Mt Hood rescues

[retired jerry]

ahhh... that's what I was thinking, must be Reid

it seems like that would be a route for a high route - go clockwise CCW from McNeil to Yocum Ridge, then up Reid glacier, then it would be straightforward getting to the Timberline ski area

I remember looking at Reid from Yocum and there were tracks up where someone was looking for a missing climber. It looked like it would be an easy walk up, but I'm sure there were crevasses around that weren't apparent

yeah, funny how news reports often miss the details

[Chip Down]

... go clockwise from McNeil to Yocum Ridge...

I guess that's theoretically possible, but CCW would be a lot faster.

[retired jerry]

old age is a bitch

yeah, CCW

[Webfoot]

old age is a bitch

It beats the alternative.

[drm]

Isn't the alternative to old age eternal youth?

[BigBear]

So why does Jerry get carte blanche acceptance of his political belief on this closure. If he wants to stay home, fine, but he shouldn't get to have the lone voice in making that determination. That is the very issue in front of the Oregon Supreme Court at this time is whether the governor can ignore the State Constitution which requires both houses a 3/5ths majority to override the constitution. It would be interesting to know what the defense for this obvious violation of constitutional law could possibly be.

I know of someone who wants to eliminate all voter-by-mail ballots and doesn't care if the constitution gets in the way. Do we really want to consider constitutional violations a technicality, or should we go through the effort of making a decision legal?

I have not counted how many hundreds of times Jerry has expressed his desire to quarantine the entire population of the earth for an indefinate period of time, but can we simply acknowledge that people have the right to hike, climb, ski, etc. without having to get his approval first? Really, is that too much to ask?

It is unfortunate that there were two accidents on the mountain this weekend. The Oregonian once had a multi-page article addressing rescues. Interestingly, they found that one activity was so prevalent in rescues that the government has had to establish a permanent branch of the military called the U.S. Coast Guard to rescue boaters which had three times the number of rescues as hunters who got lost who accounted for more rescues than all the other recreational activities combined. There are so many boat rescues that it doesn't make the news unless there are fatalities and the lost hunters (unless a child) rarely make the paper until several nights have passed.

My point is that climbing does have some inherent risks, but should not be considered a greater evil when a problem happens than people driving a car, fishing from a boat, or hunting. The numbers just don't support such a negative response. As far as opening the forests - seriously, they should never, ever have been closed in the first place. If it's not safe to hike, what activity is safe?

[Charley]

I listened to an interview with someone from MHNF a couple of weeks ago about all the closures. He was specifically asked if climbing Mt Hood was allowed or not. His answer was technically yes but it would be a long climb because all the usual access points like Timberline lodge where off limits!

That was totally true a few weeks ago, because Timberline Lodge was closed, and the road up to the lodge was even closed! (I don't know if they gated it or anything, because I never went up there.)

Parking at Timberline for the climb is legal now, and has been legal for the time period that Timberline has been reopened (they opened back up on May 15) which is actually an interesting point: for the time period between May 15 and May 29, when the Mt Hood NF is planning to "reopen" its other trailheads, Timberline Lodge's overflow or climber's parking lot is the only legal trailhead in Oregon's northern Cascades. That is if you want to call it a trailhead, because it's a snow cat track leading uphill to a climbing route, not really a "trail".

I've been to Timberline three times since it reopened and the climber's lot has been very, very full on good weather days. I'm guessing that's pent up demand, both from skiers who didn't luck out with the limited reservations allowed to ski the lifts, as well as people who'd like to get some mountain exercise without parking on the side of the road and walking to a trailhead, or whatever it is people have been doing to skirt the closure of the Forest's actual trailheads.

[Charley]

Jerry, both of your descriptions were wrong, see below. Both were climbers who got in various trouble; neither did it "right" vs "wrong." I think the only takeaway of yours that's apt is to try not to do things right now that require rescue, such as climbing in high avi conditions after the storms and snowfall (up there) we had last week. There's a big difference in the risk of needing rescue between someone climbing Hood on any route, and someone just going for a hike. Mountains are always more unpredictable, even in good conditions.

I'm going to risk looking like more of a fool than normal and just go ahead and say that both parties were pretty bone-headed, even before taking into account the additional risks of Covid-era adventures.

For one thing, I was up at the mountain on Friday. I'd hoped to ski the Magic Mile, but they didn't open the lift, because the weather was bad! There wasn't any visibility. Who the heck decides that this is the right weather for a solo Mt Hood climb???

For another, the climber did this with a phone that was apparently not off and safely stowed??? The kiosk at the climber's check-in warns explicitly about not returning straight downhill; had the climber saved his phone battery (was he busy making videos or photos?) he could simply have turned on his GPS and walked south to the Lodge instead of gallivanting 9 miles over to Paradise Park.

For another, the storm was a big dump of snow (the tree skiing on Friday was terrific!), and who the heck decides to climb the Reid headwall on a warm day after a big snowstorm? I don't know the age of both members of the party, but if the injured person was 21, that might speak to the experience level of the team.

Furthermore, why was that team traveling here from Colorado to climb our mountains and expose our SAR crews to this much addition risk in the middle of the pandemic???

Look, I love climbing, and, who knows, maybe I'll end up in the ANAM journal at some point. It's not like we don't all take risks, and risks far above those taken by responsible hikers!

On the other hand, I skied up to the top of the Triangle Moraine the other day, turned around at 9,800' and had a good ski back down to the lodge. That's a pretty tame trip by a lot of standards, but I got a good workout, got some great views, had a great ski, all while traveling with a competent partner, within visual and telephonic range of the Lodge, under clear skies and low avalanche probabilities, while barely leaving my county.

It is possible to have a good time, while operating safely for oneself and others, and following the intent of Governor Brown's executive orders, and these people failed. I'm glad that PMR is still around and allowed to help, and I'm glad they've publicly encouraged more responsible climbing during this time.