Mt Hood rescue, why not go up already?

[sweatinoutliquor]

Thanks for posting that Phil, I was just thinking of doing so...

[BirdDog]

Bird Dog,

 

I too am sure the rescuers are doing the best they can. But I am also sure the Sheriff or whomever is coordinating is also making certain to not allow them to get in too much risk with liabiltiy issues the way they are. In the meantime, the 3 guys are facing certain hypothermia if they only packed for 2 days.

 

And isn't it a little bit silly to compare going from 8000' to 11'000 on Hood to going from 14,200 to 17,200 on Denali? I mean COME ON!

 

And as for Denali and its fixed lines, etc...there was a period there where I climbed for 5 days without seeing another person or a wand in whiteout conditions by using a compass and orienting when there was visibility. One night had 10' of snow. I set my watch alarm every two hours to get out and dig out my tent. I did that 3 times that night. And we're talking 23" here on Hood.

 

Yes, it's a bit silly to compare 14,200 - 17,200 on Denali w/Hood. In my opinion your post was a bit silly. I'm sure it was not your intent to appear that way; however that's the way it came across.

 

If I was stuck up there I would want no one less than Crag Rats, PMR & CMR looking for me. These guys have more collective knowledge about Hood than could be assembled anywhere. I have every confidence the rescuers on site have the best chance of success in this situation.

 

Hopefully all three are together taking care of each other, waiting things out. Best to all invlovled.

[lbeam]

Originally, I wasn't going to respond to your questioned, but I am way too pissed off by it that I can't help but to say something.

 

It's up to the rescuers to decide what is "safe" for them. Besides, why should rescuers put their lives more at risk for others who put themselves in such obvious danger.

 

In the meantime, these 3 guys are dying because no one will ascend a whopping 3000' to get them some food? Clearly they didn't pack for multiday and are now starving and hypothermic.

 

Those guys lost up there on Hood, well, they put themselves in that danger. They decided to pack light because speed was more important, and also took a chance with the weather. I am not here to critisize about anything they did. I am just saying that you should lay of the rescuers, they can't be expected to be superheroes at all times. The guys missing are experienced enough to know that during these situations, they probably aren't going to get the hasty rescue that they are more than likely praying for.

 

Which is the biggest tragedy, 3 climbers that parish on the mountain, or a rescuer that dies risking his/her own life in dangerous conditions to try to save them?

 

I support the fact that my husband helps out on a rescue team. And I know that it is very frusterating to him and the others that they can't get to these guys on the mountain. I also like knowing that more than likely, I am going to get to see him at the end of a search mission because they do consider their own safety very important. It's one thing to put yourself more at risk when you are out there climbing, but to expect others to do it so they can save your butt is truely selfish.

 

Psst.

Movies such as Verticle Limit and Cliff Hanger.....aren't realistic.

 

 

[sobo]

...i hope to volunteer in the future, but i may be one of those old guys there...

 

We'll take ya. Age not a factor. Join up! :tup:

[W]

One night had 10' of snow. I set my watch alarm every two hours to get out and dig out my tent. I did that 3 times that night. And we're talking 23" here on Hood.

 

In high winds, 23" of new snow will feel very much like 10' of new snow while trying to tent camp in the wrong place. A partner and I once spent an entire night near Alta Vista on Mt. Rainier- that's treeline- digging continuously, taking shifts, just trying to keep the tent above the surface. In the morning, outside our walled in tent site, there was "only" about 2 feet of new snow. My point is that 23" of new snow isn't something to pooh-pooh whether it's Alaska or Oregon. For someone who has endured Denali storms, your lack of understanding of this is surprising- especially because I suspect that your "10 feet of snow in one night" is more likely 4 to 5 feet that drifted in your tent site that was probably dug in about the same amount. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the drifts were 10+ feet. No doubt that Alaska snowfalls can approach ridiculous amounts, but 10 feet of measured depth on an unobstructed slope equates to an average of 15" an hour over an 8 hour night. The biggest snowfall I've been in in Alaska involved about 9 feet of new, undrifted, snow which took about 50 hours to fall. Even at that rate, we thought we were going to be buried alive, and there sure as hell wasn't any sleeping going on.

Sorry to nitpick your statistics but the amount of experience you seem to have makes your questions and (seeming) accusations all the more perplexing.

[billcoe]

Am I the only one who finds the whole Mount Hood situation bizarre that not one person has gone all the way up to find these 3 guys because the weather reports don't seem impossible to me?

 

The reports indicate gusts to 80, which probably means steady 30-50 mph winds, white out, snow loading, etc. But they keep saying no one can get above the 7000 foot level. These are conditions regularly found on Denali.

 

So why hasn't someone just pushed their way up there with a backpack full of freeze dried beef stroganoff (insert your favorite Mountain House flavor here)?

 

I wonder if it is the 'rule of the rescuer' that no one proceeds if the rescuer is at heightened risk. In the meantime, these 3 guys are dying because no one will ascend a whopping 3000' to get them some food? Clearly they didn't pack for multiday and are now starving and hypothermic.

 

It would really suck to hear another James Kim type of story because some beaurocratic agency rule prevented someone from reaching them in time.

 

Or am I just crazy? I have climbed in these conditions a lot on Denali for a lot longer than 3000' elevation gain and I'm no superhero.

 

Nah. Not happening. Not from lack of trying or skill either. Not cause they are volunteers. These are strong, kick assed climbers who want to go get em, that’s why they are there. They want them off of there alive in the worst way. There may have been some teams hit the summit already and we don't know.

 

Truth be told, you can't stand up in those winds like they are right now. Even when you drop the wind speed down to half that, walking in a straight line and reading a compass will cause 2 things to happen to you. 1) You can't walk a straight line despite what you are thinking cause you will get pushed the direction the wind is heading. 2nd) Reading a compass will expose part of your face to frostbite. Right on your face. I’ve seen it happen more than once.

 

I once went up in conditions less than these looking for a single person. It was quite the interesting story and somewhat germane to this situation so I’ll tell it.

 

I get a call at home like 2am from a friend and get a ride up to Timberline with a Sheriff's deputy. As we ride up to the mountain and we’re bullshiting about this or that the weather came up. A climbing buddy of mine had been talking about doing the route same day, I’m musing that I hope my buddy was OK. Deputy says “Whats his name”, uhhh, Mike Lake (posts on Supertopo as Rockermike), I respond, so he radios dispatch and a groggy Mike gets a phone call from a deputy at 3am. Asks him what route he’d done (Steel Cliffs solo), and had he seen anybody, he had, and described everything he saw and exactly where the person was (heading up as Mike was heading down). Turns out that Mike and this guy were the only 2 people on the mountain that day cause a storm was coming in. Mike knew about the weather and thought he could get up and down, which he did. Kid had no clue. Thought Mt Hood was an easy mountain to climb. (which it can be but he was up there in the dead of winter when fierce pacific storms will crap all over your happy face) Dude was some kid from California who didn’t have extensive experience like these guys up there now, but he could afford good gear which he had in spades as it turned out and factors heavily into this tale.

 

1st thing the deputy did as we get into the parking lot (wind pushing the flakes semi-sideways - @30-40 MPH) was walk over and slim jim the kids car and go through it throughly. Then we walked into the register area and found the climbing paper the kid had filled out. For gear, he had not marked sleeping bag, stove or shovel. 3 key things that the rescuers would be thinking of for days. Various people are all milling around, the weather outside is shit. Somehow later (my memory sucks, it might have been 2 days I don’t know) I wrangle my way onto a team heading where I had thought all along that the kid really is. See, the mountain is really a large area, you can’t walk a straight line and expect that you’ve covered it, you have to grid it out and you’re checking where the hell over to the left and way the hell over to the right and everything in between. Searching is slower than climbing. Anyway, we get organized then jump into snow cats (those of us heading to the farther areas) and off we went. As the cat is pumping up, I’m thinking WTF am I doing here? The F*en driver has his windshield wipers whipping and we can’t see sh*t but white flakes pounding the glass in the storm. I don’t know how he gets us up there but he does a phenomenal job of driving and doesn’t kill us, gets up past to about the Palmer and let’s us out. We almost get blown over shaking the rope and tying it on so we don’t get separated. Wind gusts to 40-50 mph, much less than currently. Maybe you can see 6-10’, if that, but not very well. We walk up the lip of the White River Canyon; I can almost taste it in my mind that the kid was there. We stop every 10-20 steps and blow whistles and yell. Only the howling of the wind replies. I was thinking that I should have been on the slop of the canyon, which is pretty damn steep right there with waist deep snow, but can barely make traction in the conditions on the relatively wind blown ridge. I’ve probably climbed this route on Hood 25 times at that point, but on this trip, I mostly remember just wanting my team and I to be able to get back safely, and I had my doubts about that. So I passed on thrashing through the deep snow on the canyon wall.

 

Eventually the search dribbles off to nothingness as people need to go back to work and get on with their lives. It is, for all intents and purposes, called off and ended on like day 4. Kid must be dead eh? Day 5 dawns clear and cold. There are 2 of us volunteers still there, no deputies, no helicopters, no news cameras. Kid fuc*king walks right into the Timberline aid station on his own power at about 8 in the morning. We had been so beat the previous day that we’d slept in and were just shaking the cobwebs out of our brains and settling in for a cup of Joe. Shocked the hell out of us.

 

5 days in a snow cave. He was weak, dehydrated. Most amazing thing I saw was the kid’s feet. He’d bought a new pair of plastic boots (I still owned leather as it was the best I could afford). His feet were almost dead white and wrinkly, like he’d been in a bathtub for an extreme amount of time, but he had NO frostbite. Amazing. His core temp was down, and he was dehydrated, but otherwise he was fine.

 

The story he told (when the other volunteer, an older fella, got done yelling and screaming at him for endangering everybody’s lives and being a punk asswipe or something like that) was that the weather broke bad as he was just summiting the south side. He’d stumbled down the Hogsback and missed the jog he needed to make to get the Timberline Lodge in his sights. He’d stepped into air where White River Canyon was and did about 2 somersaults and in a dazed and confused state choose to get out the shovel (which he had not marked on his climbing check out), and dug himself a snow cave. The right thing to do.

 

In talking it over with him, I figure we may have been as close as 15-20 feet away from where he was hunkered down in a cave. He thought he might have heard “something” but he dismissed it as the wind and delusions.

 

So, my point is 2 fold, where do you want to look for the 2 guys who had gone for help? The rescuers had been cutting for tracks earlier lower down in the obvious places. They could have summited and wandered over Missippi head 7 miles on the other side or so. 2nd) If you could stand up, which you can’t, you’re going to have to crawl to the exact point where this remaining fella is. It is similar to searching for a needle in a haystack as you don’t even really know which route they jumped on. I suspect it’s the left hand North Face Gully. As that route is a basic avalanche chute, and these are perfect avy conditions, who is gonna crawl up it? Ain’t me bubba, not even if my momma herself was crying out for help up there. Sorry Mama! Maybe dropping down off the top could be do able, but you won’t be able to get up there in these conditions unless you’re feeling suicidal.

 

My story, which was @ 22 or so years ago, we knew which route the dude was on, had a visual confirmation of an exact spot. It was the easiest route on the Mt. We had lots and lots of searchers looking for days. Then the kid walks out on his own after the search is over. It's not that easy like you describe. It's not.

 

Say a prayer for good weather, believe that everybody up there is doing all they can. Skilled people can always be used, do hitch up, call them and help out.

 

It’s a grim job, and these are good people. Sometimes it’s just out of your hands.

 

It just is. Sorry.

 

[Dechristo]

Well, he does list his occupation as Guide in his profile.

 

 

 

what a presumptuous, pitiful poseur

[Kevin_Matlock]

good story bill, thanks for sharing.

 

[gslater]

jonmf76 -

 

Interesting little thread here. Rereading your original post, I can read it in a way that seems harmless enough, and think that you were probably asking a legitimate question. Due to the fabulous nature of anonymous online forums, unfortunately, the question touched a nerve, and then most hope for a legitimate discussion went right in the toilet.

 

Sitting here in my office in Portland, I too initially wondered why it's so hard to go up higher. And then I thought about it a bit, and realized that it's sort a problem of topography. If you had experience with Hood, you'd probably see the issue immediately.

 

There's really only a couple of areas where the searches need to focus: between the Eliot Glacier and the summit, and from the summit down the south side. The original intended ascent route up the north face is probably pretty much a river of flowing snow at this point, continuously sloughing off massive quantities. There's simply no way to go up that in these conditions. The other way to the top, the standard south side route, is fully exposed to the worst of the wind, and eventually funnels down through another highly loaded (and probably constantly sloughing) gully kind of thing. There aren't really any alternative routes to consider at this point.

 

It's not just that there's a lot of snow and everyone is running around saying "the avy danger is high, let's not go". It's that the only legit "moderate" route to the top is probably completely unpassable at this point.

[billcoe]

good story bill, thanks for sharing.

 

You're welcome, if you buy the beer there are plenty more where that came from. You can ask my wife, and she'll back me up on this: I'll yak until the words slur, you're asleep or somebody tells me to STFU.

 

 

Another big point of that story is it aint over till it's over.

[dan_forester]

yeah, Bill, thanks for that story. good reality-check.

[olyclimber]

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/12/13/tracing-a-climbers-footprints-in-cyberspace/

[dmuja]

for "hardman" jonmf76,

 

I was on wimpy Rainier and got split up from my partner once. Wimpy 30-50 mph winds and snowing heavily. Wimpy 7500 feet elev, whiteout, avys thundering down around us (could hear but not see them). We walked within 5 feet of each other but did not know it (never saw each other) and we were looking and yelling. Last year on a solo trip I encountered similar conditions and found it challeneging (not impossible though) to set up shelter.

 

In high winds, precip, high avy conditions the margin for error is so low that you should consider yourself fortunate (not superior) if you manage to even just be there without creating your own little epic. Responders must not become rescuees! Its about managing a situation for the best possible outcome, not hollywood heroics. Not that hollywood heroics dont happen, just that its usually not built into a plan.

 

Your free to doubt and question but from where I sit I havent seen anything but a commendable and high quality rescue attempt in this case.

[Kevin_Matlock]

post #77

[Dechristo]

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/12/13/tracing-a-climbers-footprints-in-cyberspace/

 

post #77 on that blog.

 

Thanks, Oly, I got a chuckle from that one.

[jonmf76]

gslater,

 

Thanks for reading my original question as I had intended it. I am not sure why few others could pick up on that and instead decided to attack me as if I suggested bolting a crack climb! I think people don't actually read each and every word anymore and then just add their own agenda.

 

The topography does seem to be the significant issue. I guess my frame of reference is thinking of climbs like the Cassin Ridge, etc.. (which I am not good enough to climb, but where many others are) but also thinking of all those times where conditions were as bad or worse then what they are reporting that I have climbed, even as a mediochre climber that I was/am.

 

The close up photos of the route that has been shown on the news would indicate the technical severity.

 

As for the continuous sluffing..I have always thought of that as a good thing because it means the snow isn't loading. Loading snow scares me more than fluffy sluffs..I base this on numerous (15) winter ascents that I have done (yes, I actually climbed something) on Mount Washington, N.H. Climbing those ice routes in Huntington's Ravine during whiteout and driving snow..and simply planting 2 tools deep and bracing for the falling sluffs (really just because I hated it when that would go down the back of your neck because you were looking up!) Anyway, that was how I learned, maybe stupidly as I was young and invincible.

 

What I also learned was that government agencies would frequently post high avalanche warnings that we regularly ignored since we were invincible. What we commonly found when we got on the route was that the report was overly cautious to warn beginners. And even when the avalanche danger was extremely high, it frequently seemed that you could veer on the route to find better snow. That is what I have always done on mountains and it has worked in 20+ yrs of climbing.

 

The other things I learned, or think I did, was that there is rarely such a thing as sustained non-stop 80 mph winds for 5 days straight on a mountain. Yes there are gusts to that level and beyond, but I have yet to see non-stop winds like that. I might be wrong on that, but on my first Denali expedition in '96, the forecast was for sustained 50-100 mph winds and after spending 7 days at 14,000', I can attest that gusts like that are terrifying, but were not by any means non-stop. Some people did go up. I chose not to. There were climbers there from Nepal who had summited Everest and they turned back as well. I took a clue from them and still have all my toes and fingers. Either way, the forecast is for worse weather and I guess that reinforces my point a little bit.."push up when you can, while you can, because it may get worse."

 

OK, let the bashing begin..again! I am clearly just full of sh@t.

 

 

 

 

[Dechristo]

I am clearly just full of sh@t.

 

and, seemingly, the last to know

[cj001f]

Even the bullshits bigger in Alaska

[W]

As for the continuous sluffing..I have always thought of that as a good thing because it means the snow isn't loading.

 

Not ON the route-- how about low angle terrain lying above the route?

 

Huntington Ravine by the way is the scene of more than one avalanche death from slides releasing above the gully.

 

 

 

 

 

[Weekend_Climberz]

Even in high avy danger, there are safe places to travel. You should take an avy class Jon, it might help you break your current "I only climb in good weather" attitude. Hell, I went skiing during high avy danger during "Windstorm 2006" in February. The pow was sweet and the crowds were nill. I'm glad the wankers stayed home.

[jonmf76]

W,

 

I am distinguishing between 'sluffing' and true 'slab releases'. Of course the slab is the worst. As for sluffing, which I define as essentially fluffy snow and spindrift that loads and then collapses under its own weight, thereby sluffng down the gully you are climbing, it seems less of a concern than slabs.

[DirtyHarry]

post #77

 

Hey Jon, you plagarizing motherfucker!! Get your own material!

 

 

 

[Weekend_Climberz]

 

Anyone see trask's post :tup:

[Alasdair]

Ok dude, Several people have answered your questions. Your original question was a reasonable one. Your subseqent "Im a badass climber because I have climbed Denali" bullshit is getting tiresome. You should have stopped asking questions when you were ahead. You are now begging to seem like an ass.

[W]

W,

 

I am distinguishing between 'sluffing' and true 'slab releases'. Of course the slab is the worst. As for sluffing, which I define as essentially fluffy snow and spindrift that loads and then collapses under its own weight, thereby sluffng down the gully you are climbing, it seems less of a concern than slabs.

 

Jon, I know exactly what you are saying. However, where do you think slabs form? No, of course they don't form in the steep gully you are climbing. They form on the snow slopes that the some gullies rolls off into, for starters. This shot from the other thread:

 

 

shows that one of the gullies the climbers might have taken (the left one) ends in a 40+ degree snowbowl hanging over the route...a bowl which faces north/northeast- i.e. the lee side of the prevailing south/southwest winds of this storm. The likelihood of deposition and/or cross loading in that bowl is high to say the least! And with the amount of new snow natural releases are probably occurring as we speak. You do not have to be standing on dangerous snow to die in an avalanche and there are countless examples proving that.