Mike "Gator" Gauthier

Rescue Ranger - 36 - Longmire, Washington

WHAT MAKES HIM TOUGH In 14 years on the job, with 150 rescues, Mike Gauthier, the lead climbing ranger at Mount Rainier, has come to know this treacherous peak better than just about anyone. The Washington native has been caught in at least five avalanches, been struck by lighting three times, and once lost two of his closest friends and climbing partners during a sketchy rescue on a glacier. And yet, through it all, Gauthier has maintained an almost otherworldly calm. "You gotta hold it together or you're toast," he says. "It's not about cockiness -- it's about confidence." One day in June 1998, for example, Gauthier was snowboarding near Rainier's summit when a chilling call came in: "Massive avalanche, Disappointment Cleaver -- possible ten dead." Without his ice ax, a rope, crampons, or a helmet, Gauthier descended the ridge and inched his way down to 11,300 feet, where the climbers lay in shock, splayed out on a shredded rope on the edge of a crumbly volcanic cliff. A single ice-picket held the group from falling. Gauthier took control, stabilized the lines, and performed triage on broken bones, eventually with the help of a team of other rangers who choppered in. Nine of the ten climbers survived. A daring rescue, but Gauthier shrugs it off. "I got lucky," he says. "Mountains are way tougher than me."

EYEWITNESS Charley Shimanski, executive director of the American Alpine Club, says, "He's the Sammy Sosa of mountain rescue. He can adjust to absolutely anything thrown at him, any curveball."

Lou Whittaker


Ed Viesturs


Wolf Bauer


Jake Norton


Craig Van Hoy


Brent Okita


Mike Gauthier

Jim Whittaker


Peter Whittaker


Dave Hahn


Jesse Roskelly


Jeff Justman


Dee Molenaar


Ben Small