Four rock climbers were resting in Yosemite National Park after the experience of a lifetime when they were rescued from the sheer face of El Capitan during a strange June snowstorm.
The four men, in two separate parties, had been climbing for several days, and were nearly at the top edge of the cliff that forms El Capitan, 7,042 feet above sea level, Thursday when they were overtaken by cold and wet weather, and later by snow and wind.
“They felt they couldn’t continue,” said Yosemite spokeswoman Kris Fister, “and asked for help.”
El Capitan is the largest monolith in the world, 2,898 feet of sheer white granite that is one of the most famous climbing challenges in North America.
The first party-Dan McOmber, 26, and Curt Chesney, 25, both of Boulder, Colo.-began their climb early in the week, on a route called the Zodiac, on the eastern face of El Capitan. When they began, the weather was warm and sunny.
Sometime early Thursday, they began calling for help. They called all morning, their voices blowing away in the wind. Finally, some people on the valley floor, nearly 3,000 feet below, heard them and called Yosemite park rangers.
The park’s search-and-rescue team responded; by this time, clouds had moved over the face of El Capitan and the men were invisible. The rangers called up to the men on a bullhorn, asking if they were all right. “They asked them to drop a water bottle if they needed help,” Fister said.
“Then, out of the clouds, came a water bottle the climbers had dropped. They told them to drop another if they were hurt, but nothing else came down,” Fister said.
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It is a long way from the valley to the top of El Capitan by trail, and the nearest road to the top is closed by snow. So the rangers asked the Navy for a helicopter.
Rescuers lowered ropes about 600 feet to the climbers, who, Fister said, were suffering from the beginnings of hypothermia. The rescue crew went down the ropes and took the climbers back to the top with them.
By this time, it was snowing and cold, with temperatures about 33 degrees. They reached the top at about 10 p.m. and decided to spend the night.
The helicopter was sent back down, but on the way, its crew spotted another party that seemed to be in trouble, on the west face and out of sight of the first pair.
This party-two men from New Hampshire-signaled they needed help, too. By this time, conditions were much worse-and was completely dark.
The rescue team lowered ropes to the second party, about 500 feet from the top edge of the cliff, went down the ropes and brought the climbers back up, as they had done earlier.
The second rescue took longer; the rangers and the climbers did not get to the top of El Capitan until 4 a.m.
Both parties were flown to the valley floor about 8 a.m.
As they went by, the rescue crew in the helicopters could see more climbers working their way up the face of El Capitan-perhaps a dozen to 20 more climbers, Fister said.
The rest of the climbers do not need rescuing, she said.