A 63-year-old man died Sunday morning after falling 500 feet while descending Mount Hood, the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office reported.
The witness called 911 to report the accident. The man, whose name has not yet been released, had climbed with his adult son and fell to 10,500 feet on the Old Chute Route, MPs said.
The Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office Search and Rescue (SAR) coordinators have been established at the Timberline Lodge command post and have involved Portland Mountain Rescue (PMR), the Hood River Crag Rats, and the American Medical Response Reach and Treat Team. The Oregon Office of Emergency Management (OEM) was notified and had aircraft ready. Members of the mountain. Hood Ski Patrol were also staged and ready to help.
MPs said a PMR member and a member of the Crag Rats happened to recreate on the mountain. Hood when they found out about the accident. Two SAR volunteers immediately made their way to the accident site to help with the rescue effort.
Rescue teams navigated a terrain that MPs described as difficult and with the dangers of hydrogen sulfide and other toxic gases that escaped from fumaroles on the way to the scene of the accident.
They made eye contact with the fallen climber, who was not moving, and then went down to the fallen climber by setting up rope systems while checking the poison gas levels to ensure the rescuers could safely reach the subject.
When the rescuers reached the climber, they found the subject dead.
The mission then became a recovery mission. The teams loaded the corpse onto a ski rescue cage and made their way down the mountain to the Timberline Lodge at 4:20 p.m.
The climber’s name will be released after his family is notified, MPs said.
– Tom Hallman Jr; [email protected]; 503-221-8224; @ thallmanjr
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