Climber Found Unhurt on Mt. Shasta

A 46-year-old New York man who became stranded about 10,000 feet up Mt. Shasta was found uninjured Tuesday morning by a Siskiyou County sheriff’s rescue team.

James Aldrich used his cellphone to direct rescuers to his location.

Storm conditions and rough terrain delayed the rescue for several hours.

Aldrich, who was mildly dehydrated and cold when rescued, was released to the care of family members.

“I knew there were people praying for me and I knew I would do everything to survive,” Aldrich told the Mount Shasta Herald before being reunited with his daughter, sister and brother-in-law.

Aldrich left for his climb about 4 a.m. Saturday. By noon the next day, a fierce snowstorm and high winds had collapsed his tent and made the climb too difficult.

He called authorities Monday afternoon from his cellphone and was advised to stay where he was on the mountain’s southwest side, said sheriff’s spokeswoman Susan Gravenkamp.

He had a tent and several days worth of food, she said.

But Aldrich told sheriff’s officials around 3 p.m. Monday that he was concerned about the storm, so he attempted to descend.

By 9 p.m., officials hadn’t heard from him again and sent three skiers onto the mountain to find him.

“It’s a real bad time to climb the mountain, and there was a big storm predicted for the weekend and he went by himself,” Gravenkamp said.

“That’s all the wrong things to do.”

Aldrich, from Homer, N.Y., was climbing the 14,162-foot mountain as a fundraiser for the family of a fellow church youth leader in New York who suffers from pancreatitis.