Monday, June 25, 2012

RIP Nick Hall

funny cat pictures - George mentally prepared himself.
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Poor LOLkitty! I'll have plenty of time to tickle my furbabies today! Revisions on my newest Hood Hamlet book are off. I emailed them to my editor last night. Yay!

Of course, I have another book to write. The proposal is due in July so I don't really get much of a break, but I won't have to work quite as intensely as I did on this one. At least I hope not.

With the trying to get the revisions finished, I never had a chance to mention what happened on Mount Rainier last week. If you've read any books in my Hood Hamlet series, you know mountain rescuers are near and dear to my heart. Well, tragedy struck on Mount Rainier this past Thursday.

Photo: National Park Service
Mount Rainier climbing ranger Nick Hall was killed during a rescue of four climbers, two who had fallen into a crevasse. This Seattle Times article has some details about what happened. They are still waiting for the weather to clear so they can recover his body.

Every mountain rescuer I've talked to since I started writing the Mount Hood books in 2007 has told me the same thing. Rescuer safety is the priority. And though it's rare something like this happens. It does. What mountain rescuers do to help climbers in need is risky. Dangerous. Brave. And Nick Hall paid the ultimate price while trying to help those four climbers.

He was a member of the climbing forum I belong to, but the only post I saw from him was four photographs in response to a request for pics. Another forum member who had been helped by Ranger Nick on Rainier when she was having some health issues during a climb and needed oxygen posted pics and wrote about him. He sounded like a really good guy who was a former Marine and loved the outdoors. He wasn't married and had no kids. Sounds a lot like the guys (Jake, Sean, Bill, Tim, Cullen, etc) I write about in my Hood Hamlet books. Very sad.

RIP Nick Hall. Thank you for your service, for all you did on Mount Rainier to save climbers and keep them safe and everything off the mountain, too. My condolences to his family and all who knew him.