page_title: Mount Hood climbing accidents
section_title: Since 1990
hierarchical_section_title: Mount Hood climbing accidents / Incident history / Since 1990
caption_attribution_description: English: This is a panorama centered on the crater of Mt Hood in Oregon, showing the peak, sides, crazy rock formations, rocks fallen onto snow, the origins of rivers, volcanic activity, crevasses, the bergschrund on Coalman Glacier which has killed a few people, climbers, evidence of very risky snowboarding, and other interesting bits. North is left, camera elevation is more or less 4100 meters, compare to the summit which is 3429 meters. Panorama built out of 29 photos which were taken by airplane on 12 July 2009 around 17:45. I work for the company which does this in Portland and decided to build this image while waiting for some computations to finish. The 29 photos were picked out of about 10000 (yeah... pretty much the whole south side was photographed several times). Pre-crop panorama shows the top of the Palmer glacier with skiers all over it. Permission was given to put the image here. Again, photos not taken by me (taken automatically by a rig consisting of four computer controlled cameras, mind you). I did raw conversion with Raw Therapee and panorama assembly with Hugin. All manual, yay! Since the cameras move during photography and the mountain is by definition not flat, there is parallax and thus this image is not seamless. I've tried my hardest to hide errors but some parts of the image mismatch by as much as 425 pixels (though average is 16). I don't know how high the plane flew, but I do know that we've skimped on photographing our local mountain before because the peak isn't much lower than the plane's altitude (since the plane takes pictures moving, panoramas turn out the best when taken as far away from ground as possible). Missing from EXIF: Photos taken with ISO 800, 1/8000 s, f/5. 85 mm lens. Due to noise, I half sized images before loading into Hugin and less then half sized the 40 MB output for upload. If you're a prospective climber, avert your eyes. It's more fun when you don't know, believe me!
context_page_description: Mount Hood climbing accidents are mountain climbing- or hiking-related incidents on Oregon's Mount Hood. As of 2007, about 10,000 people attempt to climb Mount Hood each year. As of May 2002, more than 130 people have died climbing Mount Hood since records have been kept. One of the worst climbing accidents occurred in 1986, when seven teenagers and two school teachers froze to death while attempting to retreat from a storm.
  Despite a quadrupling of forest visitors since 1990, the number of people requiring rescue remains steady at around 25 to 50 per year, largely because of the increased use of cell phones and GPS devices. In 2006, 3.4 percent of search and rescue missions were for mountain climbers. In comparison, 20% were for vehicles, 3% were for mushroom collectors, the remaining 73.6 percent were for skiers, boaters, and participants in other mountain activities.
  Regardless of route, Mount Hood is a technical climb. It requires ropes, crampons, and ice axes. Approximately 95% of Mount Hood's climbs occur April through July.
context_section_description: On September 25, 1995 Kenneth Budlong, 45, of Portland attempted to climb the peak via the Cathedral Ridge route. Budlong was very experienced, having summited the peak 22 times before. However, the weather turned very quickly, and Budlong vanished. Despite an extensive search over the following days, his whereabouts were never determined, and his body was never found.
  On May 19, 1997, Carlos Loria, a solo climber summited successfully with his dog, Buckwheat.  While descending the Coe Glacier he slipped and fell 700 feet (210 m), fracturing his neck.  After being reported overdue by family, he was found by rescuers with facial lacerations, slight hypothermia, and cervical trauma.  He was treated and helicoptered to Portland, but Buckwheat was not at the scene.  A month later, the dog appeared at Cooper Spur Inn, some 9.4 kilometres (5.8 mi) ENE across the rugged Mount Hood Wilderness, evidently having survived on snow melt and berries.
  On September 6, 1997, an experienced telemark skier, Mark Fraas of Hood River, ascended wearing crampons and carrying skis to the 10,000-foot (3,000 m) level of Cooper Spur, not intending to summit.  He slipped and fell more than 1,500 feet (460 m) down the Chisholm Trail and Eliot Glacier.  Twenty-five rescuers responded to his partner's cell phone call and found him dead.  Retrieval required technical mountaineering skills and equipment.  Fraas was not known to have any climbing experience.  This was at least the 13th fatality from Cooper Spur. All involve loss of footing, inability to self-arrest, and a long fall over rock cliffs above the Eliot Glacier.
  On May 31, 1998, during a graduation climb for The Mazamas mountaineering club, several participants were caught in an avalanche.  One climber, Tom McGlinn, 39-years old, died and one climber had serious injuries.
  The climbers were at the 10,700-foot (3,300 m) level on the West Crater Rim route; the forecast was for "significant avalanche danger" and was posted "high avalanche hazard" at Timberline's climbing registration.
  A large slab avalanche fracture occurred at the 10,800-foot (3,300 m) level, 200 feet (60 m) vertical below the westernmost summit ridge.
  A roped team of three were swept down the steep slope through the Hot Rocks area.
  One was killed by injuries during the fall and found under four feet of snow about an hour later along with a snapped rope.
  The other two climbers had a fractured pelvis, and fractured ankle, respectively.
  The leader who was not roped to the other three,  was only briefly caught by the avalanche and had injuries to an ankle and shoulder.
  On May 23, 1999, Carey Cardon and Tena Cardon, an experienced pair of climbers summited successfully.  Shortly after commencing their descent, one stumbled and both fell more than 2,000 feet (610 m) to their deaths.
  On June 22, 1999, a 24-year-old medical student from Michigan apparently set out from a remote trailhead where his rental car was found.  Temperatures dropped 15 degrees and more than an inch of rain fell beginning the next day.  Ten days after his presumed disappearance, searching began with up to 70 rescuers combing the area.  Additional searches included cadaver dogs and psychics.  His body was never found.
  On June 4, 2000, Diana Kornet, 29, slipped as she was looking over the northeast side of Mount Hood. She fell about 2500 ft to her death. She and six friends had reached the summit about 7 am. She had unroped, as many climbers do after reaching the summit, and left her ice axe when she went to take a look. It was windy in this exposed location. After one of her companions called 911, the sheriff's office sent a search plane and found Kornet's body at the 8,700-foot level at the top of Eliot Glacier.
  On September 8, 2001, rescuers abandoned a search for a 24-year-old Hungarian exchange student who had been missing for six days.  He had been hiking with friends when he left the group with light clothing and no provisions.  Two days after his disappearance, the weather turned cold and snowy.
  On May 24, 2002, a 30-year-old Argentine national attempted to
caption: Aerial mosaic photo of summit crater: left is north, the Bergschrunde and Hogsback left of center
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