EISPIRATEN

Taco (Ryan), Yoskolo (Alex) and myself (EnFuego - David) made a trip up to Baldy to make a second ascent of Lightning Couloir. We arrived shortly before 6am to windy conditions, and semi warm temps (minus the wind chill).

I would like to say it was a great trip......Ah, what the hell, it was an awesome trip. Alex and I wanted to make this trip a practice for anchors, belaying, running belays, etc.

We donned our crampons in the parking lot and with loaded packs, and enough gear to protect both sides of the mountain, we started up Big Butch Wash at 6:00am

Ryan leading the way:



Lookingback at Baldy at first light:



Getting close to steep section, we check our gear and ready ourselves for the assault:



Looking up into the couloir:



Me and Ryan looking up for a quick pic:



Looking down at what we just came up, dodging rockfall the entire way:



Alex - just behind the rockoutcrop, rocks raining down everywhere:



Alex leading first pitch:



Ryan soloing route:



Don't know what this is:



Alex at top of first pitch, before I take the lead and send second pitch:



Looking down to Alex after my lead:



Alex and Ryan after 30 minutes rescue of Ryan:



Not knowing what happened, Ryan gets belayed down to my stance:



Ryan arrives at my belay:



BAM!!!! Lightning Strikes. Son of a gun was hit by a nice size rock. Possible compound fracture:



Looking down at what we need to lower Ryan down:



Self portrait:



Ryans hand at second belay down:





Alex coming down from his belay on self made snow bollard:



Ryan at 2nd or 3rd belay, trying to get food and water in him:



Hero of the day:





Some of our gear anchored in snow/ice:



After 5 rappels, slope is gentle enough to walk down:



Paramedics (and Ryan) in parking lot:







Crazy Arse pilot giving everyone airshow on way down:



It took over 4 hours to get Ryan down 5 full pitches. This was definately a learning experience for everyone. We learned a lot of techniques, and most impotantly, how assist fellow climber in need.

At time of this post, Ryan is in Emergency Room. Ryan - I hope everything is well. Best wishes brother. If not, you can always take up flat land hiking.

Alex - you were awesome. I'll climb with you anytime. OK, OK - Ryan I'll climb with you too.

Ryan buddy, I've never seen someone so calm and so put together after an injury like that. You took it like a champ and I hope it's not as bad as the paramedics feared.
David, you're a superstar and I couldn't have asked for a better partner!
I hope to climb with you both soon and collect on that beer/pizza rain check!

ouch! Ow Ow Ow

Good everybody stayed calm and got down without any further misadventures

Get well soon

Ask for the good drugs !

serious bummer about the right arm though

Also, perhaps I can fill in a couple gaps...
As I was building an anchor at the top of the 5th pitch, Taco soloed past me. Throughout the morning, we had been experiencing some nasty rockfall and had been avoiding it mostly by placing our belay stations behind outcroppings and on the safer side of the coulier. It was no surprise to hear Taco yell "Rock!" I looked up and saw a few baseball size rocks go past, but none on a collision course with me. I was about to resume my anchor construction when I heard: "Hey man, I need your help." Pretty calm, really all things considered. After traversing out and spotting what seemed to be an entire kitten worth of blood on the snow, I concluded that something, quite obviously, was wrong. Taco and I made our way to the sheltered right side of the coulier as quickly as possible and I had a quick look at his arm. It seemed to me to be just a nasty cut and some serious bruising, but not knowing we decided to take the quickest route to medical help. In retrospect, I might have bandaged the wound right away. But lacking anything very appropriate and seeing the bleeding slow down quickly, we resolved to make it down the coulier ASAP!
This involved an unfortunately time consuming series of top-roped belays. First David would descend to build a belay anchor and I would lower Taco to him. After they were safe, I would either down climb or rappel (or both) to their position and we would start again.

Taco, get well soon!!!

Jeebus! And ouch!!!

Incredible team work guys, seriously. Way to help our master of ceremonies out.

Taco dude, here's to a speedy recovery. This puts that adrenaline conversation in perspective!

You guys are friggin made of win! Thanks again a million times!

Arm is OK. Big hole but no broken bones, thank God. Lotsa blood loss so I was a tad messed up.

I'll have pics online soon, just very hard to type right now.

Sorry to hear you got hurt, Nice work David and Alex to get him down quickly and safely.

Nice work Taco for staying calm and letting others help in your time of need.

Hopefully Taco will heal quickly and get back out there before winter is over as we all know Taco loves the Winter sport better than the summer version.

Hopefully it's not as bad as it looks - get well soon.

Sorry to hear about that rock. Nothing like good partners to get your ass out of a bad situation! I hope the healing goes quickly.

I'm glad your arms not broken! Nasty gash! Good job on the evacuation. 8) Thats gonna leave a mark!

Damn! Good looking out for each other.

That looks nasty!...now that's something to use to get the chicks

Pics

Just what I would expect of Taco in a bad situation - calm and collected all the way. The injury looked gruesome--many victims would have freaked. Glad no broken bones Ryan. Also glad you had partners who knew what to do. Heal fast. Will really look forward to that SP trip report.

I hope you will get well soon. I am glad that nothing is broken; certainly was nasty looking. I am surprised that you still thought of taking pictures though. That's the right spirit. I like the one where you were standing at the ambulance with your thumbs up... way to go Ryan. I hope you'll be out there very soon again.

Guido

Taco,

Heal well, quickly, and completely.
May the force be with you.

Cool pics dude!!!!!!!!!I hope your hand gets better soon so you can get back out there before the rest of the snow melts, in this heat it wont be long

MAN! Sorry to hear about your injury, Taco. The first thing I thought when I saw those pictures is how calm you look. Get well soon!

Good work David and Alex. It sure is nice having good climbing partners. This reminds me how much risk there is in climbing solo.

Augie wrote:Just what I would expect of Taco in a bad situation - calm and collected all the way. The injury looked gruesome--many victims would have freaked. Glad no broken bones Ryan. Also glad you had partners who knew what to do. Heal fast. Will really look forward to that SP trip report.

Except that time on Superbowl Sunday... damn crampons...

I'll get an SP report up soon. I've been saving up for a while to make one big turn-of-the-new-year TR on there, and this will cap it off since I'll be incactive!

Thanks for all the good wishes guys!

PS: Alex and David will recieve excellent beer.

Ouch - I was sorry to hear about your accident Ryan and hope you heal quickly.

Thanks Cy!

Wow. Good thing that you blocked the punch. . . Heal good, Taco.

TacoDelRio wrote:You guys are friggin made of win! Thanks again a million times!

Arm is OK. Big hole but no broken bones, thank God. Lotsa blood loss so I was a tad messed up.

You know, we were only about a 125'-150' from topping out. We should have rigged an emergency litter and hauled your arse to the top. This way, we all could have topped out and practiced roping up a litter. Prolly would have been much quicker to hike out too.

But I'm glad your arm is ok. Looks like we might get some cold weather sometime later year 2011.

~EnFuego

This bud's for you Ryan.

When I said I liked ground beef Tacos, I didn't know you'd take me so seriously...

Dang. Glad you're OK enough to type. How's the hand/wrist?

HJ

P.S. No, you don't need to post any close up photos.

Ryan, glad you're ok! Cudos to David & Alex in getting you down.

That's twice in one year on that same right forearm! You're an official 'rock magnet' now.

20080113 Baden Powell "Boulderdash", 640M C4 AI2

TacoDelRio wrote:
Got hit by lightning. Big old black rock. Heard it coming, called it out, and it just had to hit me in the arm. Nothing broke, just a little blood, and some minor swelling. hit my wrist and hand as well. All is well now. Hurt like hell when it happened. Moved FAST down that thing! not cool. Need ninja arm protectors.

Stay clear of those rocky chutes and wait for colder weather mate.
Cheers!

Yikes!, Taco!
Hope your healing is quick.

Howdy Ryan/Taco (aka Big Kahuna)

Though I haven't met you, I've really enjoyed your mountaineering trip reports and pictures. Thanks for getting this forum going. Please heal up soon and kudos to you and your climbing buddies.

Miles of smiles,
Ellen

Good thing you broke that rock's momentum ... who knows what damage it could have done to someone below.



Seriously though, that looks painful. Hope you're not out of action for too long.

-Rick