Mt Hood Deaths

One of my best friends, who is a Mt. Hood vet., has some words to say about the recent tradgety.

Hood can be as dangerous or benign as one makes it. It kills people nearly every year and is also summitted by over 1000. The three guys, each more experienced than me I believe, were on the mountain for the first time. They were doing a difficult route, the north face, which has about a 2500-foot or so section of 60-65 degree ice, which feels almost vertical. I haven't done that route, but have done one with about 300 feet of 70-degree ice on Mt. Rainier. On technical routes like that, you "carryover," meaning you take every bit of gear you have to the summit, then descend a less technical route because down-climbing near-vertical ice blows serious ass - in this case that non-technical descent route was the south side. When a carryover is done, every effort is made to go as "light" as possible, meaning that little more than the bare essentials are brought to cut down on weight. This low weight equates to speed, which equates to safety on a long, exposed route such as this, which pretty much needs to get done the same day it is started because there really aren't any good places to bivouac (camp) for the night. It's unlikely these guys brought heavy, warm gear for hunkering down, nor is it likely they had much extra food or fuel to melt snow for water. It seems like one guy got a dislocated shoulder, which slowed the group. Upon summitting, owing to poor visibility and their unfamiliarity with the peak, they couldn't find their way down the south (nontechnical) side. Having been on the top of that mountain 10 times or so, I can tell you that that safest way down (south side) isn't immediately obvious from the summit. It is a semi-precarious chute called the "pearly gates" of about 35-40 degrees, but just below it, the slope mellows and it's an easy (and long) walk down. They couldn't find it, so they attempted to descend the north face route that they had just come up (horrible prospect). The only way to safely descend that route would be to rappel it, which would be insanely tedious and really dangerous, especially with fresh snow falling and increasing avalanche danger. A piece of gear, such as an ice screw or picket would have to be left with each rappel, and, if their rope was like most others, they'd only be able to rappel 100 feet or so at a time before having to place another screw or picket to set up another anchor point. I hear a lot of people (fellow pilots, every time I've flown over the mountain since this deal began) that don't know what they're talking about call these guys stupid for doing the mountain in the winter. The truth is, that route is only "in" for about a month or so each year, usually around December. In early season (Feb-Apr or so), the route is covered in loads of snow, which leads to avalanche danger. Later in the season (Jun-Aug), when most people climb the mountain via other routes, this route warms up and rockfall is copious (they whiz by you and sound like bullets in a movie - seriously, and they freakin' hurt if they're small and kill you if they're big). Ironically, my buddy and I talked of doing this route about the same time these guys did about a week prior to the incident but didn't go because of the weather.

So, to answer your question, I think these guys knew what they were doing, and a nasty sequence of events (dude getting hurt, crap weather, and their inability to find the correct descent route) got them into a really, really, rough situation. I have pictures of the north face, and several of the summit and pearly gates if you guys would like me to post them.