I'll tell this story first since I am going to be asked a lot about what happened. We spent a wonderful Friday evening at camp above Tank Lakes. Saturday the boys (and us) were eager to get home and we woke them at 6 am (I woke at 4:45 because I was super cold and figured I'd get up to watch the sunrise) with a goal to be out of camp by 7am. We ended up being packed and ready to go by 7:30 am. We paused for a group photo and then set out across a glaciated cirque where the granite has been scraped and carved smooth by ancient ice. This brings you high above the upper end of Necklace Valley which you can see 700 feet below you.
There is a large lateral moraine left over from a long since receded glacier. A moraine is a large pile of glacial debris pushed to the side of the glacier ice. The moraine is a very loose pile of rock ranging in size from glacial silt (ground rock) all the way up to very large boulders. These all sit together in a unstable pile.
Mark, Brian and Alec were descending down the "spine" of this moraine into the trees below. We had just spent three days crossing talus fields and Miles goes quite slow, in order to make faster progress I decided to drop a much shorter distance (50 ft) to the right to a gravel field where the going would be much faster. Dane descended first, then me and then Miles. Dane was below me 20 feet on a set of rocks. In hindsight we should have had one person descend, and once out of the way each of the others descend to avoid falling rock. My mistake that we did not.
As I started down I stepped on a smaller boulder (left of Dane in the photo) around the size of two large watermelon. It was lose and started tumbling down the rocks toward Dane. I yelled "ROCK!" as we had discussed with the boys. (The rest of this is a bit of a blur due to how fast things happened.) This smaller boulder hit a much larger boulder (4 times the size - I "think" its the rock Dane is sitting on but I could be mistaken) and both of them started tumbling toward Dane. Dane started screaming and attempting to scramble out of the way. I think Dane was tumbled over and was struck by one or more boulders. Dane ended up on his back with the back pack underneath him holding his arm screaming that it was broken.
Dane has a tendency toward the dramatic, but I wasn't not taking things seriously. I calmed him down and said we wouldn't talk about a broken arm but just that it was painful. I helped Dane out of his pack and then I took off my pack and got out my first aid kit. I took my two OR sleeves and slid one on Danes arm then laid on top of that a broken section of a hiking pole (My Black Diamond pole Dane was carrying was also broken, they collapse into thirds) and then slid a second OR sleeve over the pole. Then using the wrap in my first aid kit I wrapped the sleeves and then made a sling around Dane's neck. I gave Dane 600 mg of Ibuprofen and had him sit still.
Mark watched concernedly from way down the moraine. I had Miles descend to him while I got ready to travel. I took Dane's pack and secured it to mine with straps, loaded up and then held Dane's hand as we stepped from "safe rock" to "safe rock" down the remaining 20 feet until we reached the gravel field. Dane continued crying and talking about his broken arm and the hospital and letting his mom know. I held his hand as we continued on down to the valley floor. As we descended I used an oft employed trick on hikes with kids to talk about something else to keep their minds off the travel and in this case Dane's mind off his arm. We started with the Indiana Jones movies and we recounted scene by scene the entire first three movies. This took over 90 minutes. By the end of this conversation Dane was laughing and smiling and was no longer talking about going to the hospital. Later he switched to "Let's not tell my mom, I want to surprise her". He was in genuine good and happy spirits for the rest of the 10 hour hike out to the car.
In retrospect and looking at the evidence of a broken external frame pack and very bent frying pan they must have taken the brunt of the boulder tumble and Dane was protected from much more serious injury. Dane did end up going to the ER and did end up with a break in his arm, the Dr said that the splint helped and prevented things from getting worse. Here are a few photos in the parking lot of the broken pack and dented pan, both of which I gave to Dane as a memorial :
Dane and the bent Pan with his best frowny face :
