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How it is done -- Mountaineering division

Earlier, I had written about how British mountaineer David Sharp had been left to die on the slopes of Mount Everest and how more than 40 climbers had seen him and passed him by without rendering aid. Local climber Stanislav N. Zinkov shows how it is done. From the Bellingham Herald:

Bellingham man summits Mt. McKinley
Descent unexpectedly includes rescue mission

Stanislav N. Zinkov ignored the advice to never climb Mount McKinley alone.

Only 23 of more than 1,100 climbers planning to ascend the Alaska mountain this year will try it solo. The danger, National Park Service rangers warn, is that with no partner, rescue is more unlikely if something goes wrong.

The 25-year-old from Bellingham made it the 20,320 feet to the top on May 23. He stayed there, on the highest point of North America, for 10 minutes, long enough to rig his camera on a tripod and take a picture of himself brandishing a Russian flag and a miniature bottle of vodka. (Zinkov immigrated to Bellingham from Russia in 1994).

When he left the summit, things stopped going according to plan. Two thousand feet down he found a pair of New Zealanders who were having trouble. One, named Eric, was so sick and exhausted he couldn't do up his own backpack straps.

Zinkov's risky solo ascent suddenly became an aid mission.

And the rescue:

The New Zealand pair was at the top of Denali Pass, on a tricky section climbers call Autobahn. Zinkov offered to help them descend. They roped up in a group of three, with Eric in the middle and Zinkov in the rear. If Eric fell, Zinkov would dig in with his crampons and ice ax to stop the fall.

As they descended, the man fell six times.

"A couple of those ... he was peeling me off and I had to dig in deeper to keep myself from falling," Zinkov said.

They moved slowly and reached the camp at 17,200 feet at midnight.

"My fingers were beginning to freeze," Zinkov said. Zinkov was too tired to keep climbing down to his own camp 3,000 feet below. Some climbing rangers gave him food and let him stay in their tent. He crawled into a sleeping bag and fell asleep. He never found out the names of the New Zealand climbers.

"I was so tired I didn't realize I went to sleep with my harness and carabiner still on," he said.

The rangers gave him a pin to honor him for being a friend to the mountain.

He roped himself to the two climbers -- if they had fallen and he had not been able to arrest, they would have been swept to their deaths. That is selflessness and courage. Check out this guy's training regimen:

He spent six months training. To prepare for skiing uphill with a sled-load of supplies, he would go up logging roads wearing a 65-pound backpack, towing a chain with a truck tire on the end. He went to the gym four times a week. He'd don a 75-pound backpack and use the StairMaster for an hour at a time.

Makes the "Iron Man" look positively anemic. Congratulations and kudos to Stanislav N. Zinkov, both for the ascent and for the rescue. Posted by DaveH at June 7, 2006 10:59 AM