{"id":32247,"date":"2023-08-15T21:55:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-16T03:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/famed-co-climber-recounts-rescue-from-peak-near-silverton\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:55:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:55:05","slug":"famed-co-climber-recounts-rescue-from-peak-near-silverton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/famed-co-climber-recounts-rescue-from-peak-near-silverton\/","title":{"rendered":"Famed CO climber recounts rescue from peak near Silverton"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Gerry
Gerry Roach, 79, fell about 100 feet while descending a peak near Silverton last week. The famed mountaineer suffered between five and seven broken ribs, a punctured lung and numerous contusions. (Reuben Schafir\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Reuben Schafir<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Sitting in his room at Mercy Hospital in Durango, Gerry Roach has some advice for other climbers.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t fall down,\u201d he says with a knowing smile.<\/p>\n

Roach, who will soon celebrate his 80th birthday, knows what he is talking about.<\/p>\n

It has been 48 years since he climbed all of Colorado\u2019s peaks over 14,000 feet, 40 years since he climbed Mount Everest and 38 years since he became the second person to climb the highest peak on each of the seven continents.<\/p>\n

Despite his age and astounding climbing r\u00e9sum\u00e9, Roach experienced needing to be rescued by helicopter for the first time.<\/p>\n

As he and his wife, Jennifer Roach, were descending a mountain in the San Juans known only as Peak 13,302 (previous reports incorrectly said the party was on a peak named V8) on Aug. 9, Gerry stepped between two boulders and was thrown off balance.<\/p>\n

He fell backward, down a slope of loose rock that Roach and his wife estimate was approximately 50 degrees.<\/p>\n

\u201cI heard him swear, and I looked back and he was already airborne,\u201d Jennifer said.<\/p>\n

\"Gerry
Gerry Roach tumbled down a steep scree slope on the San Juan\/San Miguel county line last week. (Courtesy of San Juan County Office of Emergency Management)<\/span>Courtesy of San Juan County Office of Emergency Management<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Gerry recalled tumbling about 100 feet down the rocky slope.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time I came down, I hit my head \u2013 bam, bam bam,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Jennifer rushed to him, and found him bloodied, but moving.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I stopped, I got in a standing position under a vertical chunk of rock \u2026 I made a few steps, plopped down on a flat rock, and announced that I needed a chopper,\u201d Gerry said, chuckling at his own unfortunate declaration. \u201cI knew that I wasn\u2019t going to walk down.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was 5 p.m.<\/p>\n

Jennifer checked her iPhone and found that she had no service, nor was her phone capable of sending a satellite SOS signal. Unfortunately, she had also left her SPOT emergency beacon in a different backpack.<\/p>\n

Unbeknownst to the Roaches, another member of their party who had opted not to summit the peak, Jim Ballard, saw through their binoculars Gerry falling from the valley floor, more than 1,000 feet below.<\/p>\n

Ballard attempted to climb up to reach the Roaches, as another member of their party drove an ATV to South Mineral Campground, where they made the first emergency call to rescuers.<\/p>\n

\"Gerry
Gerry Roach walks with his dog in Death Valley in December 2016. (Courtesy of Gerry Roach)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A team of runners, including Silverton Medical Rescue director Tyler George and a paramedic, arrived in less than two hours.<\/p>\n

Gerry\u2019s injuries made a nighttime extrication too risky. After another team delivered overnight equipment, the party hunkered down. Gerry spent the night on a flat rock in a bivy sack, kept warm by one of the rescuers.<\/p>\n

At 6:15 a.m. Thursday, Gerry was hoisted into a Black Hawk helicopter requested from the National Guard High Altitude Training Center then transferred to a Flight For Life chopper and flown to Durango.<\/p>\n

In more than six decades of climbing, Gerry said he has only spent two or three unplanned nights in the backcountry.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was freezing,\u201d he said of that night.<\/p>\n

Roach hopes to be discharged from the hospital on Friday. He is recovering from a concussion, numerous contusions, a head laceration, a punctured lung and between five and seven broken ribs.<\/p>\n

\"Roach\u2019s
Roach\u2019s rescue took two helicopters and more than 18 hours to complete. (Courtesy of San Juan County Office of Emergency Management)<\/span>Courtesy of San Juan County Office of Emergency Management<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Gerry
Gerry Roach on the summit of Denali in 1990. (Courtesy of Gerry Roach)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Roach has accrued a mountain of accolades since he began climbing in the 1950s.<\/p>\n

He wrote the definitive guidebooks about climbing all of Colorado\u2019s 13,000-foot and 14,000-foot peaks; he was the first person to climb the highest 10 peaks in North America. Roach has also climbed numerous high peaks all over the world \u2013 in 1997, he climbed Gasherbrum II, an 8,000-meter peak in the Karakoram range, without supplemental oxygen.<\/p>\n

In all his years of climbing, the famed mountaineer has never had an injury like this.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s embarrassing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Although he recognizes that nature might be forcing him to slow down, Roach says his climbing career is certainly not over. The incident showed him that it is getting older, more than mountaineering, that demands strength and determination.<\/p>\n

\u201cSixty is the new 50, 70 is the new 60, but 80 is still 80,\u201d he said. \u201c \u2026 You\u2019ve got to be tough to get older.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once his ribs have healed, Roach joked that he intends to climb K2 \u2013 by which he meant he will find a \u201clittle bump with a rounded summit,\u201d cover it in snow, and plant a flag. Between the moments of facetious banter, Roach says he is determined to keep climbing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s what I\u2019ve done my whole life,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve just got to be more careful.\u201d<\/p>\n

rschafir@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\u201cSixty
\u201cSixty is the new 50, 70 is the new 60, but 80 is still 80,\u201d said famed climber Gerry Roach. \u201c \u2026 You\u2019ve got to be tough to get older.\u201d (Reuben Schafir\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Reuben Schafir<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Roach, 79, has written guidebooks on climbing the state\u2019s highest peaks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32248,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2748,28,68,3437,2206,327],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-32247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-climbing","tag-headlines","tag-mercy-regional-medical-center","tag-mountaineering","tag-san-juan-county-fire-and-rescue","tag-silverton"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32247"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81726,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32247\/revisions\/81726"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32247"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=32247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}