Tumbling head over heels: Climber survives fall from Rocky Mountain peak

By Mollee Francisco

Warm blankets, hot soup and a new boyfriend. Those were the thoughts that kept Sheila Townsend awake as she shivered on a mountaintop, waiting for help to arrive.

Townsend, 48 of Chaska, survived a 200-foot fall off of the False Keyhole on Longs Peak in the Rocky Mountains on August 19. Today, she is back in Chaska and feeling very lucky to be alive.

“I believe there were angels around me that day,” she said.

Dave Phillips nods his head in agreement as he listens to Townsend talk in his Brandondale home. Phillips and Townsend had just started dating before she took off for a vacation in Colorado and both are interested to see where the relationship is headed.

“I remember thinking (on the mountain) I just met him,” she recalled. “I’ve got to get back, I don’t want to screw this thing up.”

Back in Chaska, Phillips was wondering why Townsend hadn’t called to let him know she was OK.

“She had left me a voicemail at 3 a.m. that morning saying she’d call later that night,” Phillips recalled. “But Sunday night came and went.”

Monday morning, Phillips continued to call Townsend’s cell phone with no luck.

“Finally, I left a message saying if I don’t hear from you in an hour, I’m going to the police,” he said.

But Phillips is quick to admit that he didn’t give Townsend an hour. He went straight to the police. At the station, his worst fears were revealed.

“They told me not to get too concerned yet, but the ranger station had just got a call about a woman on the mountain that matched her description,” he recalled.

And indeed it was Townsend. Some 15 hours after she had tumbled down the mountainside, rescue efforts had finally begun.

The fall

Townsend wasn’t new to climbing when she set her mind to tackle the 14,000-foot Longs Peak. She had been preparing for two to three years before she headed up the mountain.

“It’s so beautiful out there,” she said.  

After several days of inclement weather, Townsend decided that Sunday’s forecast looked good enough to attempt the climb. So she got up long before the crack of dawn and was on the trail by 2:40 a.m.

“They recommend you’re on the trail by 3 a.m. so you’re off the peak by noon,” explained Townsend.

Townsend made it up to the peak by 1 p.m. Fellow hikers helped her commemorate her accomplishment by taking her photo at the top. Then, about a half hour later, Townsend began her descent.

The path was steep, forcing Townsend to take her time and be extra careful.

Then the rain and hail began.

“The rain made the granite real slick,” she said.  “It took a lot longer to get down.”

Adding to her problems, Townsend missed her marker. Figuring out what she had done, she backtracked to try to find it.

“I went up instead of down and saw my marker below,” she recalled.

On her way back down, the slippery rock compounded matters.

“I turned my right foot to stop sliding,” she said. “But I just kept gaining momentum.”

Before she knew it, she was tumbling head over feet down the mountainside.

“There was no way to stop,” she said.

Two hundred feet below she landed and was knocked unconscious. Townsend estimates that it was at least a half hour before she came to again.

“I had pebbles in my hand,” she recalled. “And I couldn’t figure out why. I thought I was just taking a rest in the sun.”

It was a stream of blood running down the cliff that brought Townsend back to reality.

“I knew I had to stop the bleeding,” she said.

Townsend retrieved some toilet paper and Kleenex from her pack and pressed it to her head. Then she took out her cell phone and tried to call 9-1-1.

“No service,” she recalled.

At that point, figuring she was the last one on the trail, Townsend realized she would have to spend the night on the mountain.

“I saw a crevice above me,” she said. Townsend crawled up the 15-20 feet to the crevice and settled in for the long night ahead. Worried that she might have a concussion from the fall, Townsend struggled to keep herself awake.

“I just got it in my head to stay awake,” she said.

Despite numerous injuries, including a broken ankle, Townsend felt little pain.

“It was so cold I had no pain,” she recalled.

Park officials estimated that the temperature was near freezing where Townsend fell.

The rescue

Around 7 a.m. the next morning, Townsend began to hear the voices of climbers headed up the mountain. She hollered for help, holding a whistle in case they didn’t hear her.

Seven hikers responded to Townsend, some climbing up to where she was while another tried to find cell phone service to call for help.

By 11 a.m., rescue crews had arrived on the scene.

“They were amazing,” she said. “They did a four to five hour hike in an hour and a half.”

Because of Townsend’s location and the windy conditions, the rescue was difficult.

“I fell in the windiest place,” she said.

Townsend was put into a basket called a litter and strapped down as an IV line was started. Rescuers had to first carry her 200 feet up the mountain to a place where she could then be lowered down 500 feet for helicopter pickup. In total, 25 people were involved in her rescue.

Once in the helicopter, Townsend was flown to Loveland for medical attention. Despite the whole ordeal, the worst of Townsend’s injuries was the broken ankle. She suffered bruises to various parts of her body and cuts to her head. but required only two pins in her ankle and five stitches in her head. 

“It could have been a lot worse,” she said.

Townsend will have to keep weight off of her ankle for the next month, but has no reason not to climb again.

“I won’t do an extreme mountain again by myself,” she said, noting that she will probably keep climbing, though she can’t say whether she’ll do Longs Peak again.

“I feel like I conquered it,” she said. “I made it to the top. But I might go back to take photos.”

For now, Townsend is staying put to see where things will go with Phillips. He’s already impressed both her and her family.

“Dave was great,” she said. “He’s my angel.”

Benefit info for Sheila Townsend

Sunday, Sept. 30

Chaska American Legion

3-8 p.m.

Sloppy joes, silent auction, karaoke