Forecasts for this past Sunday showed it was going to be 102 degrees Fahrenheit or hotter in Sonora. I decided to get up early and revisit Blue Canyon Lake, around 10,050 feet elevation in the Emigrant Wilderness, which had been covered by snow back in mid-May.
I made it up to the lake by 10 a.m., got waist-deep in ice-cold water, and heard someone call out, “Hey aren’t you that reporter?”
Luke Castle remembered me from about a year ago, when we met next to Deadman Creek below the steep granite walls at Chipmunk Flat. He’s been rock climbing there for close to a decade, and he’s done at least one 5.11 first ascent at Chipmunk Flat.
He said it was his first time up at Blue Canyon Lake. He and his friend, Aaron Lecher, talked to two women who were breaking camp and preparing to leave.
Luke and Aaron dove into the aqua turquoise lake. The campers departed. I took a photo of Luke and Aaron, and got Luke’s cell number so I could text or call him later in the week. Luke and Aaron started walking down the canyon, and I was alone at the lake for a moment. It was still before 11 a.m. and the winds were picking up.
I didn’t see what happened when Luke fell. He told me about it later in a phone interview.
“We decided to follow the creek down as opposed to the way on the right,” he said. “I stopped to wet my hat in the creek, took a few more steps, and my right foot slipped on some mossy grass. I felt my other foot roll. I heard some snaps. I felt my ankle. I felt broken bone and a sharp bone end out of place. It looked like my foot was dangling at a weird angle.”
He and Aaron took his shoe off to see if he was bleeding, if a broken bone had cut his leg open. Thankfully, there was no bleeding. They decided the campers were too far down the trail to catch. Aaron came back up to the lake and told me, “Luke fell and broke his leg.”
I followed Aaron down the creek a few yards below the lake. Luke was on the ground in a lot of pain. I could hear him yelling above the rushing water in the creek.
“I pulled my sock and shoe back on and I crawled a bit to see if I could,” Luke told me later. “It was excruciating pain. I was screaming because of the pain.”
I tried to remember things I’d learned as a certified emergency medical technician 40 years ago in New Mexico. I asked Luke if I could put tension on his ankle, to see if that would relieve any pain. I tried to keep Luke and Aaron talking.
Four more people walked up the trail, including Jaron Brandon, the elected District 5 county supervisor.
Together, we put a makeshift splint — tree limbs, Jaron’s shirt, and tape — on Luke’s battered ankle and lower leg. Luke tried to crabwalk on his behind, and he tried to walk with two people supporting him, one under each arm, keeping his injured ankle unweighted. It was slow and painful for Luke on the high, sloping ground where we were, and we know there were steeper, less stable slopes to descend further down. We tried to get Luke settled on a spot with his ankle slightly elevated.
Luke decided it would be best to get more help. He didn’t want to have to call for a helicopter, but he knew he probably would not be able to crawl out before sundown, and no one among the day trippers present had sleeping bags to spend the night out. No one had cell reception up in Blue Canyon. A couple from Stanislaus County offered to walk straight back to their vehicle and drive down to Kennedy Meadows to call for help.
I ate some smoked herring out of a can with hot sauce, drank some water, and decided to walk on out myself. Help was on the way, Luke was stable for the time being, and three people — Aaron, Jaron, and Jaron’s friend, Shane Shouders, were there with Luke. I left my walking poles in case they needed them, and Luke asked me to stop at Dardanelle Resort to tell co-owner Jim Lewis the situation.
Winds continued as I descended. I made it back to Highway 108 by 1:30 p.m. I flagged down a Forest Service law enforcement officer driving her pickup just above the dogleg turn around 9,000 feet elevation, to ask if she was responding to help a man with a fractured ankle up Blue Canyon Lake. She hadn’t heard about it. I gave her my drivers license and cell phone number, Luke’s name and cell phone number, and a brief description of the situation. She said she’d make sure search-and-rescue was notified.
Jim was not at Dardanelle Resort, but his wife, Laurelin, was. Cell reception was poor and I couldn’t text or call from there. I stopped at Pinecrest to call a sheriff’s non-emergency line and see if they were aware of the situation. They were, I was told, and help was indeed on the way.
Back up at Blue Canyon Lake, Luke said, a California Highway Patrol helicopter crew from Fresno arrived around 4:30 p.m. Pilot Ty Blasingame and Flight Officer Paramedic Mike Crain found a suitable landing zone in a flat meadow below where Luke and his companions were waiting.
Blasingame, Crain, and other CHP helicopter crews who fly weekend rescues count on fighting winds every summer afternoon up in the Central Sierra, Sgt. Jeff Andriese, with CHP Central Division Air Operations at Fresno Yosemite International Airport, said in a phone interview.
Crain hiked up to Luke, put another splint on Luke’s ankle, and together they helped Luke hobble down to the airship.
“It took us about an hour to get a quarter-mile to the meadow where the helicopter was waiting,” Luke said. “We flew out over Chipmunk Flat and the cliffs where I climbed. They flew me all the way to Sonora.”
X-rays at Adventist Health Sonora showed Luke had sustained a broken fibula and torn ligaments. Luke said he’s going to need surgery to repair his ankle, and it’s scheduled Thursday. In the meantime, he’s in a splint and a wrap, he’s still on pain relief meds, and he’s using crutches and a wheelchair to get around his home in Modesto.
“Will I be able to hike or climb again? I think it’s a toss up,” Luke asked Tuesday. “Maybe. Maybe not at the same level. But we got lucky on this. We had plenty of help. Aside from the fact we didn’t have splints, everybody did what they needed to do.”
The upside for Luke is he’s getting to spend more time with his wife and their two daughters this week. He’s a geologist for Sonora-based Condor Earth Technologies, and he works out of Stockton at times. On Tuesday, he texted a photo of himself and his 3-year-old daughter Ripley and wrote, “She enjoys sitting on my lap while I wheel around the house.”
Reporter’s note: Before I began working for newspapers in the early 1990s, I spent seven years with VisionQuest and Outward Bound as a paid, certified wilderness instructor and emergency medical technician accountable for groups of felony offender teens, court-ordered children, and adult Cuban refugees. I am in my early 60s and anyone who walks OK on their own can keep up with me.
Contact Guy McCarthy at [email protected] or (209) 770-0405. Follow him on Twitter at @GuyMcCarthy.
951.292.9777
Service Areas
