2,000-foot fall down glacier leaves climber dead on California mountain, cops say
.jpeg "A climber died in a 2,000-foot fall on Mount Shasta, deputies say.")
A climber from Argentina died in a 2,000-foot fall on a California mountain after regaining consciousness from a crash into a large boulder, deputies say.
The Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office responded near Mount Shasta’s Clear Creek Trailhead just before 2:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 12, after getting a report about a climber who “had fallen down the Wintun Glacier and disappeared,” deputies said in a Sept. 18 Facebook post.
The 45-year-old man, later identified as Matias Augusto Travizano, was part of a climbing group with two others, deputies said.
Earlier in the day, deputies said, the group summited Mount Shasta.
However, on the trek back down, Travizano and one of the other climbers wandered from the trail, leaving them “stranded on an ice sheet at the northern tip of Wintun Glacier around 13,500 feet,” the sheriff’s office said.
After noticing they were on the wrong path, “the men attempted to glissade down to a lower section of the mountain and re-enter the trail,” deputies said.
As the men slid down the slope, Travizano “began sliding out of control,” the sheriff’s office said.
He crashed into a large boulder, and the impact seemed to have rendered him unconscious, according to deputies.
Travizano remained unconscious for about five to 10 minutes as the other climber, who was about 300 feet higher on the slope, tried to reach him, deputies said.
When the climber got within 80 feet of Travizano, he started moving after regaining consciousness, the sheriff’s office said.
“Tragically, this movement dislodged him from the rock and he slid down the remainder of the glacier and out of sight,” deputies said.
Minutes later, the third climber arrived and called 911, according to deputies.
Deputies said they, along with multiple other agencies, were called to search for Travizano.
A couple hours after starting their search, the sheriff’s office said a California Highway Patrol helicopter team found Travizano dead “at an elevation of 10,200 feet, near the base of the Wintun Glacier.”
“While the Clear Creek Route is considered one of the mountain’s ‘safer’ trails to the summit, climbers can become disoriented in low-visibility conditions, particularly when descending from the summit plateau,” deputies said, adding that when climbers trek off trail they “often wander into more hazardous areas in the Ash Creek or Mud Creek drainages, where accidents are more likely to occur.”
Mount Shasta is in Northern California, about a 230-mile drive north from Sacramento.
