Well, look outside,
the sun is shining you can see Mount
Hood from downtown Portland and this
is part of the climbing season there.
As incredible as the mountain is though,
it quickly can turn deadly.
And 36 years ago it did.
In May of 1986, seven students and
two staff members from the Oregon
Episcopal School died on Mount Hood.
It was one of the worst
climbing disasters in U.S.
history, and now a local author is
remembering the tragedy in a new podcast,
Chris McGinnis takes us.
Into
the KGW vault.
In the pre dawn hours of Monday,
May 12th, 1986, a group of 15 high
school students and five adults left.
Timberline Lodge plotting the most
climbed route on one of the most
climbed mountains in the world.
You're seeing some of the last
known photos of the climbers.
A few hours later mid climb,
the party was enveloped in a late
spring Blizzard on Oregon's highest
peak, and we've got reports
of 60 mile an hour winds.
Visibility of maybe 20 feet.
It's it's a White House.
This is KGW footage from that day. Seven
turned around early.
The 13 who continued did so
through worsening weather.
Realizing they couldn't make it down safely,
they dug in for the night. They had no
idea where they
were battling. Blinding
snow and freezing wind.
Two of the party would make a
desperate escape to get help
at first light Tuesday morning
while we were trying to find our
way back down, we had some problems
with hypothermia with kids and
got lost on our way down trying
to use a compass and we could.
We couldn't see Molly Shula
and hired guide Ralph.
Farmers escaped and found themselves
all the way over at Mount Hood Meadows.
They were brought up to timberline to
help rescuers locate the eleven other
climbers sheltering in an undersized,
hastily dug snow cave.
I got a chance to interview Barry Wright,
one of the senior members
of Portland Mountain rescue.
Barry recalls that day
very big descriptions from Ralph Summers on.
He had no idea where he came from,
how he got to where he came off the
mountain at when our rescuers had to be
up on on their hands and knees to keep
from being blown around on the mountain.
I kind of said something about
how bad the weather was.
We said our teams into the high priority.
Whereas we sent teams to the left,
we sent teams to the right.
We sent teams up on the map of higher
up on the mountain to check higher up.
The storm finally broke the next day.
The conditions surreal.
11 climbers lost in the fresh, deep snow.
As the sun shone brilliantly
Wednesday morning.
Search teams located three of
the missing climbers high up
on the White River Glacier.
There was miscommunication between
rescue crews as to whether
these climbers were alive,
hope turned to despair,
3 teens had spent the night under
dressed on top of the snow.
These people here are.
Two of the subjects that earlier
were described as fatalities.
They're being rushed in their state.
Frozen at this point to the hospital
for a Doctor Who is awaiting them to
give them emergency care classmates.
The climbing community,
the whole city of Portland held
vigil as helicopters lifted the 1st
3 climbers to Portland's Immanuel
Hospital on Wednesday were long shot.
Life saving measures were used.
Back on the mountain,
there was still no sign of the
other 8 climbers and searchers
moved on to other locations.
The sun was blinding,
the weather was spectacular and teams
of rescuers crisscrossed the search
area deep probing for hours with this
team going up, they're
going to continue the search and then.
We want to go in, take a break and
go back up until the light fails.
Dawn broke on Thursday.
Choppers in the air search
dogs and rescuers on the snow
resumed their work all day.
The exhaustion of the rescuers was visible.
I was up almost
straight through 36 hours, 48 hours,
3 days almost without any sleep and
it definitely paid it took its toll.
Then at approximately 5:15 PM
after a long day of probing.
The deep snow with 10 foot poles,
searchers found something
the equipment cache,
the climbers left it outside their
cave about 20 minutes later,
digging up 4 feet of fresh snow.
The entrance to
the Snow cave was located 8200
feet on the White River glacier,
mere feet from where one of the first
climbers was located 36 hours earlier.
Second patient trade is a 30 copy copy. He
it's shaky, but he was conscious.
He was looking at us.
He knew we had him one
by one. The patients were
brought down from The Cave,
then rushed to one of five
awaiting Portland hospitals.
The chances were slim core
temperatures were unbelievably low.
Ultimately, seven teenagers
and two adults died
to get pretty emotional.
If I if I got into some of the details, but.
I really think actually I had the
opportunity to help move one of the
kids from the rescue helicopters to
the the medical hospital copters. What
sticks with you the most 36 years later?
Probably the effect that it had on on on.
Aren't I the way I thought
about it and it it?
I probably I tried to avoid
thinking about it because it
brought back such intense memories
of of what was going on. Barry
Wright slowly retreated from his
role at Portland Mountain Rescue.
Oregon author Rick Conrad
reached out to him in 2014.
What was the
motivation for the book?
I was a recreational climber in the 90s
and everybody remembers this tragedy
and I kept waiting for someone to
write the book and the years turned
into decades and I'm like these
search and rescue workers are aging.
This needs to be told and I finally
just took up the town myself.
That book code 1244. The
1986 Mount Hood tragedy
was released late in 2019.
It has been turned into a five
episode podcast against the
Odds trapped on Mount Hood.
Visibility has dropped to less than 50 feet.
They're in a near total whiteout.
The final episode was released
on Tuesday, June 14th.
I know it's an important story,
but I also want people to remember
the volunteer efforts that went into
this search and rescue operation.
The sheriff's report says there
is about 114 people involved.
My research has shown there's
at least 167 and
I I just want to give a public
thank you to the rescue community
for responding to this tragedy.