OKANOGAN COUNTY, Wash. — A Seattle man who survived falling a total of 400 feet in a climbing accident in the North Cascades is now well enough to recount details of what happened for officials from Okanogan County.
Thirty-eight-year-old Anton Tselykh is hospitalized in satisfactory condition. He is the lone survivor of a climbing tragedy that happened Saturday when he and three others attempted a summit of Early Winter North Spire in the north Cascade Mountains.
Okanogan County Search and Rescue coordinator Cristine Woodworth told KOMO News that Tselykh confirmed the details they had suspected in this tragedy.
“The group had encountered bad weather and had decided to descend,” Woodworth told KOMO News. “And they were repelling when they had some sort of anchor failure.”
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She said Tselykh confirmed that all four climbers were on the same piton, which is a stake or anchor in the rock that climbers hook into. That piton Tselykh confirmed, was left from previous climbers.
“The climb that this party was on is one of the more challenging climbs at the pass,” Larry Goldie, with North Cascades Mountain Guides, told KOMO News.
The team of four climbers fell around 5:30 pm Saturday, after the team decided that bad weather was moving in and they were quickly losing daylight. Tselykh somehow survived a fall of some 400 feet with his team. He told Woodworth he lost consciousness, and when he came to hours later, he detangled himself from ropes and climbing equipment.
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“When the snow starts to melt, there can be a bunch of chalk stones, big rocks that sort of block the way that require a much more difficult climbing to surmount,” Goldie said.
Tselykh had to descend about 1,000 feet in elevation, hiking about 3/4 of a mile to his car. Woodworth said he then drove more than 40 miles to Newhalem, where he found a payphone to call for help. That entire process took him about eight hours. The North Cascades Highway to reach the trailhead had only just opened on April 22.
“So on these kinds of climbs, you know, conditions are everything,” said Goldie.
Okanogan County Undersheriff Dave Yarnell said Tselykh suffered head trauma and internal bleeding from the fall, yet somehow survived and even took himself to safety.
