KEENE – A climber suffered serious injuries while rock climbing on Pitchoff Mountain between Keene and Lake Placid before 4 p.m. Monday, May 23.

Essex County 911 notified Department of Environmental Conservation dispatch in Ray Brook that there had been a climbing accident on the “Roaches on the Wall” route along state Route 73. A 22-year-old man from Eagleville, Pennsylvania, had fallen about 80 feet. State police identified him as Kyle Ciarletta.

State forest rangers and the Keene and Keene Valley rescue squads were dispatched to the scene. The first forest ranger to arrive started advanced life support. Once Ciarletta was packaged, he was transported to Marcy Field in Keene Valley, where a LifeNet helicopter flew him to the University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington.

According to DEC spokesman David Winchell, Ciarletta had reached the top of the route and expected to be belayed down by his climbing partner.

“He was out of sight and hard to hear, but she had assumed he was planning to rappel down as they had both done in an early climb,” Winchell said in an email. “The climber stepped off the top expecting to be belayed but instead fell to the bottom of the route.”

Ron Konowitz, an avid climber who lives in Keene Valley, said he had climbed the “Roaches on the Wall” route before. Konowitz was not involved in the rescue but said that area is difficult to communicate in due to the traffic noise on Route 73.

“Once you’re above the second roof, the climbing is easy, but visual contact is lost,” Konowitz said. “The rappel chains at the top of the climb are on a small ledge. It is possible to either walk down around the left hand side of the cliff, rappel down or be lowered down from the small ledge where the rappel anchors are located at the top of the climb.”

Don Mellor, another climber who wrote a definitive Adirondack climbing guidebook, said the rappel chains on that route are pretty high up.

“Eighty feet probably, but definitely more than 60,” Mellor said.

Other climbers in the area who had just left the rock heard the woman’s cries for help and called 911.