FRANCONIA, N.H. (AP) — A rock climber fell about 50 feet (15 meters) in the Franconia Notch area and suffered life-threatening injuries, New Hampshire authorities said.
Conservation officers say the 20-year-old man was climbing on the Cannon Cliffs when he fell Sunday. The climber was unconscious and stuck on a ledge just halfway up the cliff. A National Guard helicopter took the man to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center for treatment.
The climber’s name hasn’t been released. His condition wasn’t immediately known Monday.
In 2017, an ice climber had to be rescued after falling 50 to 60 feet on Cannon Cliff. The climb is considered to be difficult. The cliff is where New Hampshire’s natural rock formation, the “Old Man in Mountain,” an outline of a face in the rock, broke apart and fell in 2003.
Not far from the 4,080-foot (1,244-meter) summit of Cannon Mountain itself, another hiker fell about 20 feet off the Kinsman Trail on Sunday night, officers said.
Christopher Cocaine, 63, of Massachusetts, was about half a mile from the summit. He was able to walk back to the mountain tram with some assistance and was taken to a hospital for evaluation.
In a third case on Sunday night, a man hiking Mt. Osceola near Conway sent a text message to friends that he was off his intended route and had very little food or water. The 23-year-old hiker, Alexander Scates, of Haverhill, Massachusetts, was given water by passing hikers but later said he had no light source. A conservation officer reached him late Sunday. He was uninjured.
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