Climber dies on 14,000' Crestone Needle of Colorado
Arthur Vyn Boennighausen
An article from the Westcliffe, Colorado newspaper follows my
signature. The Crestone Needle is included in Steck & Roper's book "50
Classic Climbs of North America".
Here is a trip report from my own ascent of the Crestone Needle in
1997:
www.sangre-de-cristo.com/westcliffe/cms/Crestone_Needle.htm
Best personal regards,
Arthur von Boennighausen
Webmaster @ www.sangre-de-cristo.com
After an estimated 3,110 man-hours of searching by search and
rescue teams, the body of a 29-year-old Denver man was found on
Friday, July 30. He apparently died the previous Sunday from a fall
sustained while traversing the ridge between Crestone Peak and
Crestone Needle.
Jason Pettigrew began his journey on the Custer County side of
the Needle, but his body was found in Saguache County, east of Red
Gully at an elevation of 13,300 feet.
With an Air National Guard search helicopter still in the area,
Custer County SAR captain Cory Phillips said he requested and was
denied help in removing the body from the scene on Friday. Teams
manually took the climber out of the rugged terrain on Saturday.
Pettigrew was reported missing by his family on Tuesday, July
27. Phillips said his team believes Pettigrew died instantly in a fall
sometime Sunday, July 25.
This information is based on autopsy reports and the fact that
Pettigrew signed in at the summit of the peak on Sunday, Phillips told
the Tribune.
It was a difficult search that included 11 SAR agencies from
throughout the state, an Army Black Hawk helicopter, an Air National
Guard helicopter, an El Paso County horse team and two dog teams. A
total of 196 people, including 22 locals, searched the mountains for
Pettigrew.
His body was found between 12:30 and 1 p.m. on Friday, July 30,
by a team of Custer County SAR, Rocky Mountain Rescue group and
Western State College rescuers.
Phillips said he was difficult to spot because Pettigrew’s
clothing was earth-toned, but the lime green helmet he was wearing
eventually lead searchers to the body.
Low clouds sometimes brought visibility down to 40 feet,
Phillips said, making the search even harder. Intense weather came in
around 1 p.m. each day of the search, Phillips said, adding that, at
one point, rescuers had to ditch jackets because the zippers were
buzzing from the electricity in the air.
Phillips’ team spent more than 12 hours in the field each
day. They encountered high winds, snow, hail, temperature drops of 30
degrees in 15 minutes, sleet, and rain during their five-day search.
One SAR member suffered a broken hand and another sustained rib
injuries in minor falls.
Additionally, during the extrication mission, several SAR
members had to dodge unstable boulders the size of washing machines
that rolled down the mountain toward them.
Phillips said his team was completely exhausted from the mission
and half of the rescuers had spent all five days in the field, missing
man-hours at paying jobs in order to find the Denver man.
The SAR team traveled four miles with 2,000-foot elevation gains
to extract the 185-pound, 6-foot two-inch body.
Pettigrew had climbed Crestone Peak earlier on Sunday and
apparently was attempting to summit Crestone Needle later that day
with plans to continue on to Kit Carson Peak on Monday.
His goal was to climb each of Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks
before his 30th birthday next week, Phillips said. Kit Carson was the
final ascent in Custer County, with three more 14’ers left on
his list after that.
“Jason was an experienced climber. He did nothing
wrong,” Phillips said, adding that photographs from
Pettigrew’s camera did not indicate that weather was a factor in
his fall.
About 20 of Pettigrew’s friends and family from the
Denver-area as well as his hometown, New Orleans, held vigil in
Westcliffe waiting for news of the hiker. His parents, of New Orleans,
were also here during that time, as was his girlfriend of Castle Rock.
“I held out hope the entire time that he was alive,”
Phillips said, noting that Pettigrew’s physical shape and
experience led him to think that if anyone could make it, the
29-year-old was just the sort who would.
Pettigrew was a “real stand-up guy,” Phillips
learned in the time he spent with the victim’s family. He said
Pettigrew was active in charity work and was an accomplished engineer.
-- Constance Little