New Bolts on Mt. Laurel

"A man climbing a mountain in the Sierra Nevada in California on Saturday was stranded for roughly eight hours, his body shaking as he balanced on a six-inch ledge at an elevation of 10,600 feet, before a dramatic rescue.

According to rescuers, the man and a friend had been climbing Mendenhall Couloir, a gully carved into Laurel Mountain in the Inyo National Forest. It is, at times, a vertical face.

The pair were not using ropes, which are not considered necessary for experienced climbers here, to ascend the 11,818-foot mountain, said Mitch Quiring, the public information officer for the Mono County search and rescue team, which conducted the operation. The man had followed a band of red rock, an established route, but stepped away from the route and became stuck on a ledge, he said.

“Having a couple of wrong moves,” Mr. Quiring said, “leads you to the brink of quite literally a life-altering decision.” ...

In all, four rescuers devised a plan via radio and clicked on their headlamps in the pitch dark. With a meticulous system of bolts and ropes, they reached the climber. His friend, who had gotten ahead of him, reached the summit and was in touch with the crew during the rescue."

Dang, that was such a clean route when we did it, years ago. I assume these bolts were placed by Inyo. We had a rope and some gear, but never used any of it.

Did the rescue team bolt the rescue line ground up?

I simply cannot abide any other compromise in ethics.

Mono County SAR full report states that they used removable Petzl bolts for the anchor, though it sounds like there's some permanent hardware that protected the traverse. 

[...]After a significant haul of heavy technical equipment 1,200 vertical feet down and into the couloir, Team 1 and Team 3 — a combined group of four technical rescuers — commenced a two-part complex technical rescue to approach, secure, and extract the subject from their precarious location. The operation began just as night fell and continued into the darkness. A four-piece bolted rescue anchor was constructed using Petzl Coeur Pulse removable bolts. A mix of 8 mm cord was established between the bolts to allow for redistribution of force on the anchor as the operation shifted focal points. A 600-foot line was broken into two parts: a 400-foot section for the patient attendant and a 200-foot line for a second eventual fixed line, both affixed to the anchor. One rescuer, the patient attendant, maneuvered laterally from the anchor point, drilling safety bolts as they moved across several hundred feet. Once overhead of the subject, the rescuer was lowered above the subject’s location, where they were able to secure the subject into the rope system. Both the subject and rescuer then moved as a tandem unit down the precarious off-shoot gully and back near the main route.[...]

That's quite a report. TFPU

Climber Recounts Rescue From 6-Inch Ledge Atop California Mountain - The New York Times https://archive.ph/o11KE

What an incredible rescue !! Awesome job by the rescue team (even if it appears top-down tactics were used ;)

I can't imagine the relief the climber must have felt after clipping in.

The main takeaway here is just how dire it can get once you are off-route. Being off-route can become life threatening within even just a few moves, for a variety of reasons. Taking a bad fall, pulling on a loose rock, lack of gear, or in this case, being unable to reverse a move whilst soloing. Would you go into the mountains and put up a new route, on sight, free solo? If there is any question of the way ahead, the smart move is to stop climbing, and make a very measured assessment of your options.

I say that without any judgment of the climber, this happens to most all of us at some point or another. Live to climb another day.

The climber as shown in the SAR facebook pic is likely in between the two routes in this pic, down low.  https://www.mountainproject.com/photo/108185524
You can see the big zone of red rock.  To get to the rib climb, we were closer to the red rock.

i climbed this route a week or two after the rescue. didn't see the bolts anywhere. i can definitely see how somebody could get themselves into trouble on this route. that really smooth slabby section up high is one of those things where it is all going great until you have a crack of doubt.