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By Mike Gervais
Register Staff 10-6-2007
When Charlie Hench set out on a trans-Sierra hike late last month, he never expected the snow storm that rendered him stranded, injured, lost and the center of attention for a massive search team comprised of two Search and Rescue posses and a handful of friends.
Hench embarked on his hike from Edison Lake north of Fresno on Sept. 17, planning to traverse the Sierra alone, ending up in Round Valley at Pine Creek.
The fateful trip was interrupted by an early-season snow storm and a series of bad falls that led to broken and chipped bones.
Hench, after five days in the wilderness, starving, cold and wind-blown, was rescued from a likely grim fate by local resident and City of Bishop Public Works Director Dave Grah, who found the missing hiker and successfully led a search team to his location.
“He was on this ledge for four or five days” hungry, tired and cold, but he returned home safe, Grah said.
The 49-year-old Caltrans engineer from Cambria set out on Sept. 17 from Shaver Lake. He made his way to the Edison Lake campsite where he was warned, casually, of a snow storm that was possibly approaching.
Being an experienced climber, and knowing that it was early for a severe storm, Hench set out anyway, making his way towards Italy Pass, planning to come out on the east side of the Sierra at Pine Creek.
Two days into his trek, Henchencountered the storm he had been warned about. It was worse than he could have imagined.
By the morning of Sept. 19 Hench was competing with a violent snow storm that dumped about an inch of snow at Mammoth Mountain, and even more near Italy Pass, where he was forced to hole up and wait for better conditions.
The next morning, Sept. 20, the storm seemed to have subsided and Hench decided to move on towards Italy Pass. He couldn’t have known that a second wave of snow was coming his way.
It was on Sept. 20 that a friend of Grah’s contacted him and mentioned that Hench (an acquaintance of Grah and friend of the caller) may be in for a long trip during the snow storm.
A second friend contacted Grah noting that Hench was overdue, and asked Grah to check out the Pine Creek campground to see if he had indeed made it out. Grah found no signs of Hench.
Just about the time the bad weather returned, Hench took a wrong turn and headed north rather than west, missing Italy Pass coming to another pass.
Realizing that the storm was moving into his area again, Hench noticed that he was on the wrong track, but chose to keep going, traversing through snow and ice.
According to Grah, Hench slipped and fell while climbing the pass, breaking his wrist and knocking himself unconscious.
When Hench regained consciousness he attempted to make his way out of the wilderness, but within 20 minutes he fell twice more, eventually chipping the bones in his back, losing or breaking his prescription glasses, losing his map and walking stick.
Cold, lost and in pain, Hench hunkered down again, waiting out the storm. He would spend five nights on a ledge, eventually running out of food, water and matches.
By Sept. 24 it became apparent to Hench’s friends that there was trouble. He was overdue and unheard from, said Grah.
That day, Inyo and Fresno Search and Rescue teams set out to locate the missing hiker with the aid of Hench’s dedicated circle of friends.
“By Tuesday, the 25th, he still hadn’t come out and he hadn’t been found,” Grah said. “I thought that maybe he had gotten lost in the snow storm and my brother, 30 years ago, had an accident on Italy Pass,” so it was a familiar area.
With that knowledge, Grah felt he could be useful to the rescue effort and decided to help in any way he could.
The following day, Wednesday, Sept. 26, Grah loaded up his1950 Cessna 170 at the Eastern Sierra Regional Airport and flew up Pine Creek Canyon. “I flew past Italy Pass and didn’t see anything so I went on to Edison Lake. On my way back at a nearby pass I saw a guy waving a red cloth on a stick,” Grah said.
Grah signaled the hiker by rocking the wings of his plane and flew out of the canyon to find help. As luck would have it, Grah heard a CHP helicopter team coming in over the radio. “I contacted them on the radio and asked if they were looking for someone. They were and I told them I thought I found him. They asked what he was wearing, and it was him.”
Grah led the helicopter to Hench’s location. It took two attempts, but the team was able to extract the wounded hiker from the narrow canyon ledge and take him to Northern Inyo Hospital, where he was treated for a broken wrist, chipped vertebrae, exhaustion, hunger, exposure, scratches, bruises and dehydration.
“Search and Rescue had looked through that area, and had moved on, CHP had looked too, and were done,” Grah said, noting that, later, speaking with Hench, he learned that the hiker could see the search teams as he sat on the ledge, but they were looking for him at a much lower altitude.
Hench, Grah and other friends that participated in the search, including members of both SAR teams, attended a barbecue in San Louis Obispo in celebration of Hench’s safe return.
There Hench talked of the things he learned, like never hike in the backcountry alone, always bring a compass and be sure to check the weather before setting out.
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