DOUGLAS ROSE - Acadia National Park
During a briefing at ranger headquarters at Acadia National Park on Wednesday, Chief Ranger Norman Dodge described what led to one of the most dramatic recovery efforts he had seen at the park during his 18 years of employment.
Dodge said that Rose, with fellow climber Paul Ryan, 20, an employee at Cadillac Mountain Sports in Bar Harbor, were at Great Head to challenge one of the most difficult rock-climbing areas at the park.
Wednesday was a difficult day for Rose’s friends and classmates at College of the Atlantic, whose faces reflected the horror they felt while they stood quietly in the back of the room listening to Dodge recount the tragic events that led to Rose’s death. Rose was a junior at COA.
Rose’s parents, Clayton and Sue Rose of Manchester, Conn., were notified of their son’s death and they arrived in Bar Harbor at 4 a.m. Wednesday, when they were sequestered in a motel.
Although Rose’s parents were contacted in Connecticut, school officials said their records showed Rose’s home address as Wilbraham, Mass.
The climbers walked about a half-hour Tuesday, across rocky terrain, to get to the climbing area, then lowered themselves on two ropes to the floor of the cliff after securing their equipment, Dodge said. At low tide, they made their way across boulders and into the sea cave, where they attached their equipment to the top of the cave and were able to walk across the ceiling.
Dodge said the two men were experienced climbers, but that they encountered problems when the high tide interfered with their climb out of the sea cave. He said that in order to leave the cave, the men had to make a “Tarzan-type swing” out of its mouth to reach the vertical ropes.
“The wind and wave action, the weather and the tide seemed to come faster than they had seen it here before. The waves were coming directly into the cave, so the climbing window was shortened,” he said.
Dodge said the men realized the urgency, and left their climbing gear behind.
Ryan was the first to make the climb back. “He (Ryan) went well into the ocean before he reached the vertical (line). The surf was high, and it was difficult, but he said that he cooled himself mentally and just climbed up like he ordinarily would,” Dodge said.
Once he was about halfway up the face of the cliff, Ryan looked back to his companion and offered words of encouragement.
“He (Rose) fixed his equipment on the rope, swung out to the vertical and went well into the water, where there was serious wave action and surf. … Although he was putting out a lot of effort and trying to climb, because of fatigue or maybe hypothermia — because they had been out in the cold all day and they were wet — he was unable to ascend the rope,” Dodge said.
After about 45 minutes of trying to help his friend, Ryan attached Rose’s rope to the cliff and made his way in the dark to the Bar Harbor Police Station.
“He arrived at the Bar Harbor Police Station around quarter-past eight last night, and this incident happened around 5 p.m., so a long time had passed,” Dodge said.
Rescuers and a 40-foot U.S. Coast Guard boat rushed to the scene.
“So last night, in the blackest of downpours and with the wind howling like a hurricane … a member of Mount Desert Island Search and Rescue was able to climb down the rope to a point where he could see into the cave. He could see that Rose was tethered on a rope and pretty much free-floating in the surf and face down,” Dodge said. “He made a determination he was dead.”
Rescue efforts were halted until 6 a.m. Wednesday.
“This time a ranger climbed down and was able to pendulum-swing into the cave. He got within 15 or 20 feet of the body when the surf really picked up. He was completely submerged two or three times and we had to pull him up,” Dodge said.
The rescuers returned to the site at 1 p.m. They climbed down to an area that was accessible by foot. A ranger then crept across the face of the rocks, and attached the safety ropes that other rescuers would use to cross the bottom of the sharp cliff and recover the body.
Dodge said the ropes the men had climbed down on Tuesday had been severed by pounding wave action during the night.
As the surf continued to sweep the rocks, onlookers sitting on the side of the cliff watched the recovery efforts. At 2:30 p.m. a climber had secured the ropes and made the lateral climb back. Other climbers, using the strength in their arms and legs, and at times suspended in midair with their backs to the sea, then moved carefully across the outcropping. It took them about 10 minutes to reach Rose’s body.
The body was placed in an evacuation bag containing flotation jackets, a line was tied to it, and the line was thrown to the Bar Harbor harbor master’s boat and the crew recovered the body. The recovery was completed by 3:30 p.m. Rose’s body was taken to a funeral home in Bar Harbor.
COA student Josh Jamieson, who said he had once roomed with Rose, described Rose as a very likable person.
“He was a nice guy, an outdoorsman. He enjoyed his outdoor activities and did them well. He was generally a well-rounded guy, and he had a lot of friends,” he said.
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