One of the podcasts that I listen to regularly posted an account of an accident near the summit of Mt. Whitney from the early 1980s. The podcast link is located here:
https://www.thesharpendpodcast.com/episode-63The basic story is that this woman and her male partner summited Whitney and ran into some bad weather, and for some reason that is inexplicable decided to descend the North Face of Whitney(??). Upon downclimbing the North Face, the man falls 800' and is somehow OK and when the woman is downclimbing after reaching him, she falls 150-165' and breaks bones in her body, and then somehow, with broken vertebrae and other mortal injuries, somehow makes it over the Whitney-Russel col and descends to the Portal after a harrowing 5 day ordeal. It obviously sounds like an incredible story of survival, but upon listening to it, I just don't understand how the situation really makes any sense. Namely why would anyone with mountaineering experience decide in a storm to descend extremely opposed 4th/5th class terrain when there are much safer alternatives and how someone could make it out of that situation with those injuries. For all I know it's a completely true story, but it seems like some major fact checking is in order...
