[HitTheTrail]

The Wenatchee paper is down to four days a week now and is delivered late in the afternoon on three of those days. This was in today's paper: LEAVENWORTH — Rescue crews airlifted an injured climber Tuesday after he fell roughly 100 feet while descending Mount Stuart. Pete Schoepke, 43, of Portland was solo climbing down the Cascadian Couloir, a rocky and steep route segment often used to summit the mountain. Schoepke called 911 at 12:28 p.m., reporting that he had an open, compound fracture to his lower leg, according to a press release from the Chelan County Sheriff’s Office. Shortly after, the KITTCOM emergency dispatch center forwarded information to Sheriff’s Office search and rescue coordinators. Naval Air Base Whidbey Island then flew out a hoist-capable helicopter to help rescue the fallen climber, according to the release. State Emergency Management texted Schoepke while organizing the rescue. Due to winds and low clouds, Navy rescuers could initially only drop down two medic corpsmen below Schoepke, according to the release. The corpsmen then made their way up to Schoepke. The helicopter crew waited several hours for a better weather window, but to no avail, according to the release. Rescuers then decided it would be necessary to relocate Schoepke to a more accessible location. To get help moving Schoepke, the helicopter flew to Pangborn Memorial Airport, picked up three Chelan County Mountain Rescue crew members and dropped them off on the mountain. Shortly after that, the weather cleared briefly at about 8:30 p.m. and the helicopter crew was able to conduct a hoist extraction of Schoepke and the two Navy medics, without having to relocate him. He was flown to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle for treatment, according to the release. The Navy helicopter then flew back to Mount Stuart and picked up the Mountain Rescue team. Schoepke is in “serious but stable condition,” according to the release.

[Mike Collins]

It is quite possible that he slipped on the snow. But the Cascadian Couloir is a lot easier to get into than out of. You have to mentally establish a landmark because on the descent there is a tendency to drop past the entry point into very steep terrain.

[Moose]

[joker]

Good luck to the injured climber. I wonder if this was where a friend mentioned years ago seeing the track in the snow from a long slide puncuated at the bottom by bloody snow surrounding a rock at the bottom of the track. This was one of the stories he would tell when teaching others about use of ice axes, as he wanted to be sure we understood that if you don't instantly stop a slide you many get moving too fast to have a hope of stopping it, and that on a certain combo of steepness and hardness you may just not be able to stop it period. He never learned what happened to whoever left their blood on the snow there.

[gb]

[pula58]

I have been up and down that slope-hated it. Definitely a place to face-in, and use best/most careful ice axe technique and footwork, and use crampons if the snow conditions warrant it. I climbed the North ridge of Stuart (having done the cascadian couloir route a few years previously) and the whole way up the technical North Ridge, in the back of my mind, I was worrying about having to go down that snow slope under the false summit. Hope the injured climber mends well.

[Kascadia]

[Guiran]

Normally, when I descend Stuart, I go over the false summit, which, as noted by others, requires either downclimbing the steep snow field or messing around in the loose look on the margins. The last time I climbed the west ridge, I was directed towards a bypass below the false summit. Coming back from the true summit, drop maybe 100' into Ulrich's couloir to a notch in the ridge where one either makes an exposed move over a boulder or wriggles through a narrow slot. This route pops out low on the snow field and minimizes time spent on either the snow or lousy rock. Two years ago, this option was pretty well cairned, as is the standard route back over the false summit.