OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK — A 24-year-old Central Washington University graduate student who fell between 200 to 300 feet on Mount Olympus on Thursday afternoon remained in serious condition Saturday night in a Seattle hospital.
James Andrew Menking — who goes by “Andy” — suffered head and arm injuries when he was crossing an avalanche chute between Elk Lake and Glacier Meadows as the group headed to Blue Glacier, said Barb Maynes, Olympic National Park spokeswoman.
After his fall, reported to the park at 2:15 p.m., a MH-65 Dolphin helicopter crew from Air Station/Sector Field Office Port Angeles evacuated Menking.
He was transferred to an Airlift Northwest helicopter and taken to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where he was reported in serious condition Friday night.
Menking was working on a thesis about black carbon concentrations in snow and ice of the Pacific Northwest, according to the Central Washington University website at www.geology.cwu.edu/grad.
He was hiking with two researchers from the University of Washington and a natural resources management employee of the park, Maynes said.
“They weren’t necessarily working on research together but decided to go up together and work on separate research together up there,” Maynes said, adding that all were researching snow and glaciers.
The four hiked the nine miles from the Hoh Rain Forest Visitor Center to the Olympus Guard Station in the Hoh Valley on Wednesday, Maynes said.
They were close to reaching Blue Glacier on Thursday when Menking fell, she said.
The rest of the group was expected to hike out Friday afternoon. They did not return requests for comment.
Maynes did not know Menking’s hometown or the names of the other team members.
Menking graduated in 2009 from Tulane University in Louisiana with a degrees in geology and Latin American studies.
A video of the Coast Guard evacuation is available at http://tinyurl.com/3fsukxa.
