Two Rescued From Talus Slope Near Sentinel Rock

Yosemite National Park (CA)
Two Rescued From Talus Slope Near Sentinel Rock

On the evening of June 14th, park dispatch received a call from John G. Badgley reporting that his 19-year-old son, John T. Badgley (who goes by Tanur), had suffered injuries in a fall on Sentinel Rock in Yosemite Valley. The family was visiting the park from Kansas at the time. Badgley also reported that a second son, age 16, was stranded on the same talus slope. Although uninjured, he too was unable to descend on his own. Rangers later determined that all three Badgleys were scrambling on a talus slope below Sentinel Fall when Tauner slipped and fell on loose rock. He was unable to regain his footing and fell 50 feet down the slope, sustaining injures to his back and neck and a possible pelvic fracture. Tauner attempted to descend the slope after his fall, but realized he was too injured to move. At the same time, his brother became stuck on a cliff edge just above the talus slope and was unable to descend. Ranger Jarred Mitrea was dispatched and arrived on the scene around 8:30 p.m. He began providing basic medical treatment to Tauner and was soon joined by ranger Jack Hoeflich and a Yosemite SAR team member. Rescue crews were able to rappel to the 16-year-old and remove him from the cliff face shortly after nightfall. Mitrea and Hoeflich decided that it would be unsafe for Tauner and rescue crews to descend the slope with him, though, and it was too dark to fly him out by helicopter. The rangers stayed the night on the talus slope with Tauner. Around 6 a.m., he was extricated by helicopter short haul and flown to Memorial Medical Center in Modesto, California. The IC for this incident was ranger Ed Visnovske.

"below Sentinel Fall"
How did they even get there!?
Had they hiked up from the lower part of 4-Mile trail?

Sentinel fall is raging right now. I imagine they just climbed up out of curiosity to try and get to the base of the fall. We were driving back from Sentinel Dome around 9:30 when I saw the SAR vehicles there, now I know why.

It's amazing how easy it can be sometimes to climb up, but how to make the return trip down successful is a whole other thing.

The exact combination of right and left zigs and zags are easily forgotten on the route up, and then on the route down it's easy to attempt a slightly different route, or make what seems like a very small change that strands you. Then, the sun goes down.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2011 11:21PM by mark2.

I think some cats have the exact same problem with they climb up some trees.