gr@sshopper

So I got to take a trip in a helicopter today! Went from 3/4 of a mile from Mt Wilson along the rim trail (well, a few hundred feet down from the rim trail) all the way to huntington memorial in Pasadena.

Both side of the left ankle are broken, and my leg has a gash that just won't stop bleeding. Wheee.

Have to make an appointment w/an orthopedist tomorrow.

Otherswise, the ride was good.

I owe a huge debt to a hiker name kieth who got me back onto the trail. And the search and rescue helicopter 5 crew is awesome.


Oh - and so is morphine and vicodin combo! Yay.

ronjon10

First off, glad you're ok, or at least in a hazy happy place. Get well quick.

Second, don't you read!??!?! Accidents and injuries are forbidden for board members! Next time, please follow the rules. Wait til Alice hears about this...

gr@sshopper

Oh,

gr@sshopper

oh the helicopter guys said I got very very lucky they found me. They told me to go buy one of these and they won't have to worry about leaving me on the mountain, cause I can tell them wehere I am.

Drugs are funny. I can tell my ankle hurts like a mother ****er, but I just can't seem to care. Oh, and my finger tps aren't working right.

And! my last set of non blood stained sheets, well. I need to get better at mountain biking. But I wasn't even biking when I slid, I was pushing the bike through some ice.!

gr@sshopper

Is vicodin supposed to make you hyper?
I wanna talk to people, but they're all asleep.

roadfix

Glad you're doing ok GH. Otherwise, we would have heard about you on the news tonight.
So what exactly happened? Were you mountin biking and went over the side?

gr@sshopper

Was going up whitehorse saddle to mt wilson. Decided not to take fire road, but rather rim trail. Buddy said he'd been on before, it was rideable. Turns out it wasn't. we end up pushing the bikes, we crossed a snow field, came round a corner and found an impassable snow field. Turn around, and the first field had iced up. I got 1/2 across, and then slipped, and slid 200 - 250 ft. managed to steer myself into the only tree in the chute. Honestly, I really should be dead. The chute kept going maybe 600-800 ft. and then? some kind of cliff. I'm really happy for the broken ankle.

thomson

Gee Grasshopper, I hope for a speedy and complete recovery

spingineer

Glad you are ok grasshopper. But that is one really hard way to get a helicopter ride. Get well soon.

merider1

Oh, goodness. You poor thing, I'm so sorry. That sounds awful, but yes, you are lucky. Some have gone off the side of some innocuous trail and slide right down off the mountain to certain death (although this is usually up on Baldy, it can happen on any of the moutains out here). Luckily, you are young and will heal quickly. Be careful with those drugs and take them as instructed. They are very strong. Keep us posted on how you're doing.

The crash curse just keeps going...

efficiency

Get well soon! Stay amongst the living!

jpconrad

I saw the helicopter coming in yesterday, I'm sorry the hear that you were on it. Get better soon and enjoy the vicodin while you can!

awiner

Get well soon... As for the GPS, I had never thought of it but heck, it is another plug for the Garmin Edge cyclo computers as they will give you latitude and longitude as well.

BillyB

That's really got to be something to be falling down a mountainside, and making the decision to steer yourself into a tree in order to save your life.

As for helicopter rides - I've ridden in few when I was in the military. I don't even like the things flying over top of me now.

alicestrong

..or SPOT


https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...highlight=spot

badfishgood

Mustache rides...

gr@sshopper

So I get a real cast on Friday. And the doc doesn't want me at work until monday. I'm so friggin bored!

roadfix

GH...may I have the honor of autographing your cast?

merider1

Want to come clean my apartment? You can clean with one arm.

DaveSANYYZ

One legged trainer drills!

Scary. It's the main reason I am scared of mountain bike rides. Hope you'll recover soon!

alicestrong

Grasshopper... you, like me, must have a Guardian Angel...

Should I start a Safety Nanny thread?

I really don't need my head anymore, do I?

It doesn't get used for that much these days, anyway...lol.

gr@sshopper

I don't know who the sucker is, but he sure got stuck with a crap job! More overtime than anybody could handle.

Fools and drunks. And when the two come together....

gr@sshopper

Oh, so here's the morphine and vicodin inspired email I sent to my buddies on sunday night. It's a bit ridiculous, but isn't that what we want on BF?

THE PLAN: We were going to ride up monrovia canyon to whitehorse saddle, and then over to Newcombe saddle and down to chantry flats. maybe 25 miles, mostly fireroads. It was a good ride until we got to newcombe saddle.

There was a sign there that said 3.5 miles to Mt Wilson. We decide that we need to do that, rather than just go down.

The trail from newcombe to mt wilson is called rim trail. It is not mtn bike accessible. At first, we were riding for 70% of the time, then it was 50%, but by the time we got to mile 2 we were pretty much walking the bikes.

At about 2.75 miles, we come to a snow field/chute. it's not the first snow we'd seen, but it is the largest, and it was forming kind of a bowl. We manage to cross it with some problem, but it was definitely doable. Another quarter mile, and there is an impassable snow field. And now we have a problem. Getting back to Newcombe saddle would put us going down in the dark. We can't really go forward - too icy, and slipping means dying.

We decide that we will turn around, stash the bikes on the other side of the first snowfield, and walk out (walking better than riding in the dark) When we get to the first snowfield, there is someone crossing it. We wait for 10 minutes for him to get through. The sun dips low enough to cast shadows across the snow. It immediately ices. Buddy has strong shoes and 40 lbs on me. He can kick holes in ice. I try to follow. I get 1/2 way across, look at him, and say oh f***, i'm stuck. And then the toehole he had kicked popped, cracked and fell away.

And I slid.



I figure that I'm going to die. There's maybe 750 feet of ice, and it looks like a major drop off at the end of the slide. Yes, I am in fact going to die.

Then I notice a little tree near the edge of the sheet. it has a large log caught on it. It's actually not that far off the grade of the ice. I might be able to hit it. I fling the bike to my right, and put all my weight on it, trying to self arrest and steer that way.

I come into the log like I was sliding into home - left leg up to spike the catchers eyes out.
The log starts to roll, but I slow enough to grab the tree, and hook round it off the ice. Safe in the snow.

Terry comes down around the outside of the chute. He grabs me by the backpack, and hauls me to the uphill side of the tree. He leaves me his water, and the warmest gear we have. A long sleeve tshirt.


An hour and a half later, I hear helicopters. I've never been so cold. I can feel the bones in my ankle sliding past each other. It doesn't hurt. The blood on my thigh is frozen. I try to wave down the helicopter. But he can't see me. The tree that caught me is keeping me hidden. 3 more passes, and the helicopter leaves. And again I fear for my life. It's getting dark. And what I though was cold before seems balmy.

Another hour and a half. I hate having a watch on. I decide I need to try and climb out. The ankle is numb enough from cold, I shouldn't feel anything. Kick my right foot into the snow, shovel my hands in deep, and rotate onto my left foot. And there is pain. I start cursing. Loud as I can. And somebody yells back.


There's a man in red. He's carrying a lumberyard worth of tools, a first aide kit that bulges out of his backpack - and a climbing rope.

He anchors at the top of the trail, and sort of rappels down the 200 feet to me. I grab the rope, and start to pull myself up. He blocks the downward slide both times I try my left leg. I'm on the trail. And there is another man. In a jumpsuit. With a pistol and a blood pressure cuff. I figure I'm going into shock, and let the deputy cover me up with a blanket. He wants to helicopter me out. The helicopter says it's too dark to stay, and he hasn't got any gas. The man is worried. He says they can't carry me out. It's too treacherous. Now I'm worried.

My riding partner shows up with another sherif's deputy. This deputy seems more important. He tells the helicopter we goddamn have to go out by air. And so they drop a horse collar and strap me in. I'm holding this foam wrap as tight as I can. And them I'm in the helicopter. And they are sticking needles in my arm. And them I'm in the hospital.

alicestrong

To show you just how lucky you got?

Here is a story involving a club that I hike and bike with sometimes...

I know several of the people involved.

Pasadena Star News

Hiker's body recovered from Mount Wilson

Article Launched: 02/04/2008 11:02:07 PM PST

MOUNT WILSON - After being hampered by bad weather and a weekend rock slide that blocked Mount Wilson Road, authorities Monday used a helicopter to recover the body of a 32-year-old hiker who slipped and fell about 1,000 feet down a mountainside Saturday. Nicole Flaten of Los Angeles was with members of her hiking club near Chantry Flat on Saturday when she apparently lost her footing. She fell into an ice chute at about 11:45 a.m., according to a statement from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, which investigated her death.
"Because she was in an ice chute, there was no way for her to stop the fall," said sheriff's Sgt. Bill Marsh.
Flaten fell about 1,000 feet from where her group had been hiking, "hitting trees and rocks" as she fell, Marsh said.
A member of her hiking club, risking great personal injury to himself, hiked down to Flaten to check on her condition, he said.
"He came back up and reported that she appeared to be dead," Marsh said.
Members of the Sierra Madre Search and Rescue Team arrived on scene at about 2 p.m., but because of poor weather conditions Saturday, team members finally were able to reach the spot at about 5:30 p.m.
By then, freezing temperatures, poor visibility and the rough terrain made recovering the body extremely difficult.
Complicating the recovery, a rock slide Saturday sent massive boulders onto Mount Wilson Road, blocking the passage. Some members of the
Monrovia Search and Rescue Team, which also went to the scene, were temporarily trapped behind the slide, but later were able to leave the area, sheriff's officials said. Rescuers managed to bring the body up to about 200 feet from the road, Marsh said, before having to call off the operation at about 7:30 p.m. Saturday.
Bad weather on Sunday and the rock slide prevented authorities from reaching the spot.
Rescuers returned Monday morning, found the victim, and a helicopter from the sheriff's Emergency Operations Services airlifted the body off the mountain at about 11:30 a.m., Marsh said.
Work crews from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works, meanwhile, were able to clear at least one lane of two-lane Mount Wilson Road and planned to return today to clear debris from the other lane, said public works spokesman Gary Boze.
"The road is very narrow at that spot. In fact, just to turn around, you have to drive back for several miles to find a spot wide enough to turn vehicles around," he said.
Because of poor weather and icy conditions, crews removing the slide are able to work only from about noon to about 5 p.m., Boze added.
Even after the rocks are cleared, Mount Wilson Road will remain closed to the general public because of the icy conditions, he said.
Only the few residents who live farther up the road, employees at the observatory and utility workers installing new transmission lines atop Mount Wilson, about 5,700 feet above the San Gabriel Valley, will be allowed access into the area, Boze said.
Flaten became the fourth person to die in the San Gabriel Mountains so far this year. In January, avalanches took the lives of three people near ski resorts in the mountains near Wrightwood.
U.S. Forest Service officials warned residents that winter conditions in the local mountains can quickly become extremely dangerous and warned that cell phone coverage in the San Gabriel Mountains is very limited.

merider1

Phew! Wow. Reading that made my stomach hurt and I got tears in my eyes. GH, I don't know you all that well (except for when you rode on the SB century last year with all of us), but what I do know of you is that you seem to be the nicest young man. You have your whole life ahead of you, and I'm so grateful that the above is how this story ended.

You are very lucky. We forget in our quest to enjoy the natural beauty around us that there is a peril to our adventures which, if not careful, can claim us at the most unexpected moment.

Thank goodness, it wasn't your time. Heal quickly, and I look forward to riding with you again in the very soon future.