Mt. Hood

[39mto39g]

Three hikers lost while climbing MT. Hood.
Now I'm real smart but If I was from Texas and Brooklyn NY I don't believe I would be climbing a Snow covered mountain, Like these guys.
Somewhere along the line people have to take there own responsibility for there stupidity.
Maybe they should have tried Everest.
Ron

[Keith_Hixson]

I climbed Mt. Adams which is a bigger peak than Mt Hood and is only about 100 miles north of Hood. I climbed on Mt Rainier in January many years ago.
Winter climbing isn't all that dangerous if you make sure you have a good three or four day weather window in which to climb. Their stupidity was: They didn't wait for a good weather window.

Usually, from November - April in the Cascades, weather windows are somewhat rare. We haven't had a good weather window for quite sometime around here. Just plain stupid. When you get on a major peak you had better know what you are doing or you can get hurt or dead real quick.


http://www.ktvz.com/story.cfm?storyID=17625

_________________
December 12, 2006 (AP)

GOVERNMENT CAMP, ORE. ? The three men had all climbed bigger mountains.

When they set out Thursday to tackle Oregon's tallest peak, their plan was to practice an alpine technique known as a rapid ascent, which puts a premium on traveling with a minimum amount of gear. They'd get to the 11,239-foot summit of Mt. Hood and be back to their base camp within a day or so.

But the weather quickly went wrong ? perhaps disastrously so ? for the experienced hikers, who remained missing Tuesday evening despite an intensive search by 40 rescue workers and a helicopter crew.

Authorities believe one of the men is injured or disoriented from the cold and holed up in a snow cave on the northeast side of the mountain, near the summit. Meanwhile, they say, the other two apparently got lost while descending Hood to seek help for their colleague.

But with wind-whipped snow strafing the mountain, rescue crews working both sides of the peak trying to retrace the men's potential routes have been unable to find any of the three and are hampered by whiteout conditions.

"It is very hard to see more than a few feet in front of you," Marty Johnson, a member of the search team, said Tuesday.

"So, at this moment, you could not locate them unless you stumbled onto their path," he added.

The man believed to be injured or disoriented, 48-year-old Kelly James of Dallas, called his family Sunday on his cellphone to report that he was stranded and that the group was in some trouble, said his older brother, Frank. The hiking party's location is about 50 miles east of Portland, and within range of cellphone towers. The call lasted about four minutes.

But Kelly James ? who has climbed the taller Mt. Rainier in neighboring Washington at least 15 times and proposed to his wife there, his family said ? has not answered the phone since. Authorities say they have been able to determine his approximate location, as the phone retained battery power and broadcast a signal in response to incoming calls Tuesday.

Frank James and family members of the other two men ? Brian Hall, 37, also of Dallas, and Jerry "Nikko" Cooke, 36, of Brooklyn, N.Y. ? emphasized that the climbers were all experienced, dressed in warm enough clothing for an ascent up the freezing mountain and trained in survival techniques.

And so, they held out hope Tuesday that the trio were waiting out the stormy weather in the snow cave and would turn up alive.

"My brother has been climbing for 25 years," Frank James said from a rescue staging area on the mountain. "He would know what to do in a difficult situation."

Others held out similar hopes while acknowledging the circumstances were difficult. "It's not looking good for those guys, with the conditions we have up there, and the avalanche risks," said Brian Wheeler, a mountaineer and founder of the Northwest School in Gresham, Ore.

"And anyone who goes out looking for him today ? those searchers are really risking their own lives."

The searchers are mainly volunteers from several privately funded rescue groups who respond to emergencies on Mt. Hood and other peaks in the Cascade chain.

About 10,000 people register to climb Mt. Hood annually, a spokesman for the Forest Service said, but he added that the vast majority do so from mid-April to July 1.

Winter climbers number only in the hundreds, he said. Wheeler and other mountaineers said that reaching the summit in winter, which begins next week, required great technical skill, including an ability to climb along ice, but was not an unusual feat.

Many serious climbers try to ascend peaks in the Cascades during the winter to train for bigger mountains, such as Mt. McKinley in Alaska or the peaks of the Himalayas in Asia.

Seven students and two faculty members of Portland's Oregon Episcopal School died in May 1986 when they got trapped in a blizzard on Mt. Hood. And in May 2002, three hikers died and six others were injured when their party fell into a crevasse near the summit.

About 20 people a year need to be rescued from the mountain in an average year, rescue officials say. The climb can turn treacherous in any season, but conditions so close to winter are especially dangerous.

Frank James, conducting the vigil at the staging area, said his brother is a triathlete who has climbed peaks in the Alps and the Andes. "If anyone could survive these conditions," he said, "it would be Kelly James."

_____________________

Keith

[SparrowHawk62]

These were no Boy Scouts, they weren't prepared and are paying for it. It be wonderful if they were all rescued alive and well.

[Keith_Hixson]

The Cascades are some of the most treacherous mountains in the World. Especially November through April. They measure now in feet and not in inches. All the World Records for seasonal snow fall are held by the Cascades Mountains of Oregon, and Washington. It is just plain stupid not to know you have a good stable high pressure system intact when you leave on a winter climb. When a storm comes in you will be in ZERO visability in minutes. Hundreds of people over the years have been killed on the High Peaks of the Cascades, my guess is that most have happened during the "Winter Climbing Season"

These guys were evidently "experienced" and in excellent condition, I hope they will find them when they get a weather break. But, you don't climb in the Cascades in the Winter when a storm is brewing. Just plain dumb mistake.

http://www.nwcn.com/statenews/oregon...J.621e59f.html

Keith

[revwardoc]

People have suffered severe hypothermia while climbing Mt. Washington in NH in the middle of summer. They get some wild-ass weather up there. There's a cog-railway that goes up to the summit. I rode it once in July. It was 90 degrees at the station, but at the top, it was only 38!

[Keith_Hixson]

When I climbed Mt Adams this last September it was about 85 degrees at 5400 ft at the start of the climb, the next day at the top it was barely above freezing at about 34 degrees. It can get real cold real fast on those big Mountains.

Keith

[39mto39g]

Kieth
Just because it says "GOVERNMENT CAMP, ORE. ? The three men had all climbed bigger mountains. " doesn't mean they climbed bigger mountains and if they did, how did they climb, By road?

Any one with any life experience would have checked the weather going up a snow covered mountain. I might add, DuAHHHH!
Just because some relative says they were physically fit don't mean nothin either.
A couple of Texas boys and a guy from Brooklyn would seem the types that would think they could do it.
Going up a snow covered mountain without survival gear is just dumb.

Ron

[Keith_Hixson]

Anyone can become a victim of bad judgement. Even some of the most experience Mountain Climbers have made mistakes.
These guys being from the right coast means they probably didn't quite understand that the higher elevations of the Cascades and Sierra Nevada's can be extremely dangerous this time of year due to the weather.
What may be a simple climb in May through September can become a living hell from November through April.
Even experienced well conditioned people make mistakes in judgement. And . . . . if you are from the East Coast you may not comprehend that these beautiful peaks can be death traps - especially in the winter.

I understand they planned to spend one night on the mountain so they must have had some sort of survival gear.

Keith

[Keith_Hixson]

http://www.nwcn.com/topstories/stori...J.621e59f.html

Keith

[39mto39g]

Kieth
One guy was from Brooklyn NY
The other two were from Dallas. There aren't a lot of mountains around either place.
Sure people make mistakes, There first one was , Looking at the mountain and saying to each other, Hey, lets go up there, Ah, OK.
Someone saying they have mountain climbing experience and having pictures of them on top is very different. And Ski lifts don't count. Anyone with mountain climbing experience on a snow covered mountain would first check the whether before climbing, Thats Mountain climbing 101. And then to set out on a MT HOOD size mountain without rescue equipment shows there mountain experience.

My wife did that to me once, We were in Hollywood standing at the bottom of that hill where the Hollywood sign is and she says Lets climb up there.
The hill is about 1500 feet and pretty much climbing stairs angle all the way. I told her thats not an easy climb but she wanted to anyway, So hear we go about 200 feet up she gets real tired. So I had to Drag her up two steps and then go up two more and drag her up and so on till we reached the top. Climbing is not easy, it just looks easy.
Ron