With his best friend's life hanging in the balance, 24-year-old Greg Nappi skied through the chill darkness along Eklutna Lake on Thursday night and into the morning Friday as if his own life depended on getting help.
Only hours earlier, Nappi and Joe Butler had been enjoying the start of a spring ice-climb on the west face of The Mitre, a 6,551-foot peak that rises above Eklutna Glacier in Chugach State Park.
For the two men, the climb was to be one of their last together before they headed off to work as guides for the climbing season on Mount McKinley.
Then Butler slipped, a miscue that sent him tumbling and skidding more than 1,000 feet.
How it happened still isn't clear. Details remained sketchy Friday afternoon.
Nappi, when reached by telephone, said he was more interested in sleeping than in talking.
"I managed to save my best friend's life," he said, "(but) I haven't slept in over 30 hours."
What information was available came from Ian Thomas, a Chugach park ranger who was aboard an Alaska State Troopers helicopter that battled 50 mph winds and blowing snow to reach the 28-year-old Butler Friday morning.
Thomas got a call from troopers shortly after Nappi kicked in the door of the vacant Eklutna Campground ranger station at about 5 a.m. to use the telephone. The climber called trooper dispatchers and told them help was needed to save Butler, who had been critically injured in the fall shortly before noon Thursday.
Within hours, a rescue was under way.
By Friday afternoon, Butler was in surgery at Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage. Among other injuries, he reportedly suffered a broken femur -- the big bone in the leg -- and a broken collarbone.
That he survived, Thomas attributed to a climbing helmet, which protected his head in the fall; luck; and the heroic efforts of a trusted climbing partner.
For the first seven hours immediately after the accident, Thomas said, Nappi engaged in a demanding one-man rescue effort. He climbed down to Butler, assessed his injuries and stabilized his friend as best he could. Then he went several miles back to the park's Serenity Falls hut, got a sled, sleeping bags and a tent, returned to Butler, lowered him in the sled to a place where a helicopter could land just above the Eklutna Glacier, put up the tent, and put his injured friend inside wrapped in two sleeping bags.
Having by that point done all one man could do at the scene, Nappi went for help. It was near 6 p.m., and he'd already been through an exhausting ordeal, Thomas said, but still Nappi pushed on along the 13-mile trail that winds and rolls from the hut to the campground at the north end of Eklutna Lake.
All night he trudged along the trail in his heavy telemark ski gear wishing he could travel faster.
By daylight, his efforts were paying off. The trooper helicopter touched down near Butler's tent around 8 a.m.
Thomas found Butler inside and in pain, but conscious.
"Joe told me that he took a 1,200-foot fall on less than vertical terrain," Thomas said. "I was glad to hear him respond (to me). He's a good friend of mine. I went to school with him at Alaska Pacific University.''
Like so many in Alaska, Thomas, Butler and Nappi were drawn here for the adventure. While Thomas got a job as a state park ranger, Butler and Nappi ended up doing odd jobs and working as climbing guides for Mountain Trip on 20,320-foot McKinley and later for the Talkeetna-based Alaska Mountaineering School.
School founder Colby Coombs Friday described both men as strong, hard-working, fun-loving and safety conscious. Butler was slated to lead a group of soldiers from North Carolina onto McKinley later this month to aid them in preparing for high-altitude assignments in Afghanistan.
"He's a good guy, strong as an ox,'' said Coombs, who was among many wishing Butler a full recovery from his injuries.
"Both these guys are really good guys,'' Coombs said, "and hard climbers."
Butler lives in Anchorage with his wife, Amara Liggett. When he isn't guiding in Alaska or climbing in the Andes or Himalayas, he works as rigger and a safety consultant on Alaska film productions.
When Nappi isn't climbing or skiing in Turnagain Pass, he makes his home in Hope, the tiny community at the end of a dead-end road across Turnagain Arm from Anchorage. Summers, Nappi noted on the Mountain Trip Web site, are "spent in the Alaska Range or pounding nails to help make the dreams happen.''
Butler and Nappi were near the base of a route called Frears Tears below The Mitre when Butler slipped and started sliding down the mountain. Thomas said it appears the two climbers were just at the point where the real climbing starts, and because of that had yet to put in any ice screws for protection.
Troopers reported Butler fell about 100 feet down a near-vertical, frozen waterfall before sliding another 800 feet or more down a hillside.
The Mitre is a popular climbing destination to the west of towering Bashful and Baleful peaks back in the Eklutna Valley, upstream from Eklutna Lake to the east of the Eklutna Glacier. Festooned with ice falls, The Mitre draws climbers looking to tackle a variety of established routes on its west face.
One of the reasons the Serenity Falls hut was built was to provide shelter for climbers in the area.
By CRAIG MEDRED
cmedred@adn.com