Luv2Kayak

From the Oregonian: http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1189306509188580.xml&coll=7 Big search, bigger mountain Mount Hood - Climbers, including an elite military unit, go up against risks of falling rock but find no sign of two bodies Sunday, September 09, 2007 MARK LARABEE and STUART TOMLINSON The Oregonian Staff CLOUD CAP -- Inside a gaping crevasse at 9,500 feet, Tech Sgt. Anthony Reich carefully makes his way Saturday morning around a couple of large ice blocks that have peeled off a melting glacier on Mount Hood. Attached to a black climbing rope, he bends over and stares into a hole in ice that reflects blue from water, then moves across to safety as another airman pulls in the slack. Reich was part of a three-man rope team of para-rescue jumpers with the U.S. Air Force Reserve's 304th Rescue Squadron. They were part of a big weekend search for the bodies of two mountain climbers presumed killed during a fierce December snowstorm. In all, 57 climbers, most of them volunteers from civilian mountain rescue groups, searched the high country Saturday. Seven airmen from the Portland-based squadron spent Friday night at 8,500 feet on Cooper Spur so they could make an early assault to the top of the Newton Clark Glacier. The elite military unit is trained to parachute, climb and dive when necessary to make the most difficult civilian and military rescues. The airmen awoke to frosty sleeping bags at 4:30 a.m. They made breakfast and readied their packs by headlamp, then began climbing an hour later as the sun rose a bold orange at their backs. By the time they hit the ice, roping up and strapping crampons to their boots, daylight had come and a biting wind subsided. Belaying Reich with the safety rope, Staff Sgt. Patrick Dunne looked into the crevasse and shook his head. "There could be all kinds of people buried in that hole," said Dunne, a member of the 308th Rescue Squadron in Coco Beach, Fla., who came to Oregon for the mission. Dunne's sentiment exposed the unique problem searchers face. As it warmed up, rock fell off the crumbling northeast face of Mount Hood all morning. The debris is scattered across the massive glacier. Crevasses, created as the glacier slides downhill, slowly fill with rock, and they collapse with the daily cycle of warm sunlight and freezing nights. The searchers scoured a large amount of terrain looking for bodies that could be deep in a crevasse or buried under tons of rock and ice. "It kind of makes you appreciate how big the mountain is," Reich said. The searchers were looking for a pack strap, a piece of gear or clothing -- anything that could clue them into the climbers' whereabouts. At one point, Master Sgt. Tim Mortenson, the team leader, spotted something bright yellow inside a crevasse. His team set an anchor, and Mortenson lowered part way into the crevasse before he realized it was the remnants of a yellow balloon. Erik Broms, a Portland Mountain Rescue member who climbed with the 304th on Saturday, has searched for the bodies several times, including a trip two weeks ago with friends of the missing men. Looking at a virtual maze of openings in the ice, he reminded the group that dozens of dead climbers are part of the mountain, swallowed by the living ice. Brian Hall, 37, of Dallas, Texas; Jerry "Nikko" Cooke, 36, of Brooklyn, N.Y.; and Kelly James, 48, also of Dallas, set out Dec. 7 to ascend the mountain's north face near Cooper Spur. After reaching the summit the next day, they spent the night in a snow cave below the summit. Hall and Cooke left James, who may have been hurt or exhausted, while they presumably went for help. Experts say Hall and Cooke probably fell or were blown off the mountain by fierce winds. James' body was found in the snow cave. The weekend search was organized by the Hood River County Sheriff's Office, which handled the initial rescue effort. Jerry Brown, chief deputy for sheriff's office, said the weekend search would most likely be the last unless recreational climbers spot something that needs another look. "Look at the perilous conditions and tell me how you can justify that," he said. "It will always be an open case for us, but without new anomalies, we're not going to mount a major search.

A friend of mine has a great blog entitled "The Narrative Image," and some folks here might be interested in the really lovely photos he shot recently on a hike on Mt. Hood, with photos of the Eliot glacier moraine and Cooper Spur area: http://thenarrativeimage.blogspot.com/ I love his writing which accompanies the photos. Excerpt: "Winter never goes away. It just stays up high swirling around the mountain tops, waiting impatiently for any excuse to start its yearly campaign for territory." He's really funny too... the "Monkey-Cam" story is an extension of the time "they" hiked to Lava Canyon: http://thenarrativeimage.blogspot.com/2007/07/lava-canyon-closed-until-further-notice.html LOL!

From the Hood River News: http://www.hoodrivernews.com/News%20stories/71_news_01.htm Tracing Steps Searchers to scout Mt. Hood crevasses Saturday for signs of missing climbers By RAELYNN RICARTE News staff writer September 6, 2007 Hood River County Sheriff Joe Wampler believes that one of Mount Hood’s mysteries has been solved in the quest to find two missing climbers. Searchers have come across a rusty ice axe with a broken wrist strap at the 9,500 foot elevation. Wampler said the piece of equipment was likely used by Todd Engelhardt, 37, in 2005. The Seattle, Wash., man fell to his death in the same location. “I think we know now that he tried to arrest his fall with the axe but the strap didn’t hold,” said Wampler. Engelhardt’s remains were later recovered — unlike those of the two men that searchers are now seeking. Jerry “Nikko” Cooke, 36, who lived in New York, and Brian Hall, 37, of Texas, disappeared during a winter storm last December. “We have been finding all kinds of old rope and abandoned equipment — but no sign of our climbers,” said Wampler. The body of Cooke and Hall’s friend, Kelly James, 48, also of Texas, was found inside a snow cave at the 11,000-foot elevation. An autopsy report determined that he died from hypothermia. On Saturday, Hood River’s Crag Rats and other members of the Oregon Mountain Rescue Council will look once again for the remains of Cooke and Hall. They will be scouting crevasses along the upper reaches of the Eliot and Newton-Clark glaciers. Wampler said Hall and Cooke were wearing brightly colored jackets during the climb, which could help searchers locate their bodies. On Dec. 10, James made a last call home via a cell phone and said that he had been injured and left in a snow cave while his partners went for help. The cell phones of the other men were never turned on and they were not seen again. Wampler believes it is possible that Cooke and Hall had already fallen to their deaths — or been blown off the mountain — by the time that James made that final call. The sheriff has worked with searchers to trace the last footsteps taken by the two men. He said it appears they spent the night of Dec. 8 in the snow cave on the east slope with James, then descended below the cave about 500 feet into an area known as the Black Spider. “It looks like they reached a vertical cliff and then sat down and contemplated about what to do before turning around,” said Wampler. He said the footprints of the two men are shown heading back toward Cooper Spur on the northeastern flank of Mount Hood. They had taken that route up and, according to notes left behind, had planned to follow it down in the event of an emergency. The tracks of Cooke and Hall then vanish on a section of the mountain that was exposed to the elements. According to Wampler, if the men fell 2,400 feet their remains could be on either glacier. He said those locations are dangerous to search even without snow because of loose rock and deep fissures. Kirk Worrall, a Crag Rat from Parkdale, is coordinating the Sept. 8 search. He said the snow has receded enough to access crevasses in the rugged terrain. He said the search has been timed to take place while OMRC is conducting its annual exercise on Mount Hood. According to Worrall, about 75-men and women will be available to comb the north and eastern slopes of the mountain. Their base camp will be at Cloud Cap and Deputy Chris Guertin will serve as incident commander. “This is our best opportunity because the door is probably slamming shut with the first snowfall,” said Worrall. “We’re going to give it our best shot. This probably is going to be the optimum effort.” He said on Sunday the search teams will debrief at Cloud Cap about their high-elevation experiences. Wampler, who is a pilot, will be standing by to drop any equipment from his plane that searchers might need. On Friday, in a separate operation, the 304th Air Rescue and Recovery Squadron will put pararescuemen, also known as the PJs, on the ground. Wampler said there will be no helicopters involved in the second search this summer. In July, a cache of gear belonging to Cooke, Hall and James was found stashed inside the Tilly Jane warming hut. Searchers deduced from that find that the trio had intended to travel “light and fast” because weather conditions looked ideal. However, a storm came in that same day and dumped 15 feet of snow on the mountain within the next six days. Wampler has also remained hopeful this summer that the remains of two other missing men would be found. Kenneth Budlong, 45, a Nike executive, vanished in white-out conditions while climbing on the northwest side of the mountain in September 1995. Raoly Orsi, 24, on a horticulture exchange from Hungary, disappeared while on a day hike in 2001 above the Tilly Jane campground. “We didn’t find any sign of these four men in the open – and that’s what we were hoping for,” said Wampler. He is reluctant to rule out other searches for Cooke and Hall after this weekend. But the sheriff is also weighing the cost of the operations — about $6,500 this summer and almost $30,000 in December, and the risk to the climbers that he sends out. “After this weekend I’ll be able to say that I, at least, know where they are not,” said Wampler.

Could a problem with this have resulted in what looked like a "cut" rope found on Mt. Hood, in the search for "Fuggedaboudit" and his two partners?