The Okanogan County Search and Rescue team responds to a climbing accident in the North Cascades mountains in Washington on May 11, 2025.
| Photo Credit: AP
It was late in the afternoon and lightly snowing when four rock climbers, working their way up a steep gully between two peaks in Washington’s North Cascades Range, decided to turn around for a descent down the mountain that would claim three lives.
As they climbed down, the four attached their ropes to a piton — a metal spike pounded into rock cracks or ice and used to secure ropes — that had been placed by a past climber. As one of the men began rappelling off the piton, it ripped out of the mountain, sending all four falling past ice and snow and rock.
They fell some 200 feet, landing in a more sloping ravine where they tumbled for another roughly 200 feet before coming to a stop in a tangle of rope.
Three were killed by the fall. One was knocked unconscious. Anton Tselykh awoke in the dark. It had been hours since the fall. Over the course of the next several hours, he extricated himself from the mess of ropes, gear and debris and trekked over rough terrain of rock and snow — with help from a pick-like ice tool — to his car.
He drove for some 64 km before finding a pay phone and calling for help in Newhalem, an unincorporated community about an hour’s drive away. It was Sunday (May 11, 2025) morning, eight hours since he regained consciousness.
From a Seattle hospital on Wednesday (May 14, 2025) morning, Mr. Tselykh, recovering from head trauma and internal bleeding, told authorities what had happened. He was in satisfactory condition at Harborview Medical Centre, meaning he was not in the intensive care unit, Susan Gregg, media relations director for UW Medicine, said in an email.
Mr. Tselykh (38) confirmed authorities’ theories of what led to the deaths of his three companions, identified as Vishnu Irigireddy (48); Tim Nguyen (63); and Oleksander Martynenko (36.)
Published – May 15, 2025 12:19 pm IST
