Climbers Tell How They Survived Night On Mount Rainier

Two climbers who tumbled into a 75-foot crevasse on Mount Rainier Monday evening said they spent the night shoveling snow off their tent to keep from being buried alive by a blizzard that enveloped the mountain.

"I think that we were lucky that they found us," Geneviev Morand told KIRO 7 Eyewitness News reporter Chris Legeros. "We couldn't pass another night there."

Morand and Simon Brunet said they were hiking up to Camp Muir when they strayed off a snowfield. Morand fell into the crevasse and Brunet fell in after her.

"It was so dark. There was so much snow and so much wind that I couldn't see where to put my feet, and I just fell," Brunet said.

They called for help with a cell phone, but had to spend the night there.

"What we didn't expect was all the snow coming on the tent," Morand said.

They shoveled snow off their tent every 30 to 60 minutes "because the tent would be covered, and we would just die there … being crushed by the snow," Morand said.

They struggled to stay warm in a wet sleeping bag.

"You're trembling, you're tired and then you kind of fall asleep," Brunet said.

After another cell phone call to guide rangers to their location Tuesday morning, a chopper carried them down from the mountain.

Suffering from hyperthermia, nausea and dizziness, they were taken to Morton General Hospital.

They hugged each other as they were released from the hospital Tuesday night, and praised the park rangers who rescued them as "angels."