Climber dies, others rescued near icy Mount Hood’s peae

GOVERNMENT CAMP, Ore. — One climber fell to his death and several others had to be rescued after conditions turned treacherous on Oregon’s tallest peak Tuesday.

More than a half-dozen people had been climbing near Mount Hood’s peak when a climber fell about 1,000 feet, said Sgt. Brian Jensen, a Clackamas County sheriff ’s office spokesman.

“One of the guys slipped,” said climber Quinn Talley of Welches, Oregon, who had been descending after summiting around 8 a.m. “At first he was just sliding and right before he disappeared, he started cartwheeling.”

Talley, who said he has climbed the mountain about 20 times and has never seen worse conditions, said he tried to reach the man, but the ice was too dangerous.

“Normally, you like a frozen crust on snow so your crampons don’t ball up with snow, but this is different,” Talley said. “With the rain and freeze cycles, there’s something called rime ice … and it’s really loose and normally it’s just fluffy. But these were like dinner plates, hard ice dinner plates.”

Video taken from a helicopter showed other climbers performing CPR on the man before he was airlifted by an Oregon Army National Guard helicopter to a hospital, KOIN-TV reported. He was later declared dead. Authorities have not released his identity.

Mount Hood, a peak notorious for loose ice and rocks in warm weather, is a popular climbing site that has seen dozens of accidents and fatalities over the years.

The sun has been out this week and the temperature was around freezing at the spot where the climber fell, said Russell Gubele of Mountain Wave Search and Rescue.

The stuck climbers were on or near the Hogsback area near the summit of the 11,240-foot mountain.