Hiker rescued after falling ‘several hundred feet’ on Mt. Hood Saturday

By Chandler Watkins

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    PORTLAND, Oregon (KPTV) — The Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office says a hiker was rescued on Mt. Hood on Saturday.

Around 11:30 a.m., a 36-year-old woman from Portland was descending the popular South Side route on Mt. Hood when she slipped, fell several hundred feet, and sustained injuries according to CCSO.

Portland Mountain Rescue personnel, who were already on the mountain as a ready team, witnessed the fall and called 911.

“We had just summited and one of my teammates looked down one of the chutes that we were going to down climb and saw a woman go sliding by,” said Erik Broms, a PMR Rescue Leader. “We localized where the person had ended up and they went to that area and responded to and assisted her.”

PMR reached the hiker, stabilized her, and provided initial medical care.

They weren’t alone in their response; the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office, Hood River County Sheriff’s Office, Portland Mountain Rescue, the Hood River Crag Rats, American Medical Response’s Reach and Treat Team, Mountain Wave Emergency Communications and the Oregon Office of Emergency Management all assisted in the successful rescue.

According to CCSO, rescuers at the scene kept the hiker warm during the seven hours it took to get all the necessary resources to her to transport her safely off the mountain.

Using complex rope systems, rescuers transported the hiker in a litter to the Hogsback snow ridge, where she was transferred to a different litter and taken down the mountain to the Timberline parking lot. After arriving at Timberline at approximately 9:30 p.m., she was then transported to an area hospital.

“I would say a majority of accidents happen on the descent because people are tired,” Broms said. “Or improper equipment or not knowing how to use your equipment. I saw a lot of that last year. Your ice ax, crampons, and shovel beacon probe. Practice using them. If you don’t know how to use some of the equipment, it’s not going to be of use to you when you will actually need it.”

While it’s unclear what led to this hiker’s fall, Broms encourages those planning on heading up the mountain to know the route, know the conditions, and have a backup plan.

“Right now the conditions I would say are not for novice climbers just because of the thin coverage and the hazards that are on the mountain right now,” Broms said. “Right now at 7,000 feet it’s 47 degrees. With thin snow coverage on the hire elevations you can get a lot of ice and rock fall. The route a lot of people are using right now puts them underneath ice chutes that collect a lot of this ice and rock fall. It puts them, if they were to get hit, above another big hazard which is one of the biggest fumarole openings I’ve seen in my 27 years of climbing Mt. Hood and 20 years of being with PMR.”

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