A Perilous Route, a Deadly Tragedy: Mountaineering Company Reflects on May’s Fatal Mount Rainier Climb

The 2014 climbing season has been hard for Alpine Ascents International. 

In mid-April, five company sherpas were among the 16 killed in an avalanche on Mount Everest. Less than two months later, two guides and four clients were lost on Mount Rainier. Now, months later, the company is still coping with loss, and the traffic leading to the summit hasn’t slowed.

By many in the mountaineering community, Seattle-based Alpine Ascents is considered to be one the most respected guiding services around the world. 

“These aren’t people you just pass by in the office,”  AAI Program Director Gordon Janow said. “In a lot of ways, they are the company.”

To even consider summiting a peak like Rainier, clients have to be in great physical condition, and guides have to be highly qualified. However, anyone attempting a route as challenging as the one that traverses Liberty Ridge must be exceptional. 

Although mountaineering is a very dangerous hobby, climbers calculate   every move and are very conservative with risks they’ll take. 

“We don’t look at this sport or guiding as something that’s random. We try to control the things we can control to its fullest,” Janow said. “A guide will never get grief for turning someone around or leaving early. We need to set that tone from the beginning.”

However, all the planning and caution in the world can’t change weather patterns or control the terrain.

Rainier is one of the most climbed high elevation mountains in the world. In 2013, 10,770 climbers attempted the summit, but only 129 of those attempted Liberty Ridge. It’s considered by the mountaineering community to be the most difficult, but also the most spectacular path up the mountain. 

Janow said for safety reasons his company only climbs Liberty for a few weeks between May and June, but people climb it as late as September. The trip was lead by guides Eitan Green and Matt Hegeman, who had climbed Rainier more than 50 times.

Despite their caution, this was the worst accident on the mountain since 11 climbers were killed by an avalanche on the Ingraham Glacier in 1981. 

The six climbers were last heard from on Wednesday, May 28, when Hegeman called AAI on a satellite phone to report they were camping at 12,800 feet. The company called the party in as missing after they failed to return on time. Then, a couple days later, searchers found their equipment and avalanche beacons 3,300 feet below the Liberty Ridge campsite they were using. 

Park officials aren’t sure what happened, and it’s doubtful they ever will. Initial speculation pointed to an avalanche, but there’s no way to know for sure. 

Stefan Lofgren has been a mountaineering ranger for nearly 25 years. As a member of the law enforcement branch of the National Park Service, he also trained as a federal investigator. When officials first learned that the party was missing, Lofgren said he was the first one in a helicopter searching the area.

“We hadn’t seen their bodies, and I didn’t see any avalanche or rockfall. It could’ve been that I just didn’t see any evidence of that,” he said. 

In his investigation, he saw a trail of digital bread crumbs the climbers left on their ascent. One of them posted a photo of their campsite on Facebook and they were communicating with satellite phones texting friends, and receiving live weather updates from Alpine Ascents on a regular basis. 

“That wouldn’t have happened ten years ago, technology has enabled us to know more about this accident than any other before,” he said. “But, I don’t think we’ll ever know what exactly happened and I think people will have to be happy with that.”

At first, he said a lot of people from the public, including himself, wanted to blame the guides. According to him it was, “raining cats and dogs” at Longmire the day the party went missing, and it seemed like an awful day to be on the mountain. But satellite weather systems proved that wasn’t the case at Liberty Ridge. Now, as the investigation wraps up, he believes it was a freak accident that could have happened to anyone.

Lofgren said he hasn’t seen a drop in the number of people attempting Rainier since the accident and parties climbed the Liberty Ridge route even the day after it had happened. He said risk is a part of the sport, and climbers know it.

“Anyone who mountaineers long enough is going to have stuff happen,” he said. “Sometimes, bad things happen to good people doing everything correctly.”

A helicopter recently saw the remains of three of people where the six climbers were assumed to have fallen. But whether or not they’re pulled from the mountain is far from certain. Lofgren said the part of the Carbon Glacier where they are is too dangerous to send in retrieval crews. 

Cravasses are common in the area and, to make it worse, the Willis Wall looming high above calves off enormous chunks of ice and stones which fall more than 3,000 feet onto the upper section of the Carbon Glacier below. 

“We’re not comfortable sending people in there,” he said. “You can predict and plan around snow avalanches, but you can’t forecast for ice avalanches.”

Still, out of respect for the families, park officials would like to send the climbers home. At this point, the best option may be attaching a claw crane to a helicopter and retrieving the bodies, but there are no guarantees at this point.

According to the National Park Services’ statistics, an average of one person a year dies on the mountain and — not including the six that went missing this year — 89 people have died on the since 1897. Nearly a quarter of those have been on the Liberty Ridge route. Lofgren said it’s not uncommon that bodies are left on the mountain, but that brings little solace to Alpine Ascents International. 

“Dealing with the bodies is extremely difficult as well as the other pieces. It’s part of what we’re dealing with in trying to meander our way through reacting appropriately,” said Janow. “We’re all very devastated. We’re not skilled at dealing with these things any more than anyone else.”

Despite the accident, Janow said his company will likely continue to climb Liberty Ridge, but the question is when. He said their guides have more than enough training, and only experienced clients are brought up Liberty, “but I have no idea what next year will bring.”