Letters: Another “Capitan Courageous” Connection

We received a clipping from the Winter 2008 issue of On Wisconsin from my wife’s father in La Crosse. The article on Eric Gabriel and the 2007 rescue was unusually relevant for our family, as it had both a connection to our favorite summer vacation spot, Yosemite, and we realized our son was part of the same rescue on El Capitan!

Our county near San Francisco has a team that specializes in mountain rescue and was a part of a separate search-and-rescue effort earlier in the day. As the El Capitan rescue developed and Eric made his decision to go down, not up, members of our team were requested to aid Yosemite’s team at the base of the cliff. The combined team lit up the great face of rock from the valley floor to aid Eric as he descended, followed by the carry-out of the injured climber the mile or so through the inclined, rock-strewn forest. Brett Asselstine, just fifteen at the time, was one of the youngest members of a mountain search-and-rescue team in the U.S. and is the grandson of a very proud Dr. Ed Miner ’54, MD’57.

Ross Asselstine
San Anselmo, California

Published in the Summer 2009 issue