally expected him to be so cringy so cringy must have been in so much pain I can't even believe he's still in, like not fading in and out of consciousness. Because you know, like when you're in severe pain like that, you just fade in and out. Yeah. So he definitely has an injury, but he's not bleeding out as they had originally thought.

And in this book, they actually described Reagan as one of the lucky ones because he was bruised. He had a large burn on his body. and he was starting to become hypothermic, but otherwise he was okay, is how they described. And all those things sound horrible to me, but he was described as being one of the lucky ones because Jake was the one who became the biggest concern of the group. When they were struck by the lightning, Jake was unconscious, and when he woke up, he was completely paralyzed. He had severe head injuries from smashing his head on the rocks during the fall, and he was

not very coherent. He was so out of it. He was dysphoric and he said things like, where are we? And he even had a smile on his face and said, oh, what a pretty view. Bad news. Yep, not good. He had a serious concussion and he was continuously asking what had happened. Even after getting responses being told we were struck by lightning, he would ask again and again to the point where the guys were like, hey, cut it out, you've asked enough, but he just didn't know what was happening. Jake was the most concerning of the three of them, but he was also the hardest one to get to because he was wrapped up in a bunch of climbing rope and he was directly underneath Justin's body. And they actually found because the three were attached to

the same rope that when they fell down, Reagan and Justin essentially rode Jake down this rock face and Jake took the brunt of every hit on the fall down. Oh, no. So they're all entangled in the same climbing ropes. Okay. And actually the only thing that saved them from falling off of this rock face was this climbing rope got stuck and wedged in between some rocks and some crevices to keep them from falling off the cliff.

So the rescuers are assessing the situation and they decided that there just wasn't enough time left in the day to maneuver getting the most critically injured out first. They need to try and get everyone out as fast as they could because if they spent time trying to cut Jake out of these ropes or try to get Rod down from Rod's hanging, he's really hard to extract at this point. If they spent a lot of time trying to get them out first, they weren't going to get anybody else out. And also to get to Jake, they needed to get Reagan and Justin out.

first. They threw out the idea of getting the most critically injured out and were getting the easiest ones out as fast as they could. So the first extraction would be Reagan and it would be Clint. And Clint was Erica's husband, if you remember from earlier. And although Clint wasn't severely injured, he had a burn and he was very distraught. They wanted to send him out first because they didn't want him to be near Erica's body anymore and they just wanted to get him off of the mountain as quickly as possible. So they were each strapped into harnesses and they actually call these screamer suits and they were flown off the mountain in the short haul rescues. So the helicopter took them to lower pitch where that second helicopter was where that helicopter would fly

them down to Teton Valley where they could be transported to a hospital. And the rangers had actually called in multiple ambulances. They called in hospital helicopters and hospital planes to come in for these people. So at the bottom in the Teton range were a ton of medical crew waiting to pick these people up wherever they needed to go. Yeah, exactly. So they essentially had a bit of a trip because they got picked up by one helicopter, short hauled to another helicopter where they could be. put inside of the helicopter. So if you remember, they're dangling below from a rope, 100, 200 feet below to get to

the second location. So they get them into the second location and get them actually inside of a helicopter. And then from that helicopter, they're transported to the members of the medical staff from whether it be other rangers or the hospital or whatnot. And then they're transported from there. It's like a, what do they call it, a triathlon? on. A relay race. A relay race where you tag in for your duty.

Yes. That's essentially, yeah. What this is at this point. So next, Lawrence came in to pick up another climber. And he had Rennie inside the helicopter that was guiding him to let him know how close he could get to the mountain without risking the propellers

hitting the mountain. So they're relying on each other for depth perception and looking. Next to be extracted would be Bob Thomas. He was the that repelled down to help Justin. He had been incredibly helpful while the rescuers weren't there to help stop blood and keep Jake conscious because they were trying, he was trying to make him not fall asleep while he was up

there. But when Rangers asked him if he thought he was able to climb down himself, he answered no and that he was physically and emotionally exhausted. So they decided to just short haul him out and he was flown out at 752 p.m. Next was Justin. Justin had been so tangled in rope that was stuck inside the crevices of the mountain that it was hard to tell if they had cut every line when attempting the extraction. When they got him into the suit and ready to go, the concern was that he would still be stuck on the rope and that when the helicopter went to take off, it would pull and be stuck and actually send the helicopter spiraling into the mountain. So helicopters are really sensitive, I guess, and just reading on them. wins. There's a lot of navigation. And if there's like a huge pull when they go to take off, that can off throw their whole balance and could actually send them into a crash. Lawrence decided that he would very, very slowly start flying off with Justin. And the Rangers

actually stood there all with knives out ready to cut as fast as they could, any ropes that they might have missed that were still in the mountain side. This is like making my heartbeat. There's a lot going on. Yeah, and luckily, they flew off without a hitch. They had gotten all the ropes and just flew Justin right off the mountain. Now it's getting later in the day, and they had limited time to extract rod, who, as we know, is the folded man. Craig, Leo, George, and Jim had set up a raising system through ropes to pull rod up to the ledge from where he was hanging. Because remember, he's still just hanging mid-air.

but it was extremely slow and they just didn't have the time to be moving this slowly. They needed more manpower to help pull him up. And Jim, who was on the lower section, notice what was going on. And Jim was described by his peers as a beast. He was a beast of an athlete and he was an extraordinary climber. And he looked over at Jack and Jack knew exactly what he was thinking. just said go. So Jim free solo climbed up to the top of friction pitch to help. He didn't strap in on a rope. And this was a climb that he had done himself many times before. He was very confident in it,

but he free solo climb to the top, which again is one of the hardest sections of this whole climb. This is giving me flashbacks to Free Solo, the film that also my palms were flooding the entire I was like, you know when you're bought, you don't even realize your body is tense until you relax it. And you're like, oh my God. Like I was just so anxious that whole time. That gives me, again, fear of heights and this and that and whatever. But especially in this situation where there's so much more at stake and you're already risking your life and now you're really risking your life for you soloing this. Which I think just shows the dedication to really wanting to.

save their lives. While they continued to get Rod to a point where they could be rescued, the three Rangers with Jake prepared his extraction as well. He was loaded up into a harness and sent off at 8.53 p.m. And Jake at this time, he was still not very coherent. He was taking the whole situation very lightly. He was taking jokes. He was kind of just how they described in La La Land because of a clear head injury. He actually, before he went off, he asked the Rangers if they could take a photo of him when he flew off the mountain in the rescue and the rangers took it for him. So there's a photo of him flying off. So after this, they only had 30 minutes left of fly time and they needed to extract rod.

With him most likely having a spinal injury, he needed to be sent off in what is called a litter. And basically, it kind of looks like a gurney, but it has sides, kind of like a giant basket for a body. There's no top on it. You just lay in it and you're strapped in. And they decided that they needed to send him off in this. And the concern with doing this was that if he was laying down and the condition that he was in, that if he vomited at any point during this ride, he would suffocate and die. So they were really concerned about even extracting him this way.

And Craig and George decided that they both needed to fly with him. to keep him on his side from vomiting if he did vomit and also to be taking his vitals. His blood pressure was extremely low and his pulses were very, very weak. There was no doubt that Rod was dying and they were not comfortable just sending him off in this. Neither of them had ever flown on a short haul with someone being rescued before. But they very calmly, very confidently jumped on, strapped in and went for the ride. They actually called in and they asked for permission to just fly directly to the bottom of the Teton range to get him directly to personnel because they didn't think that there was time

to stop at the other helicopter, load him up and bring him down. He just needed to go, which also defeated the purpose of a short haul. The short haul was just to get them as quickly as possible into a safe zone so they could get them inside of a helicopter. Now they were traveling much farther with all of them just dangling in the air. So they were able to get him directly to the bottom, boarded onto another flight, and sent directly to the hospital. This left the Rangers. Leo, Dan, Jim, Jack, George, and Marty on the mountains still with Erica's body. And they all stood up there wondering if one of them were going to have to stay the night with her to avoid any climbers seeing her in the morning and then waiting to extract her in the morning. And we're going to,

while they're all sitting there wondering, suddenly the second helicopter appeared right over their head to pick up Erica. The helicopter had been in the air at 909, which is when the last flight is allowed to go out, and they had known that if they had landed before coming to pick Erica up again, they wouldn't have been allowed back up. So they just went straight up there to pick her up. The Rangers were able to package up her body and sent her off on the last flight. of the night, successfully getting every single climber off the mountain. Wow. In that short, three hour or less window.

Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah, they really worked together. And one of the things that they commented on a lot after was how seamlessly they all worked together and made this whole thing happen between the rescuers, the pilots, the people on the ground. everyone worked so well together. Everything went off without a hitch. In terms of rescue, it was the perfect rescue. There was not a single thing that they did that should have been done

differently. They figured it out together. They worked as a team. They figured out who needed to go, what they needed to do, how they were going to do it. And they managed to get every single one of them off the mountain when they were planning for some of them to have to spend the night. So best case scenario, in a worst case scenario. Mm-hmm. An update for all of the climbers on this mountain. Everyone, except for Erica, survived this ordeal. So Rod ended up getting flown to Salt Lake City Hospital.

He was actually in a coma. They put him in a medically induced coma. He came out of it. He ended up having to do physical therapy, and he did have some damage to his body, but he was not paralyzed and he has recovered and he hikes and bikes and does things to this day. But they did all survive except for Erica. Do you know the status of Jake, the one that was having that mental?

So what I read from him was that he made a full recovery except for he has small memory loss issues sometimes. Again, another best case scenario. He was taking the brunt of two other full-grown men tumbling 100 feet down a mountain after a lightning strike. All the climbers that did come out of it, they came out with scars and burns and things like that that they live with for the rest of their life. But besides that, they all lived.

And except for tragically, Erica did pass away because she was the one who was directly struck by lightning. It's a tragic and horrible story, but it's also, I thought, a really wonderful story of the Jenny Lake climbing rangers of how well they work together and really the significance that they have in these parks and the work that they really do do in these parks. I mean, they saved all their lives. I think all of them would have died up there of hypothermia. They were soaking wet and they were struck by lightning. They all would have died if they hadn't been there to rescue them. And there's no other climbing group in the country that could.

have done that mission the way that they did. So I thought it was really important to highlight their expertise in what they can do. And actually, coincidentally enough, in 2010, there was another story very similar to this one where a group was hiking and climbing in the same area. And a climber got struck by lightning and died. and there was a 17-person rescue mission, and it's the biggest rescue mission that has ever been conducted in the Grand Teton's, which is maybe a story for another episode. Oh, okay.

Well, thank you for sharing that story, and I agree that while it was tragic and sad, which is kind of the reoccurring theme, just FYI to everyone who listens. this is a morbid podcast. It's disturbing. I do like the fact that you did highlight the expertise of the rescue operation group because we do have them to thank.

And like you said, each national park has their own search and rescue, whether it be a search and rescue, an elite group of climbers, et cetera, whatever. These are the people that are helping keep visitors safe when they get. into situations, whether it be an accident or part of their own doing and they need help. These people dedicate their lives to helping others and they deserve some credit. Absolutely. And I did get the story from A Bolt from the Blue by Jennifer Woodleaf. And some of the parts of the story I actually took word for word from her mouth in it. And if you want to read this book and kind of like I said before, maybe I spoiled it for you because I tell you the entire story.

But this book goes individually into each of the climbers and their stories and where they come from and their expertise. It goes into Lawrence, the pilot and his expertise and his experience and it goes into their family lives. And it really dives really deep into these ranger's stories. And she tells it really beautifully. And I think it would, even though you know what happens, I still think it would be worth reading. Right on. Yeah, we're going to have, we're starting like a book club. Club.

Yeah, recommendation, whether it be books, articles. Well, I think that wraps it up for this week. Yeah. Yeah, that's all I have for the Grand Teton. National Park. Don't let this deterre you from it. It's a beautiful area. And we'll be talking to you guys all week because it's National Park Week. But for, oh, and Friday, we are going to be posting our Patreon episode. So if you are not a Patreon and you would like to be and you would like to listen to this story, you can go to our Patreon link. It is on our Instagram National Park After Dark. If you click the link, you can go there. Or you can go onto our website, M-P-A-D. podcast.com and go to our Patreon link. And this is a story that is exclusive to our Patreon members. So you can only hear it if you're a Patreon. This story is going to be good. It is if you're claustrophobic, you're going to have a lot of anxiety. I'm claustrophobic and I sure did.

So if you're interested, go on to our Patreon, subscribe and you can listen there. Yep. So we'll be posting on our Instagram. And like always, if you have a story of your own, please reach out to us either through Instagram or send us an email at NPAD podcast at gmail.com. So until next time, enjoy the view. But watch your back. That's her up. Good. Bye. Happy National Park Week. Great. Go enjoy your parks. Bye. Good luck. Good luck. Don't die. You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. 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

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