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| One Body Found on Hood, Search Abandoned for Two Others posted on 01/01/2010
It started out innocently enough.
Three experienced climbers making a one-day trek up the second-most climbed mountain in the world.
But Mount Hood is an untrustworthy mistress, as wicked as she is wonderful, and three lives were taken.
The trio – Luke Gullberg, 26, of Des Moines, Wash.; Katie Nolan, 29, of Portland; and Anthony Vietti, 25, of Longview, Wash. – signed the climbing register at 1 a.m. Friday, Dec. 11, and launched their effort from Timberline Lodge.
Friday evening the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue Coordinators were alerted by a friend of the climbers that they were overdue from their climb.
About 10 a.m. Saturday the sheriff’s office reported that Gullberg’s body had been recovered on the Reid Glacier at the 9,000-foot level.
Weather conditions and avalanche danger hampered the rescue mission for the other two climbers. By Monday the search turned to a recovery effort.
Wednesday, Dec. 16, the sheriff’s office announced the mission had been suspended. There was no longer hope that Nolan and Vietti had survived.
“My condolences go out to all the family and friends of Luke Gullberg, Katie Nolan and Anthony Vietti,” said Sheriff Craig Roberts. “One of the most difficult decisions I have to make as sheriff is the decision to suspend search operations.”
The three climbers met through church activities and all were considered experienced climbers. Nolan had done considerable work in rescuing young women from the slave trade as part of her Christian commitment.
Statistics are incomplete regarding the climber and hiker lives that have been lost on Mount Hood, but it is generally agreed that more than 130 have died on the mountain.
About 10,000 climbers take a shot at Mount Hood each year. About 25 to 50 people require rescues each year.
Hazards include weather patterns that can be deceiving, with howling winds arriving suddenly and visibility quickly dropping to zero during fast-arriving snowstorms. Also, avalanche is a major climbing hazard, although few actual deaths occur on Mount Hood from the shifting snow.
The first recorded climbing fatality on Hood’s slopes occurred on July 12, 1896, when Frederic Kirn eschewed his guide and attempted the trip to the summit alone (source: “Mount Hood: A Complete History” by Jack Grauer). Kirn’s body was found on the Newton Clark Glacier on the east side of the mountain after an apparent 40-story fall in connection with an avalanche.
The worst single incident occurred in May 1986 when seven students and two faculty members from the Oregon Episcopal School froze to death during the school’s annual climb. There were four survivors, although three had life-threatening hypothermia and one had legs amputated.
A 1997 incident had a much better ending. A climber managed the summit with his dog, Buckwheat. While descending Coe Glacier, however, the climber fell 700 feet, fracturing his neck. Rescuers found him and he recovered, but Buckwheat was nowhere to be found. A month later, Buckwheat showed up at Cooper Spur Inn, nearly six miles across the Mount Hood wilderness. It was opined this special dog had survived on snow melt and berries.
by Larry Berteau/MT
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