Shattered Air: A True Account of Catastrophe and Courage on Yosemite's Half Dome Read online

  Copyright © 2005 by Robert Madgic

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in cases of brief excerpts in critical reviews and articles. All inquiries should be addressed to: Burford Books, Inc., PO Box 388, Short Hills, NJ 07078.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Madgic, Bob.

  Shattered air : a true account of catastrophe and courage on Yosemite's Half Dome / by Bob Madgic with Adrian Esteban ; illustrations by William L. Crary.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 1-58080-130-7 (hardcover)

  1. Rock climbing accidents—California—Half Dome. 2. Search and rescue operations—California—Half Dome. I. Esteban, Adrian. II. Title.

  GV199.42.C2M34 2005

  796.522'3'028'9--dc22

  2005001763

  This book is dedicated to Robert Frith and Brian Jordan.

  MAIN CHARACTERS

  ESTEBAN AND RICE’S PARTY

  Adrian Esteban

  Tom Rice

  Bob Frith

  Bruce Weiner

  Bill Pippey

  Brian Jordan

  Bruce Jordan

  Karl Buchner

  Steve Ellner

  MIKE HOOG’S PARTY

  Mike Hoog

  Linda Crozier

  Rick Pedroncelli

  Dan Crozier

  Jennie Hayes

  BRIAN CAGE’ S PARTY

  Brian Cage

  Zip Cotter

  Clu Cotter

  Paul Kolbenschlag

  Monroe Bridges

  Steve White

  OTHER HELPERS

  Renee Miller

  Brutus

  THE ROCK CLIMBERS

  Ken Bokelund

  Rob Foster

  YOSEMITE PERSONNEL

  Colin Campbell

  (first ranger to arrive on the summit of Half Dome)

  Steve Jackson

  (trail maintenance individual who accompanied Campbell)

  John Dill

  (search and rescue technician who used a bullhorn to communicate with the helpers on the summit)

  James Reilly

  (supervising ranger throughout the episode)

  Gary Colliver

  (ranger who accompanied Medi-Flight to the summit)

  Dan Horner, Mike Mayer, Paul Ducasse

  (park medics who left the Valley on horses en route to Little Yosemite Valley)

  Ron Mackie, Scott Emmerich

  (rangers who carried out the rescue in Tenaya Canyon)

  Evan Smith, Dan Dellinges, J. R. Tomasovic, Jim Tucker

  (rangers who prepared the bodies for removal on Sunday morning)

  MEDI-FLIGHT AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

  Al Major, pilot

  Bill Bryant, paramedic

  Maggie Newman, nurse

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  THE EPISODE ON HALF DOME in 1985 was extraordinary. But lightning itself can impact anyone, anywhere in the world. This universality distinguishes it from more regional natural forces such as cyclones, hurricanes, and earthquakes. As a result of my own unforgettable experience, its dangers have been long imprinted on my mind. It went like this. In the late 1970s, I planned a one-day, fifteen-mile round-trip hike to the Mokelumne Wilderness canyon in the Sierra Nevada. Joining me were my wife, Diane, and our three children: Jennifer, sixteen; Kirk, fourteen; and Doug, twelve. The trek first involved a three-and-a-half-mile ascent up to the bare summit of Mount Reba at 8,750 feet in elevation. From there it was a four-mile drop down to the canyon floor and the Mokelumne River.

  It was the return hike that proved most memorable.

  After a picnic lunch and fishing the river, we headed back up the steep trail. As we approached Mount Reba in late afternoon, what had been a sparkling blue sky with a few billowy cumulus clouds was now covered by dark thunderheads. At the summit we were greeted by rain, while vicious streaks of lightning and sharp thunderclaps rocked the heavens to the east. We should have retreated down to tree level and waited for the storm to end. We didn’t, mainly because I foolishly thought that as long as the lightning stayed to the east of us, two to three miles away at most, we’d be okay.

  As the storm grew in intensity, with jagged spears of lightning striking nearby treetops and ground, accompanied by earsplitting thunder, my wife, who is rightly terrified of lightning, started running down the bare mountain slope, quickly joined by our three children. I, too, broke out into a run when a bolt struck to the west, placing us in the middle of the inferno. Fear drove us, our exhausted, wobbly legs gaining strength where none existed moments earlier. Up ahead Diane shrieked and fell down. Kirk, running alongside her, thought she was struck by lightning. Fortunately she only stumbled on loose rocks, but it was a hard fall. With scraped hands and knees, she got up and continued running.

  Panic-stricken, we raced down the open terrain, frantically trying to outrun the next lightning bolt. The rain turned torrential, drenching us as we half ran, half stumbled, desperate to reach tree line a mile down from the ridge. Once there, we pushed our way through dense woods until we arrived at the meadow where our small yellow Honda was parked. Bomb blasts of lightning continued to rock heaven and earth. Likening this to a World War I battlefield, I sprinted across the naked field and threw myself into the car.

  Never before or since have I experienced such raw, fearsome power. Never have I felt so vulnerable. What’s so terrorizing is lightning’s randomness—that at any moment a killing bolt can come from anywhere and strike you.

  We were extremely fortunate that day. My judgment and actions were irresponsible to the extreme. If anyone had been struck, perhaps killed, I would have had to live with the tragedy for the remainder of my life, if indeed I survived. Yet it wasn’t until I started writing this book and dissecting the Half Dome disaster that I fully internalized the reckless and uninformed leadership I carried out and which placed my family in that enormously high-risk situation. My daughter pointed this out to me when I was discussing with her the actions of the Half Dome leaders. It was a sobering realization.

  Another reason why the 1985 Half Dome incident stayed etched in my mind was that I indirectly knew one of the participants—the son of a woman who worked in my office. He was one of four hikers (out of nine) who blessedly did not reach the summit that day. I have told this story often, how with different circumstances, he would have been there at the top when lightning struck and possibly killed. When I ended my career in education and looked to writing to keep me engaged, I quickly concluded that a broad audience might exist for the Half Dome story, which at the time received wide media attention. I placed a phone call to my co-worker’s son, and now seven years later, the book is published.

  I had great luck in tracking down almost all of the people who contributed one way or another to that 1985 episode. Out of over forty participants, I failed to locate only one key person. (That’s Renee Miller, one of the main helpers that night. Perhaps she’ll contact me if she sees this book.) College alumni offices proved key in two critical cases. So, too, was the Internet for a few others. Once I contacted a person, he or she usually was able to provide information on someone else. One connection was extremely fortuitous. There were only two rock climbers on the face of Half Dome at that time, and one just happened to be the son of my college classmate. He read about this project in the Amherst Alumni Journal and thought it sou
nded like the very time his son was there. Amazingly, it was.

  Yosemite National Park was exceptionally responsive to my requests, as indeed were all national park personnel whom I contacted. Without park reports I would not have been able to complete this project. The National Park Service heroically carries out its multifaceted responsibilities, albeit with insufficient resources. Our parks deserve more from our nation.

  Medi-Flight Air Ambulance service personnel were also all fully cooperative and helpful.

  Nothing takes the place of on-site research. I hiked to Half Dome’s summit twice since I began this project (I had been up there years earlier as well). Adrian Esteban and Bill Pippey—two primary players in the 1985 event—joined me on one of the excursions. I also went to Kings Canyon National Park and retraced the steps of the individual who was killed by lightning the same day as the Half Dome incident. It took a little doing, but my wife and I found the rock enclosure in which he took cover and where his body was discovered. I also hiked to Paradise, located on a small tributary off the Merced River. I didn’t jump from the ledge into the pool. (The reader will understand this reference shortly into the story.)

  Not everyone involved one way or another in the story supported its telling, including one central participant. The text will identify who he is. Fortunately, a wide range of participants enthusiastically embraced the project, including most of the main characters. Adrian Esteban’s recollections, insights, and voice are central to the book throughout.

  To present as accurate rendition of the story as possible, I used quotation marks in the text only for a direct statement from an individual, either as presented to me or as quoted in a newspaper account or other formal documents. When individuals I interviewed recalled statements and conversation, they appear without quotation marks if I included them.

  Lastly, a word about lightning injuries and treatments. After becoming acquainted with this complex field, I’ve learned that much of the terminology and reports on the medical aspects of lightning as presented in 1985 do not accurately convey what is known today. New findings are being uncovered each year. For the most part I retained the 1985 language, for example with coroner and medical reports, even though it may be inaccurate according to current information. On a very limited basis I attempted to bring the field up to date in chapter 10—Aftermath.

  Bob Madgic

  Anderson, California

  June 2005

  INTRODUCTION

  The great Tis-se-yak, or Half Dome, rising at the upper end of the valley to a height of nearly a mile, is nobly proportioned and lifelike, the most impressive of all the rocks, holding the eye in devout admiration, calling it back again and again fom falls or meadows, or even the mountains beyond. . . .—John Muir

  IN THE FALL OF 1849, two men tracked a grizzly bear deep into the central Sierra Nevada in the hope of shooting it. They got lost. Trying to find their way back to camp, the men followed an Indian trail that led instead to “a valley enclosed by stupendous cliffs.” Not far off, a waterfall dropped from a cliff below three jagged peaks into the valley. The hunters also noted “a rounded mountain . . . which looked as though it had been sliced with a knife as one would slice a loaf of bread.” They called it the Rock of Ages.

  This is the first recorded description of Yosemite Valley and Half Dome.

  Native Americans probably visited Yosemite Valley, which is only one-half to one mile wide and less than seven miles long, as far back as ten thousand years. People of Miwok lineage most likely took up residence in the valley about a thousand years ago, living peacefully among its natural riches and beauty, and drawing water from a river that Spanish explorers named the Merced, in honor of the Virgin Mary.

  ONE EXPLANATION OF THE NAME Yosemite holds that it was a corruption of uzumati or uhumati, Native terms for “grizzly bear.” Apparently the Miwok had divided themselves into two clan-like social groupings, and one of them was generally identified with the grizzly bear. A second interpretation draws from the linguistic roots of the Miwok language: Yo’hem-iteh means “they are killers.”

  In time other Indians in the region began calling these valley dwellers “Yosemites.” Grizzly bears were dangerous, and people beyond the hidden valley came to regard the Natives who lived there as equally ferocious. Outsiders may have referred to them as both grizzlies and killers.

  Regardless of its origin, the name doesn’t honor the now extinct California grizzly, Ursus arctos californicus. Rather, it venerates the Natives who once inhabited the lush green valley known as Ahwahnee—“the big mouth” or “place of the big mouth.” They referred to themselves as Ahwahneechees. The Ahwahneechees called the strange mountain with the cutoff side Tis-se-yak. According to legend, a woman by that name entered the valley with a great conical gathering basket and slaked her thirst by drinking all of the water in the valley’s only lake before her equally thirsty husband, Nangas, arrived. Upon seeing what Tis-se-yak had done, an angry Nangas beat her. She retaliated by throwing her basket at him. For their wickedness, both were turned into stone: She became what is now known as Half Dome, her husband became the Washington Column, and her basket became Basket Dome. The dark streaks on Half Dome’s face are the tears that Tis-se-yak shed as she ran from Nangas, and the human profile seen from some vantage points is that of her in mourning.

  IN THE LATTER HALF of the eighteenth century, disease spread among the Ahwahneechees, forcing the survivors to leave the valley. Many trekked to the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada to the Mono and Kuzedika Paiute villages. There were no inhabitants in Ahwahnee for several decades. Living among the Monos was Teneiya, son of an Ahwahneechee chief and a Mono mother. The chief told Teneiya about the remote river valley where his people had lived. After his father died, Teneiya traveled there on foot. When he arrived in the valley, he knew at once it would be his home. Teneiya returned to the Mono village to gather followers—family, descendants of his father’s people, and scattered Mono and Kuzedika Paiute tribe members. The group, numbering about two hundred, was an unpredictable and contentious lot that included many outlaws and malcontents.

  Teneiya’s band prospered in Ahwahnee, where the chief grew old and his three sons became men. These Native people had a passionate and spiritual attachment to Ahwahnee; their sense of place defined who they were. But a medicine man counseled Teneiya that intruders could threaten their survival. So he and his braves remained vigilant and were prepared to fight any encroachers.

  AFTER GOLD WAS DISCOVERED in California, miners flooded into the foothills. Native American tribes tried to defend their land and villages (called rancherias) from gold-seeking intruders, while Indian braves in turn plundered and pillaged the white man’s camps. In one murky incident, a trading post on the Fresno River owned by a Major James D. Savage was raided. The settlers rightly or wrongly blamed the Yosemites, even though the post was quite distant from their normal range. Vengeful miners called for “wiping out the Indian savages.”

  To bring the Yosemites and other Indians to the treaty table, Savage organized the Mariposa Battalion, a volunteer military unit consisting of about two hundred mostly rough-hewn men. Accompanying the party on their first foray to Yosemite was Lafayette Houghton Bunnell, a twenty-seven-year-old educated and fair-minded medical adviser. He took extensive notes and later wrote an account of his experiences, Discovery of the Yosemite, that became a valuable historical record. Bunnell recalled that when he first entered the concealed valley, “a peculiar exalted sensation seemed to fill my whole being, and I found my eyes in tears with emotion.”

  Across two years, the Mariposa Battalion succeeded in killing, capturing, and driving the remaining Indians out of Yosemite. Chief Teneiya and a small group fled and took refuge with the Monos. After the soldiers left, they returned to Yosemite, intent upon living there in secrecy. But he and the others were ultimately vanquished one last time. Whether battalion soldiers or members of the Mono tribe produced their demise is not clear.

  Bunnell and s
oldiers in the Mariposa Battalion named many of Yosemite landmarks: El Capitan, Mirror Lake, Clouds Rest, Little Yosemite Valley, Vernal Fall, Nevada Fall, Ribbon Fall, and Bridalveil Fall. A beautiful, high-country lake where the battalion captured a holdout band of Yosemites became Lake Teneiya. (The spelling of this and other namesakes evolved into Tenaya over time.) Tenaya Canyon and Tenaya Creek also honor the chief. Several names refer to incidents involving the Yosemites: Three Brothers, Lost Arrow, and Indian Canyon.

  Half Dome originated from the first impression of a battalion soldier as he entered the valley. “I looked a good long while at that split mountain,” he reportedly said, “and called it a ‘half dome’”— a name that had become firmly established by 1865. Earlier it was known as Tis-se-yak and then, for a few years, as South Dome. (North Dome was on the opposite side of the valley.)

  IN 1860, YALE GRADUATE Josiah Dwight Whitney was appointed California state geologist and charged with studying the state’s geology to locate mineral deposits in the Sierra. His influential Report of the Geological Survey of California was published five years later. Whitney described Half Dome as “a new revelation in mountain forms; its existence would be considered an impossibility if it were not there before us in all its reality . . . nothing even approaching it can be found except in the Sierra Nevada itself.”

  Despite his growing reputation as a geologist, Whitney proved way off the mark on two counts: first, his assumption that “Half Dome is perfectly inaccessible, being probably the only one of all the prominent points about the Yosemite which never has been, and never will be, trodden by human foot”; and second, his conclusion that Half Dome “had been split in two, one half having been engulfed at the time of the formation of the chasm at its base . . . the lost half having gone down in what may truly be said to have been the wreck of matter and the crush of worlds.”