TEMSCO Helicopters Inc. rescued two Haines skiers on Thursday, March 18 after a vicious winter storm pinned them on the Juneau Icefield halfway between Skagway and Juneau.
Kris Wuesthoff, 33, and Harry Subertas, 29, planned to spend 7 to 10 days traversing the 107-mile icefield, beginning March 8. After several days of unexpectedly heavy snow and high winds, they found themselves a week into the trip, roughly 50 miles from each town, facing a grim weather forecast.
“It was Sunday night (March 14), about a week into the trip, when we had multiple days in a row of high winds and zero visibility. That night is really when we decided we would try to get low where it would be easier to be extricated,” Wuesthoff said. Starting at 6,000 feet elevation, they made their way down to about 4,500 feet.
Wuesthoff said the trip began with some minor problems with their stove and a ski binding—problems they fixed—and then the weather set in.
“The weather was worse than the forecast we’d seen, especially in regards to snow depth,” Wuesthoff said. “The worst… was skinning into twenty-plus mile per hour sustained winds with heavy gusts laden with biting spindrift, into a total whiteout.” It made for slow going.
Both Wuesthoff and Subertas come from guiding backgrounds and have winter mountaineering experience. Wuesthoff said the situation was concerning but never became a crisis.
“It was never a true life or death situation. It was more of a smoldering type of concern about the weather window not opening,” he said. “When we got picked up, we were prepared to stay out for at least three more days and probably could have stretched the food to five, which might have been the time until the next weather window.”
Wuesthoff said if not for the clear skies on March 18, the situation would have escalated. The two passed time during the storm by telling jokes and riddles, and working on various escape plans.
The skiers used inReach satellite messaging to contact Brady McGuire, a friend and fellow mountaineer in Haines, who began working on a plan to get them out.
“When the inReach message came in, Brady immediately called me,” said Alaska Mountain Guides owner Sean Gaffney, who has professional experience with mountain rescues. Gaffney, who was in Anchorage at the time, reached out to TEMSCO’s Skagway manager Kelly Healy and Pat Dryer of Juneau Mountain Rescue.
Dryer began working on contingency plans if the situation became an emergency requiring state resources, and assembling a “drop bag” in case a helicopter wasn’t able to land. The team notified the Alaska State Troopers of the situation.
Gaffney said landing a plane on the glacier was ruled out because of the challenging weather conditions. Heavy snowfall and high winds persisted throughout the beginning of the week, with 70-mile-per-hour gusts recorded at Eagle Crest during that time period. They decided a helicopter out of the TEMSCO Juneau office would make the most sense, provided a weather window opened.
The group asked Alaska Seaplanes for help monitoring weather conditions over the icefield.
“At one point, we were trying to get info about weather conditions above the back of Berners Bay. (Seaplanes) goes by there regularly, so we asked John Loberink, the dispatch supervisor, to put us into the communications loop so that we could get weather updates from their pilots,” Gaffney said. “It was the first time I’ve made a request of them of that nature, and I was greatly impressed by how quickly John was on top of everything.”
The weather window came Thursday morning.
“It was a gift from God, a beautiful, blue day over our campsite that morning,” Wuesthoff said.
A chartered TEMSCO helicopter with a $2,000 hourly rate collected Wuesthoff and Subertas around 11 a.m. on March 18.
“We landed just below the Juneau icefield, on the top of the Butcher Glacier. The pickup was smooth,” said TEMSCO Juneau base manager Eric Main, who piloted the helicopter. He said this sort of pick up is common.
“People go and do that icefield traverse and run into adverse weather,” Main said. He said the only slightly unusual aspect of this trip was that Wuesthoff and Subertas made the attempt a little earlier in the year than most.
“The two gentlemen that were out there were very well prepared. They did an excellent job of managing the circumstances that they encountered, and it was entirely appropriate to ask for a pullout when they did,” Gaffney said.
State troopers said they were aware of the situation and if the TEMSCO helicopter had been unable to rescue the two skiers, a rescue team would have been sent on foot, which would have taken several days.
Wuesthoff said the experience has taught him a lot.
“We were deeply humbled by the experience and thankful to be able to get through it,” he said. “We’re thankful that we have people in the community with that level of experience and care to lend their support.”