Climbers rescued from Mount Shasta after barely surviving avalanche

Two climbers required an 11-hour-long rescue effort Saturday evening after narrowly surviving an avalanche on Mount Shasta, officials announced.

The climbers had intended to summit Shasta and snowboard down Avalanche Gulch, a 7,000-foot descent off the south side of the mountain, according to a Facebook post by the Siskiyou County Sheriff's Office.

At 12:21 p.m. on Saturday, the sheriff's office fielded a call from one of the climbers saying he was injured and trapped at an altitude of 12,200 feet. The climber and his partner had survived a wind slab avalanche that carried him 1,000 feet down the mountain, breaking his femur. His partner wasn't caught in the avalanche, but he injured his knee in the chaos.

Dispatchers then called upon climbing rangers from the U.S. Forest Service and helicopter personnel from the California Highway Patrol. Inclement weather prevented helicopters from being able to land near the injured men, so a group of search-and-rescue personnel hiked up on foot in the meantime.

Rescuers located the men at approximately 6:20 p.m. after the weather briefly allowed a helicopter to land 3,500 feet below where they were stranded. At this point, the climber with a broken femur was showing signs of frostbite and hypothermia, requiring "a highly technical evacuation down the mountain," according to the sheriff's office. The other climber was able to snowboard to the Bunny Flats trailhead himself. Both men were treated for their injuries, and no rescue personnel were injured.

Trekking up Avalanche Gulch is no easy feat, as the "rigorous" route up to the mountain's summit requires travelers to know how to travel up steep snow and ice, according to the Mount Shasta Avalanche Center. The climbers who were rescued Saturday are "highly skilled mountaineers with extensive experience on Mount Shasta," according to the sheriff's office.

"Their ordeal, and the 11-hour rescue process that followed, are reminders that no amount of experience makes one immune to the hazards encountered on Mount Shasta, and that ever-changing mountain conditions can turn a rapid-extraction operation into a time and resource-intensive process," the sheriff's office wrote.