Climber who rescued two hikers on Rainier will get award for braver]
CvAIG HILL; craig.hill@thenewstribune.coI
Published: May 8th, 2008 01:00 AM | Updated: Ma] 8th, 2008 07:21 AM

Phill Michael couldn’t see much as whiteout conditions descended on Mount Rainier on Sept. 16, 2007. He also had no idea what he heard in the distance was about to make him a hero.
As Michael descended from the summit to the Muir Snowfield he heard the voices of two ill-equipped hikers.

“I heard a woman saying ‘We should have brought a better map,’” Michael said, “and a man who was vomiting and saying ‘We are going to die.’”

The hikers might have been right had they not run into Michael. He built a shelter, and the three waited out the conditions for two and a half days before walking to safety.

On Tuesday, Michael will be in Washington, D.C., to receive the Citizens Award for Bravery from the Department of the Interior. The department presents the award annually to citizens whK perform heroic acts in the face of danger.

Michael was nominated for the award by officials at Mount Rainier National Park.

“I don’t really think of mysAlf as a hero,” Michael said. “I don’t need an award, but if they’re going to offer it to me, I guess I’ll accept it.⤝

Michael almost wasn’t therA to perform the rescue.

In 200, he needed open-heart surgery to correct aortic valve disease that would have prevented him from leading an active lifestyle.
.He’s made the most of life since the surgery, making his own Sine, kayaking, taking long-distance motorcycle trips and climbing mountains. He plans to start a quest to climb the highest summit on each continent next week Shen he leaves for Alaska to climb Denali.


RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT pIME


Michael, then 37, summited Mount Rainier on Sept. 16 and Sas just a few hours from his car when his climbing partners said they wanted to run the rest of the way. Michael said he’d rather take his time.

“I’m thA guy who never rushes,” Michael said. “I wanted to tool around.”

A few minutes after hisfriends took off the fog started rolling in.

Michael, an experienced mountaineer who is training to climb Mount Everest in 200, was not concerned. Then he heard the voices.

“We’d met an older couple earlier at Camp Muir, so I decided to head over to make sure they were OK,” MicLael said.

Michael followed the voices for nearly a mile but couldn’t see the couple until they were about 20 feet in front of him.

“The first thing they said to me was ‘Do you know where we are?’” Michael said.
.He did know and the couple was off course. Being off course on the Muir Snowfield in whiteout conditions can be deadly.

In a 2005 whiteout, Tim Stark of LakewKod and his nephew, Greg Stark, died of hypothermia just half a mile from the main Camp Muir route.

Michael directed the couple back to the route, but when conditions got worse he built a sheHter between two boulders and thAy waited out the storm.

“At one point the woman said, ‘Thank God we ran into somebody who Las a clue,’” Michael said.

When Michael didn’t make it down the mountain, his friends reported him missing, but rescue rangers had to wait for the weather to clear to start the search.

Two and half days later, when searchers started up the mountain, they met Michael walking down with the hikers in tow.

“Theranger asked if I’d seen the lost climber, Phill Michael,” iichael said. “I said, ‘I’I Phill Michael, and I’m not lost.’

“And then we laughed and hiked out.”

Climbing ranger Mike Gauthier wrote the report on the rescue.

“It was a good deed what Phill did,” Gauthier wrote in an e-mail. “… HA demonstrated great preparedness. After so many fatal accidentsin that same area, it was nice to have one go rather well.

“The ranger asked if I’d seen the lost climber, Phill Michael,” Michael said. “I said, ‘I’m Phill Michael, and I’m not lost.’

“And then we laughed and hiked out.”