It was late in the afternoon and lightly snowing when four rock climbers, working their way up a steep gully between two peaks in Washington’s North Cascades Range, decided to turn around for a descent down the mountain that would claim three of their lives.
As they climbed down, the four attached their ropes to a piton—a metal spike pounded into rock cracks or ice and used to secure ropes—that had been placed by a past climber. As one of the men began rappelling off the piton, it ripped out of the mountain, sending all four falling past ice and snow and rock.
