Thursday 9 June 2022 10:55 PM Mountain guide is killed after falling 2,500 feet from peak of California's ... trends now
A day of mountaineering on California's Mount Shasta turned tragic when three climbers plummeted thousands of feet, killing a guide and injuring two others.
Jillian Elizabeth Webster, 32, of Redmond, Oregon, was assisting a couple to the summit of the dangerous mountain on Monday when one of the climbers slipped, pulling the other two down 1,500 to 2,500 feet of snow and ice, according to the Siskiyou County Sheriff's department.
'They were tethered together,' sheriff's spokeswoman Courtney Kreider told the San Francisco Gate.
Siskiyou County Sheriff's office and the U.S. Forest Service helped six climbers off Mount Shasta this week
On Monday alone, five climbers fell thousands of feet down the icy incline of Mount Shasta
It was a hazardous day in general on the mountain. In less than 24-hours on Monday, six climbers had to be rescued from the 14,180-foot mountain.
Webster's group was above Helen Lake when they fell at about 8:30 a.m. on Monday when the sunlight hit the newly fallen snow on an area called Avalanche Gulch.
'What makes it dangerous right now is the change from really cold to really warm,' Kreider told the Gate. 'We had snow over the weekend, just a little bit of snow, and it created this thin layer of ice in Avalanche Gulch, and when it warms up, that thin layer of ice sloughs off so you have to have really good climbing gear — climbing boots that can really dig into ice.'
