{"id":42202,"date":"2025-05-12T21:37:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T02:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=42202"},"modified":"2025-05-13T02:39:54","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T07:39:54","slug":"three-climbers-die-after-falling-down-ravine-in-washington-national-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=42202","title":{"rendered":"Three climbers die after falling down ravine in Washington national park"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Party of four were rappelling down steep gully in North Cascades park when equipment failed, killing three at scene<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Three climbers from suburban Seattle were killed in a fall on Sunday when their equipment failed while rappelling down a steep gully in North Cascades national park in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/washington-state\">Washington state<\/a>, sheriff\u2019s officials said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">A party of four climbers was descending the gully in the area of North Early Winters Spire when the fall happened. Sheriff\u2019s officials presume the cause was an anchor failure but are still investigating. Three of the climbers \u2013 ages 36, 47 and 63 \u2013 were killed at the scene while the fourth person freed themselves and walked back to the trailhead then drove to a pay phone to call for help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Sheriff\u2019s personnel and county search and rescue volunteers responded to the accident late Sunday morning about 16 miles (26km) west of Mazama in an area of rock formations that are popular with climbers, the Okanogan county sheriff\u2019s office said in a social media post on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The fourth climber sustained internal bleeding and a traumatic brain injury in the fall and was taken to a hospital in Seattle, Okanogan county undersheriff David Yarnell told the Seattle Times on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cHe didn\u2019t realize he had as significant of internal injuries as he did,\u201d Yarnell said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">A helicopter rescue team from nearby Snohomish county helped recover the bodies from the technical, mountainous terrain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Investigators said they will inspect the climbers\u2019 gear to help confirm the cause of the fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Yarnell told the Seattle Times that all four climbers were locked in to the same anchor point which is \u201cnot preferred\u201d. The anchor point will also be investigated to determine if it was pre-existing or their own gear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cAll we know is that the anchor point that they were all tied off to failed,\u201d Yarnell said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2025\/may\/12\/north-cascade-national-park-climbing-fall\">theguardian<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Party of four were rappelling down steep gully in North Cascades park when equipment failed, killing three at scene Three climbers from suburban Seattle were killed in a fall on Sunday when their equipment failed while rappelling down a steep gully in North Cascades national park in&nbsp;Washington state, sheriff\u2019s officials said. A party of four [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":42203,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5782],"tags":[28071,4845,33250,33249],"class_list":["post-42202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ep","tag-climber","tag-fall","tag-ravine","tag-washington-national-park"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42202"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42204,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42202\/revisions\/42204"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}