Airmen brave snow, hurricane-force winds to save hikers

From Air Force Times:

For two days, hurricane-force winds and white-out conditions prevented airmen with the Alaska Air National Guard from reaching three hikers on a glacier, who were melting snow for drinking water and huddling in an ice cave that kept getting buried by snow.

By the time of the April 10 rescue, the hikers had been been battling the fearsome weather for most of the week since they had been dropped off at the Kirk Glacier on April 3.

Their situation quickly became dire when the high winds destroyed their tent and blew their skis away, so they could not move, said Lt. Col. John Morse, deputy director of deputy director of the Alaska Rescue Coordination Center.

"Because the snow is so deep, if you start walking it, you sink up to your waist on it," Morse told Air Force Times. "They couldn't walk. There are a lot of crevasses up there, so the snow hides the crevasses."

Meanwhile, the three hikers kept having to dig out their impromptu ice cave to avoid being buried alive.

"They estimated 10 feet of snow within that first day," Morse said. "I guess that's not uncommon up there."

Fortunately, the hikers were able to text a distress message to a friend, who contacted the Alaska State police about 11 p.m. on April 7, according to a news release from the 176th Wing at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. The following day, airmen and aircraft from the 210th, 211th and 212th Rescue Squadrons and the 144th Airlift Squadron set out to try to reach the hikers.

With the snow and high winds, the rescuers were flying in white-out conditions, said Master Sgt. Willis Strouse, a parararescueman with 212th Rescue Squadron.

"If you can imagine your head inside of a ping pong ball, that's what it's like," Strouse told Air Force Times."You could see the sun, but that's kind of your only reference."

The rescue involved a C-130, an HC-130 and an HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter. Although the pilots flying the rescue aircraft were highly skilled, "there's always that fear of crashing," Strouse said.

The rescuers made several attempts both day and night on April 8 and 9, but the weather was just too bad, Strouse said. It was a very frustrating time.

"We knew that they were very limited on food and fuel to melt snow for water," he said. "Once the day was over, that frustration – we kind of turned into a new energy preparing for the next day, like what's the new course of action?"

On April 10, the rescuers got the break in the weather they needed. Strouse said he and another pararescueman, Tech. Sgt. Nickolas Watson, were able to land on the glacier and ski to the three hikers, who were ecstatic to see them.

"You could see in their faces they were just defeated; they were just exhausted," Strouse said. "The girl, she kind of gave out one cheer. The other two were just – big, full teeth smiles."

The hikers were suffering from minor frostbite, malnutrition and dehydration, Strouse said. They were only drinking one cup of water a day and splitting one Mountain House meal – a civilian equivalent of an MRE – among the three of them per day.

The rescue helicopter had landed about half a mile from the hikers, so it took off so that it could land closer to them, Strouse said. But a new weather front was rolling in, so the helicopter had to wait until the front passed before it could land.

"They couldn't see the end of the cloud coming up and over the helo," Strouse said. "The other issue was: Because of the elevation, being 8,500 [feet], we were really light; so we have very minimal fuel. We couldn't spend that much time on the glacier if we were going to get everyone off at once."

The pararescuemen had tents and warm clothes for the hikers in case the helicopter couldn't return immediately, but the hikers were worried about staying on the glacier any longer, he said.

"I remember, when the helo took off, it flew back over top of us and they're like, 'Oh no, they're not coming back,'" Strouse said. "I'm like, 'No, they'll be right back."

The weather delay turned out to be brief, and soon the pararesecumen loaded the three hikers onto the helicopter. As they took off, the hikers were visibly elated after their long ordeal.

"They were very giddy, very smiley," Strouse said. "We continued to assess them. Everybody, even the crew, was handing up Nalgene bottles of water, putting it on their laps, and all of our food, putting it on their laps so they could have a plethora of everything."