Powerless to help as pal dies
Alex Pendleton
James S. Wood / Staff
Search and rescue crew and sheriff's deputies carry the body of Alex Pendleton after he fell to his death Wednesday while climbing a rock in the Catalina Mountains known as The Pharaoh with a friend, Thomas Chong.
Mt. Lemmon's 'Pharaoh' rock claims climber
By L. Anne NewellARIZONA DAILY STAR
Thomas Chong was standing on an outcropping on a Mount Lemmon rock formation, yelling for help and hoping his climbing partner, hanging below him, was still alive.
Moments later, Chong secured the line that was holding them to one another and the rock wall and rappelled down to Alex Pendleton. The 28-year-old Tucson chef was bleeding and his body was limp. Chong couldn't find a pulse.
"Everything rationally said to me he was dead, but I just didn't believe it," he said Thursday, one day after the fatal accident, his voice still hoarse and his mind reeling.
Chong climbed back to the outcropping, trying to decide what to do. He didn't think there was enough rope to lower Pendleton to the ground and didn't want to risk hitting him against the rock face. He couldn't take his friend to the top or carry him down.
Moments later, he lowered himself back to his friend - who authorities think fell 50 to 75 feet - and secured him against the wall. He tried to arrange the harness so Pendleton was upright. Then he began the more than 100-foot long descent from that spot on the formation, known as The Pharaoh.
His lungs aching, he finally reached the bottom. He ran back to the parking lot, an uphill run of nearly a mile, stopping when his lungs burned so badly he couldn't breathe. He knew Pendleton had a cell phone in his Jeep.
"I was working as fast as I could, but it took me a long time," Chong said. "I don't know how long it was, but every second counted. There was such a feeling of helplessness really."
The pair had started out in the early afternoon, Chong said. They climbed together frequently outdoors in the two years they had known one another and met every week with a group of friends to climb at Rocks and Ropes near Downtown. But it was the first time they had attempted to scale The Pharaoh, on a route called Cripple Creek.
Climbing guides list many routes for The Pharaoh and the one Chong and Pendleton chose is among the most popular. Guides say it requires an excellent use of gear placement and good climbing techniques. It's difficult, but not the most difficult climb in the Tucson area.
The rock face is divided into three pitches, or sections, Chong said, on which two climbers will alternate who goes first, for safety reasons. One climbs while the other stays behind on an outcrop to monitor the climb. Then when the first climber reaches the next safety spot, the second climber - called the belayer - will ascend and pass him, going to the next safety spot, he said.
Both men wanted to go first, Chong said. They flipped a coin.
Pendleton won.
The first pitch went well, Chong said and the pair had scaled about 80 feet. The second pitch also was smooth, and they had gone maybe 95 feet farther, he said, inserting safety devices into the wall as they moved up and attaching themselves to the devices with ropes.
They began the third portion of the climb and Chong waited on the safety ledge, watching until Pendleton disappeared after 20 feet or so.
"He got fairly close to the last moves, just judging from how much rope he'd taken up," Chong said. "Then, without any warning, he fell."
Pendleton yelled as he was falling, Chong said, calling out, "Take!" to alert his partner that the rope that connected them would be bearing more weight. Chong braced himself and the rope pulled him up about a foot.
"After the fall, I looked over and he was limp," Chong said. "I yelled his name, but he didn't respond. I had no idea how bad it was. I thought he'd shake out of it."
Pima County Sheriff's Sgt. James Ogden couldn't say what caused Pendleton to fall. Chong also wasn't sure. He said his friend was nearly to the top of the rock face and at least two of the last few safety devices he'd put into the wall were dangling on his rope, meaning they'd come out in the fall, Chong said.
"He was athletic," Chong said of his friend. "He had a lot of guts. It's really hard to believe that this happened. I remember everything in vivid details. I'm reliving it."
After he'd left the scene late Wednesday afternoon, Chong went with authorities to his friend's apartment. They called Pendelton's parents in Hawaii, his sister and his girlfriend, for whom he was saving to buy an engagement ring.
"Someone said it must have been horrible, but if it was anything, it wasn't horrible, just extremely sad," Chong said. "That was my friend."
Pendleton had been a sponsored surfer when he was younger and played tennis professionally. Chong says the younger man had been climbing only for a couple of years, but was already better than many people who had done it longer.
Pendleton's girlfriend, Tucson resident Michelle Nolen, said they were talking about marriage and discussing names for future children. They had a March trip planned for New Orleans. They'd watched a special on the best spots to honeymoon and were making a guest list for their wedding.
"He was the world's most wonderful person," she said. "He was good at everything he did. He was a really strong climber, a professional tennis player and a sponsored surfer, a golfer who could shoot an 80."
The couple met last March, when friends set them up at a spring training game, she said.
"We were attached at the hip ever since," she said. "He was the first person I've ever been in love with and the most wonderful human being who ever came into my life. I so looked forward to building a family with him and growing old with him."
He was building a career, too, she said. Bob McMahon, CEO of Metro Restaurants, said he hired Pendleton four or five years ago. He'd shifted between restaurants and positions and had worked as a pastry chef, sous chef and finally got the executive chef position he wanted, at Metro Grill Park Place.
"He was only 28," McMahon said Thursday, his voice shaking. "He was just such a nice young man."
Ogden said 18 people from his department's Search and Rescue Unit and the Southern Arizona Rescue Association labored about five hours to retrieve Pendleton's body. Officials had to climb down to the base of The Pharaoh, then scale the easier backside, then rappel down to Pendleton, then lower him to the ground. They came out at 2:30 p.m.
"It was a much more complex and difficult operation than what we normally do," he said. "Within the last five years, it's probably in the top five."
He said officials would have gone in Wednesday night if they'd had any indication Pendleton was still alive. But the climber, who wasn't wearing a helmet, appears to have died as a result of the fall, he said.
"If there were any signs that the injuries weren't as devastating as they were, we would have made the attempts regardless of the obstacles," he said.
* Contact reporter L. Anne Newell at 629-9412 or at lnewell@azstarnet.com