Upon arriving at the LeConte Lodge, we found that a hiker had broken his ankle near the top of the Alum Cave Bluff trail. In some ways, despite his bad luck in falling and getting injured, it was still his lucky day. Gretch is a nurse and was able to get him settled enough to avoid his going into shock, the weather was calm enough to call in a helicopter evac ( a rare thing on Mt. LeConte), and there was enough of us in our group to be able to wallow through the deep, untracked snow to the landing pad that we hurried to clear for the evac.

In this photo, the medic is checking the injured hiker before we work our way through the final 100 feet of drifts to reach the chopper.