Listen to an oral history of the 1969 Rainier mission here. <insert recording of Al> Read the Full Report.
Here’s an excerpt from a couple of missions:
Peak of Index Mission 72-18, Aug 24-25, 1972, described in Trage 1973-02, #80
This was an extremely technical rescue carried out partially at night (moonlight) to rescue a seriously injured solo climber. It involved a challenging midnight landing at Lake Serene, ascent to a ledge system (with full cable and rope gear), stabilizing of subject, a tragsitz evac the next morning to a ledge where transfer could be made to a litter which was lowered to slightly less steep terrain followed by a winch-out to a hovering twin-rotor Chinook chopper at tree-top level. Business as usual.
Mt. Rainier, Liberty Ridge, June 4, 1979, described in Trage #108
This mission is interesting as it involved Liberty Ridge rescue by lowering a rescuer from a hovering Chinook chopper in difficult circumstances, plus the subject of the operation (Bruce Clement) became an SMR member, post-rescue. Plus, another member of his party (Diane Eldrenkamp) also joined SMR post-rescue as did another party member (Chris Mork). Basically, we had a successful rescue and almost everyone from the rescuee’s party later joined SMR.