Over the weekend, the U.S. Forest Service rescued a 31-year-old woman who fell some 1,500 feet down Mt. Shasta.
Somehow, she escaped the ordeal without serious injuries.
“The patient was found alert, in good spirits, and suffering from a suspected fractured right ankle along with additional injuries consistent with the significant fall,” the agency said in a social media post on Tuesday.
The woman had been part of a group of three novice climbers who were ascending a steep, high-altitude route up Mt. Shasta in Northern California on Sunday. She fell from around 13,000 feet to about 11,500 feet, nearly the length of five football fields, before coming to rest on the stratovolcano. At 14,179 feet, it is the second-highest peak in the Cascade Range.
Because of cloud cover limiting movement by a helicopter, rangers traveled on foot to reach the hiker, who was lowered down to Lake Helen, according to the U.S. Forest Service. That evening at around 5:30 p.m., a California Highway Patrol helicopter transported the woman to Mercy Medical Center Mt. Shasta.
“This incident serves as an important reminder that Mount Shasta is a high-altitude mountaineering environment, not a hike. Even experienced climbers can encounter rapidly changing weather, steep snow and ice, rockfall, and hazardous fall conditions,” the agency said.
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