A 23-year-old man from Ithaca, New York, fell and injured himself after causing a small avalanche on South Sister on June 18, prompting a helicopter rescue with the assistance of the Oregon Army National Guard. The climber called 911 shortly before 7 p.m., saying he was unable to go down the mountain in his current state, and requested a helicopter evacuation. He was about 9,100 feet high on the 10,350 foot mountain.
Weather prevented any rescue mission from taking place that night, requiring the hiker to stay overnight in a tent and sleeping bag. Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office Search and Rescue’s Mountain Rescue Unit planned to scale the mountain the following morning, starting from Pole Creek Trailhead around 1 a.m. The Oregon Office of Emergency Management coordinated with the National Guard to provide a black hawk helicopter to conduct a hoist rescue on the downed hiker.
The search and rescue team located the climber at 8:50 a.m. after a 9-mile trek up the mountain. The team assessed the hiker’s condition and moved him to an area where a helicopter rescue would be safer. The National Guard’s Helicopter launched from Salem and arrived on scene around 10:30 a.m. The search and rescue team hoisted the hiker onto the helicopter at 11:30 a.m. and transported him to St. Charles Medical Center in Bend.
South Sister is a popular hiking spot but can be dangerous. July 13, 2021, saw three separate search and rescue missions — with two AirLink helicopter dispatches — within 24 hours.
This article appears in Source Weekly June 23, 2022.
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