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carlb328
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carlb328
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PostWed Jan 01, 2020 7:43 am 
It's good to see that not everyone is dying in nature lately: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/teen-rock-climber-fall-mount-hood-trnd/index.html

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neek
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neek
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PostWed Jan 01, 2020 8:09 am 
Quote:
Once Gurbaz is fully healed, his father said he and his son plan on going back to Mount Hood and conquering the climb together.
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Mikey
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PostWed Jan 01, 2020 11:53 am 
The report makes it sound like he fell (like falling off a cliff) but I suspect he lost his footing and slid on the steep snow and ice the 500 ft (difficult to self-arrest on steep hard snow-ice). There are about 2 crevasses on the commonly used south route to the summit. I have been at Mt Hood's Timberline Lodge over new years and people (ski patrol I think) climb to the summit on Dec. 31st and shoot off fireworks on the summit at midnight if the weather is clear. I was a Ski Patrol trainee at Mt Hood years ago. Looking at the pictures of climbers on the Pearly Gates route, most - but not all - are not roped up. Here is a report of the Portland Mountain Rescue Mountaineers Successful Rescue Jan 18 2009. We (3 of us, 2 very experience and 1 less experienced climbers) climbed this route in mid-March yeas ago and did rope up going up and down the Pearly Gates route. Clear weather, little wind, fun climb. I realize that roping up on steep snow is not always the safest situation. I can recall a chap climbing up a steep snow slope SE of the Mt Baker Ski Area (which is on Mt Shuksan) and doing an ice ax arrest on steep snow which had about 5 inches of soft snow. He was not able to arrest and slid to the base of the slope. There was a situation in British Columbia where 2 roped climbers were descending a steep snow-ice slope and one climber slipped and pulled his partner down and both were killed. In 1977, while making a first ascent in the Fairweather Range of Canada, Dusan Jagersky and Al Givler fell to their deaths during the descent.

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williswall
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PostWed Jan 01, 2020 3:19 pm 
I climbed Hood in 1996 with a buddy, and both of us agreed that we shouldn't rope up on the Pearly Gates section. There have been some nasty falls here involving roped teams.

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Riverside Laker
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PostWed Jan 01, 2020 6:35 pm 
We used a picket in that section. Quite comforting. Wouldn't want to sail over that flat area and way down where a guy died the day before our trip.

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williswall
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PostWed Jan 01, 2020 8:11 pm 
Unfortunately I knew one of the deceased from the 2002 accident involving 3 rope teams, very sad.

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Bosterson
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PostWed Jan 01, 2020 9:41 pm 
williswall wrote:
I climbed Hood in 1996 with a buddy, and both of us agreed that we shouldn't rope up on the Pearly Gates section. There have been some nasty falls here involving roped teams.
+1 I've climbed Hood multiple times and rope teams are a nightmare on the popular south side routes. They spread out in all directions and never place pro, guaranteeing they'll floss others off if they fall. Once, a guy with way too much gear was inexplicably belaying his partner up the top of the Old Chute and the rope was running through an ice chandelier, sending pieces tumbling down the slope onto all of us below. (The belayer was oblivious.) There are already so many other people up there that stopping to belay clogs up the whole route (especially in the PG). If people can't solo the standard south side routes, or if conditions are bad, they should just go down - the mountain's not going anywhere. Glad to hear the kid is ok, lucky he didn't slide into the fumerole and is relatively unscathed. Seems like we're about due for the annual fatality on Hood sometime soon... ☹️

Go! Take a gun! And a dog! Without a leash! Chop down a tree! Start a fire! Piss wherever you want! Build a cairn! A HUGE ONE! BE A REBEL! YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE! (-bootpathguy)
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