Overview

• Three climbers—Vishnu Irigireddy, Tim Nguyen, and Oleksander Martynenko—died from massive injuries after a piton anchor failed during their descent from North Early Winters Spire.
• Survivor Anton Tselykh, 38, sustained head trauma and internal injuries but managed to extricate himself from tangled climbing gear hours after the fall.
• Tselykh crawled over rocky and snowy terrain to his car and drove approximately 40 miles to a payphone, where he called 911 despite struggling to breathe.
• The failed anchor, a weathered piton left by previous climbers, is believed to have degraded over time; authorities are investigating its role in the accident.
• Search and rescue teams used GPS coordinates to locate the victims' bodies, recovering them via helicopter in challenging terrain and conditions.