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A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter hovers over a rescue below Pyramid Mountain on Kodiak Island. Tom Herndon was airlifted from the waterfall (lower left). (Photo by Mark Witteveen) Published: October 17, 2004

Vertical redemption
Kodiak researcher climbs to man stuck on waterfall

By CRAIG MEDRED
Anchorage Daily News
(Published: October 17, 2004)

A Sunday of sightseeing at Anton Larsen Bay was over, and Loren Buck was headed home for Kodiak, rattling along a gravel road with the window down on his beater of a pickup, when he thought he heard a scream for help. "Couldn't be," he thought, but he instinctively slammed the 1988 Dodge to a stop.

"I hit the brakes," he said, "thinking, 'Did I really hear that?' "

With Buck in the cab of the truck was visiting Montana friend Joel Long, who'd been admiring the stunning scenery of the Emerald Isle. The sudden stop took Long by surprise, but Buck told him, "I thought I heard somebody calling for help."

With the pickup now stopped and the engine off, the two men jumped out to listen. From somewhere beneath a waterfall on the south flank of Pyramid Mountain high above the road came another shout. The sound drew their attention to the slope a quarter mile away.

"I saw this human figure in the middle of a waterfall," Buck said.

As other cars traveling the road began to pull in behind the parked pickup, he did what he says anyone would have done. He led Long into a thicket of salmonberry bushes and alders.

And they started climbing.

It didn't take long to conclude the mountain was dangerously steep. Buck told Long and Coast Guard Petty Officer Adam Morotti, who'd stopped his car and followed them into the brush, to go back to the road and get help.

The rest of the story