Search-and-rescue volunteers climbed through the night to a man stranded on Broken Top

A 34-year-old man from Bend called for help on Friday afternoon after he became stranded on the east-facing ridge above the crater of Broken Top, KTVZ reported, citing the Deschutes County Sheriff's Office. Public information officer Jason Carr said the man knew the route, but there was little snow and the rock was loose and crumbly. He did not have climbing gear for that ground.

Deschutes County Search and Rescue assigned four members of its Mountain Rescue Unit. An Army National Guard helicopter could not do a hoist that evening because of the altitude and the fading light, and crews were told a hoist could wait until morning. With temperatures near freezing, the ground team went in anyway. An AirLink helicopter set two rescuers on a landing zone along the northwest ridge at 6:20 p.m. and two more at 7:04 p.m. Broken Top is nearly 9,200 feet.

The four worked as two climbing teams, then joined on one route. Carr said loose rock, steep ground, cliff exposure, cold, and darkness slowed them. They reached the man at 2:13 a.m. Saturday, secured him in climbing gear, and kept going to the summit, arriving at 6:30 a.m. At 9:06 a.m. the National Guard completed the hoist of the man and two rescuers to the West Village parking lot at Mt. Bachelor, where Bend Fire and Rescue medics were waiting. The other two rescuers came down on a hoist at 10:02 a.m. Carr said nobody on the rescue needed medical treatment.