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A rescue helicopter on Mount Hood in May 1986
(Photo: Jack Smith/AP)
A rescue helicopter on Mount Hood in May 1986
A rescue helicopter on Mount Hood in May 1986 (Jack Smith/AP)

Published: 
The Horror Vault

Mount Hood’s Deadliest Disaster

About an hour before midnight on Mother鈥檚 Day in 1986, a group of teenagers assembled at an Episcopal high school in Portland, Oregon, to embark on an expedition. Their goal was to summit Mount Hood, completing an adventure program that was required for all sophomores. What followed was a story of tragedy and loss that is commemorated annually at the institution it changed forever.

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鈥淭he heart of the wise is in the house of mourning.鈥

鈥擡cclesiastes 7:4

It鈥檚 the second Wednesday of May in 2018, and more than 1,000 students, alumni, parents, and faculty affiliated with 鈥攁 small private academy on a beautiful hilly campus in southwest Portland鈥攈ave gathered at the base of a bell tower. Today is the 32nd annual , and Melissa Robinson, the middle school chaplain, is offering a benediction.

鈥淗oly God, we pray for those we love but see no longer,鈥 she says. 鈥淢ay they inspire each of us to enter today with a generous heart, ready to serve and eager to love.鈥

After Robinson concludes, the Reverend Corbet Clark reads off nine names. Patrick McGinness. Tasha Amy. Marion Horwell. Susan McClave. Richard Haeder. Erik Sandvik. Tom Goman. Erin O鈥橪eary. Alison Litzenberger. He pauses after each. A bell tolls.

About an hour before midnight on Sunday, May 11, 1986鈥擬other鈥檚 Day鈥15 students gathered on this campus to gear up for an outdoor expedition. Within 12 hours, by midmorning the following day, they hoped to be standing on the summit of Mount Hood鈥11,249 feet above sea level鈥攁t the geographic center of the Cascades vol颅canic arc.

Back then, Oregon Episcopal ran a program called Basecamp鈥攁n educational experience modeled on the principles of Outward Bound and a requirement for all tenth-graders, who were scheduled to make the Hood ascent in four separate groups. The idea was to help students grow by putting them in a challenging environment that required problem-solving and teamwork. As Kurt Hahn, , once put it, 鈥淭he experience of helping a fellow man in danger, or even of training in a real颅istic manner to be ready to give this help, tends to change the balance of power in a youth鈥檚 inner life.鈥

And so in the months leading up to the spring of 1986, instructors had taught students the technical aspects of snow climbing: how to step-kick an ascent, how to plunge-step a descent, how to execute a sitting glissade, how to self-arrest during a fall, how to perform basic first aid in the field.

Like many other students before them, this group gathered up carabiners, seat harnesses, and Prusik slings. They grabbed crampons, a field stove, a sleeping bag, a large nylon tarp, and two first aid kits. Later, at Timberline Lodge, a rambling structure that serves a large ski area just west of the route they would take, they were issued ice axes and helmets. The team also carried compasses, a set of long wands that would be used to mark their path on the way up and down, and a sturdy shovel designed for digging through balky, ice-crusted snow.

Now, one by one, they climbed aboard a yellow school bus, carried their heavy gear down its narrow aisle, took their seats, and looked forward to the adventure ahead.


As the bus聽rumbled off on the 90-颅minute trip to Mount Hood, the trip鈥檚 leader鈥擳homas Goman, the school鈥檚 42-year-old chaplain and an Episcopal priest鈥攕ettled in up front. Also on board was Marion Horwell, the dean of residents and student affairs, a capable woman who had never climbed a mountain before but had come along to support her school. Only one parent was going: Sharon Spray, who accompanied her daughter, Hilary. The last two members of the party would join them at Timberline: Dee Zduniak, an Outward Bound instructor who was taking part in preparation to help lead the climb later that year, and Ralph Summers, a professional guide who, at 30, looked like somebody鈥檚 older brother.

Fifteen boys and girls, one mother, one priest, one administrator, two guides. Twenty people in all, nine of whom would die over the next four days. One of the girls who would perish, Tasha Amy, had limited vision in her only functioning eye but was determined to be on the expedition all the same. 鈥淪he would have been just downright insulted if anyone had suggested she not climb the mountain,鈥 one of her teachers later said.

For a few weeks that spring, the horrific story of this expedition was splashed all over the news, with coverage on local and network television, in papers ranging from to to the Sydney Morning Herald, and in magazines such as Newsweek and . But the news cycle moved on, and most of the reporting in the immediate aftermath couldn鈥檛 answer questions that would take time to sort out. What exactly went wrong up there, and why? And what might it all come to mean, as the survivors aged and had families of their own, and the school community tried in any way possible to recover? How does a school make amends and open up a conversation about healing, grieving, death, forgiveness, growth, and change?

Rescue workers transport an unidentified climber
Rescue workers transport an unidentified climber (Riley Caton/AP)

Thirty-two years after the tragedy, we have information that wasn鈥檛 available back then: interviews with survivors and rescuers and parents, facts that emerged during a civil lawsuit, and the conclusion聽an investigation聽, which was overseen by climbing legend Jed Williamson. (The following year, Williamson published in the American Alpine Club's聽Accidents in North American Mountaineering, which he edited at the time.) As a result, these questions can now be more thoroughly analyzed, if not definitively answered.

The Oregon Episcopal School Mount Hood climb remains, to this day, the second-deadliest alpine accident in North American history, behind . Seven of the nine Hood victims were teenagers, students at a well-intentioned school who followed the lead of adults they trusted.

Both of my children attend Oregon Episcopal. Eight-year-old twins, they were on hand for Service Day in 2016, 2017, and 2018. For this reason and many others, I鈥檝e long been haunted by the story of the climb鈥檚 lost students, kids so much like my own, so fragile and young.


On that night in May, Goman鈥檚 group left Timberline at around 3 A.M. and were met with temperatures that were comfortably above freezing. They were at 6,000 feet, close to the tree line, and there was calf-deep snow on the ground. As they got going on what would have been roughly a six-mile round trip, they moved quietly through a hushed kind of darkness broken by the muffled sound of their footsteps.

The ice-capped landscape of Mount Hood can be almost otherworldly in its beauty. Fumaroles鈥攙olcanic steam vents鈥攁re located all along the side of the mountain; when active, they send silvery plumes of mist into the air, giving moonlit nights a luminescent glow.

Most climbers , departing from the parking lot at Timberline Lodge, a WPA-built structure that was used to depict the haunted mountain hotel in The Shining. The first section of the 5,249-foot ascent skirts the eastern edge of the Timberline ski area. A well-known lift, the Palmer chair, parallels the climb鈥檚 path all the way up to 8,500 feet, where the route continues on to the top, taking climbers past well-known features like Crater Rock, the Hogsback鈥攁 huge mound of ice and snow at 10,500 feet鈥攁nd two rock towers near the summit called the Pearly Gates.

The apparent simplicity of this line, coupled with the mountain鈥檚 majestic beauty, has made Mount Hood both alluring and dangerous. In the past century, more than 120 people have died on it, a total in the fatality range of North American peaks like Denali and Mount Washington.

There are several clear risks: avalanches, falls, crevasses, weather that can turn nasty in minutes. Because of the dangers, it鈥檚 important to have a good leader on every expedition, someone who can make the pragmatic decision to change plans when necessary. During many Oregon Episcopal climbs before the May 1986 attempt, that person had been Tom Goman.

Goman was affectionately known to students as 鈥淔erder鈥 Tom, from the abbreviations of 鈥渇ather鈥 and 鈥渄octor.鈥 (He was both a priest and a Ph.D.)

Fifteen boys and girls, one mother, one priest, one administrator, two guides. Twenty people in all, nine of whom would die over the next four days.

鈥淭he kids adored him,鈥 recalls Jim Thompson, who in 1986 was assistant to the bishop for the Episcopal Diocese of Oregon. 鈥淗is popularity was astounding. And, of course, he had the reputation of being the brain on campus.鈥

Born in Corvallis, Goman had a divinity degree from Harvard and a doctorate from Claremont. He was already a seasoned mountaineer when, in 1978, he took a job at Oregon Episcopal, where he taught philosophy, ethics, and math. His scholarly work covered a range of topics, in Hindu scriptures. Throughout his work, Goman was preoccupied with the twin ideas of responsibility and sacrifice; many kinds of sacrifice, he once wrote, produce 鈥渢he mystic purification of our Self.鈥

Joel Schalit, a student who would go on to become a writer and editor, was a 19-year-old senior in 1986 and a member of Goman鈥檚 advanced climbing team, a group that did extra training to help shepherd less experienced climbers. He was close with Goman and had stayed overnight a few times with Goman and his wife at their home.

鈥淭om was a father to me,鈥 Schalit . 鈥淏ut as I got to know him better, I began to sense that he was seriously troubled.鈥

Leading up to the Hood climb, Schalit observed a streak of recklessness in his character. He has written about the story of one particular expedition under Goman鈥檚 leadership, which happened on a rocky outcropping above Oregon鈥檚 Sandy River. 鈥淥nce we reached the summit, our instructions were to anchor a rappelling line by tying it to a tree,鈥 he wrote. 鈥淭hen we were supposed to practice belaying one another from atop the precipice.鈥

The students were nervous and hesitant to proceed. To show that the maneuver was in fact possible, Goman proceeded to demonstrate. As Schalit described it, he 鈥渢ook off his helmet, screamed out, 鈥極n belay?,鈥 and took a swan dive off the cliff. 鈥 As I looked out over the ledge, Tom鈥檚 body banged sharply against the jagged walls. 鈥 This routine was repeated eight more times, and by the end of it Tom was covered in blood. … We were all extremely shaken.鈥


The forecast聽for Mount Hood on the afternoon of May 12 was grim. News organizations and weather services had predicted a multi-day storm, with vicious winds and heavy marine moisture surging in. Goman assessed the conditions and decided the climb could be completed safely anyway, before the worst of the weather hit.

Matt Zaffino, , Portland鈥檚 NBC affiliate, was a young weatherman in 1986, based in Medford, Oregon. He says any Mount Hood veteran should have known that a big storm can turn the peak into a death zone without warning. 鈥淲hen a storm like this hits, it hits fast,鈥 he says. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e not just dealing with something that鈥檚 heading from point A to point B. Things are actually developing over your mountain.鈥

As dawn approached, the conditions and visibility were still fairly mild. But a few people began to have second thoughts about pushing on.

The first to head down were Hilary and Sharon Spray. Hilary, who鈥檚 now a musician, had a stomach ache and didn鈥檛 feel fit enough to complete the climb, though she was urged to keep going. 鈥淚 was the first person to turn back,鈥 she says. 鈥淚 did experience pressure from the leaders to continue. Tom Goman pressured the kids. We all assumed he knew what was best. I knew that what was best for me was to turn around and leave.鈥

鈥淭he winds at the top of the Palmer chair lift were 103 miles per hour,鈥 says Mark Kelsey, a Mount Hood search and rescue veteran. Winds of 103 qualify as a Category 2 hurricane.

During media coverage of the climb鈥檚 tenth anniversary, Sharon talked about a moment she never forgot: the sight of the other climbers walking away, heading upward, the sounds of their movement growing fainter with each passing step.

At Silcox Hut, a warming station at 7,000 feet, two more students wavered. Lorca Smetana, suffering from cramps, told Goman she was in pain and asked him if he needed her to stay. He didn鈥檛. From Silcox, the route down is easy to follow, even in foul weather. Smetana returned to the lodge with another climber, Courtney Boatsman.

Two more climbers turned back after that. At around 11:30 A.M., Dee Zduniak, suffering from mild snow blindness, decided she needed to head down, too. She left, by herself, and retraced the path to the base, whittling the group to 13.

On Sunday, May 18, three days after the group was finally found, Ralph Summers鈥攖he guide and a survivor鈥wrote a statement for the Clackamas County sheriff. In his account, which is one of the only first-person written records of the climb from someone who was there, Summers said that bad weather descended suddenly, in the two-hour period after Zduniak鈥檚 departure.

Goman thought the group could still summit and get down, however, so they pushed and pushed. As the weather worsened, Summers began to question whether they should turn around. They didn鈥檛.

Guide Ralph Summers
Guide Ralph Summers (Michael Hinsdale/AP)

Finally, at roughly 2 P.M., with everyone above 11,000 feet and winds blowing hard, Summers was able to convince Goman to change his mind. Summers had gone ahead alone, 30 or 40 feet, and seen that the conditions were simply too precarious.

鈥淲hen the distance between us increased to the limit of visibility, I decided to go back to the group,鈥 Summers wrote. 鈥淚 told Tom that I thought we should get out of there. … I told him to go to the front of the group and make sure they stayed in our tracks.鈥

But by then it was too late. The storm, howling in from the Pacific, had arrived.


Even in the deteriorating weather, there was a direct path down the mountain鈥攊n theory, at least.

But nothing that day was normal or linear. The first complicating factor emerged when 15-year-old Patrick McGinness鈥攖he youngest climber鈥攕tarted struggling in the cold. A sweet, respectful boy with a dimpled smile and a lean runner鈥檚 body, McGinness lacked insulating fat. Around 3:30 P.M., his speech slurred. He staggered and toppled over, wanting only to go to sleep.

At this point, the group had descended several hundred feet and were clustered just below the Hogsback. On a clear day, the climbers would have been easy to see from Timberline Lodge鈥攂lack dots on Hood鈥檚 bright surface. But visibility was now between 20 and 30 feet.

Conditions like this can induce vertigo. It鈥檚 impossible to differentiate ground from sky, and when you take a step, you don鈥檛 know where your foot will land.

Given all that, what happened next was nothing less than heroic, illustrating the best of the Basecamp ideals. The students huddled around McGinness, placing him in the group鈥檚 only sleeping bag. Susan McClave, a senior and an experienced climber, took off her jacket and boots and crawled inside to warm him up. This action cost her just a few fractions of a degree of body heat, but they were fractions she鈥檇 never recover.

While this was going on, Summers fumbled with the controls of his field stove, igniting the burner and boiling water, into which he dissolved two lemon drops. He gave the container to an athletic 15-year-old named Giles Thompson. Summers took McGinness鈥檚 temperature, and then McGinness drank 12 precious ounces of hot, sugary carbohydrates.

The rewarming process helped, but it ate up time. Roughly an hour passed before the group got going again, led now by Summers and McClave, who stepped into a leadership role when leadership was most urgently needed. According to Summers鈥檚 statement, Goman overcorrected the course to avoid a canyon, setting a compass to a heading that was 20 degrees off course and passing it to her near the front of the line.

Search and rescue gear
Search and rescue gear (Dale Swanson/Oregonian)

It鈥檚 also possible that Goman was having cognitive problems by this point. 鈥淲e can only speculate,鈥 said the American Alpine Club's summary of Williamson's investigation, 鈥渢hat there was the strong possibility that fatigue and the cold were affecting him adversely at a much earlier state than others in the group had become aware.鈥

Whatever the reason, the climbers were moving almost directly sideways, across the face of the mountain, instead of down. As they proceeded, Summers noticed a crack in the snow and grew worried: he thought they might be crossing an area called White River Glacier.

Under any circumstances, crossing a glacier is dangerous, because its crevasses are not always visible. In a blizzard, blowing snow undergoes a process called mechanical hardening, meaning it can accumulate in caps鈥攐r bridges鈥攐ver empty space. These bridges can collapse when you step on them.

Summers鈥檚 post-climb statement describes what he did next. (The emphasis is his.) 鈥淚 reminded the group to FOLLOW MY FOOTSTEPS,鈥 he wrote, 鈥渁nd DO NOT STEP ON THE CRACK.鈥

By this point, visibility was less than ten feet, and winds were getting stronger. After leading the group past the crack, Summers moved ahead. Before long, he felt his foot go over an edge abruptly. Then he saw another crevasse, which looked to be 30 feet deep. It was around 7 p.m.

鈥淐onsidering the late hour,鈥 Summers wrote, 鈥渁nd the fact that we had one student that could not walk unassisted, and not knowing our exact location, and finding ourselves on a glacier with at least one large crevasse, I considered it was our best option to dig in. … I started digging a snow cave.鈥

They weren鈥檛 on the glacier but were near its edge, at an altitude of 8,200 feet.

In the early hours of Tuesday, May 13, Mark Kelsey鈥檚 phone rang: there was trouble on Mount Hood, involving student climbers who were due back and hadn鈥檛 been seen. Within a few hours, he headed out to join other members of a group called . They showed up at the base of Mount Hood, in the middle of the storm, carrying their gear in a blue and white Suburban that practically dragged its muffler on the pavement as it moved along. The PMR team reached Timberline at 5:21 A.M. In records of the search operation kept by the Clackamas County sheriff鈥檚 office, Kelsey is listed as the second member of what became Rescue Team 1.

A tall, athletic man with a shaved head, Kelsey, now 68, has a tattoo on his left forearm: inky black numbers and letters鈥擭45掳22鈥25鈥, W121掳41鈥45鈥濃攖hat are the longitude and latitude coordinates for the summit of Mount Hood, a place he describes as 鈥減retty much my temple.鈥

Kelsey spent 17 years as a PMR volunteer. He estimates that he鈥檚 summited Hood at least 460 times, and he says the weather on May 13, 1986, remains the worst he鈥檚 ever seen while on a search. 鈥淚n my whole climbing career, I never got frostbite except for that day,鈥 he says. 鈥淭he first day of the rescue, the winds at the top of the Palmer chair lift were 103 miles per hour.鈥

Winds of 103 qualify as a Category 2 hurricane. It was immediately clear that the rescuers, just by stepping outside in the maelstrom, would be risking their lives.

鈥淵ou can鈥檛 even stand up in 100-mile-per-hour winds,鈥 says Matt Zaffino, the KGW meteorologist and a climber who has summited Mount Hood twice. 鈥淚f you do move, you can鈥檛 even see where you鈥檙e going. With blowing snow, you have zero visibility. Those are really, really dangerous conditions.鈥

Four feet of snow had accumulated in 24 hours. The mouth of the cave was effectively sealed. Three students were outside; eight people were in鈥攂uried now, deep under the snow.

The rescuers, both men and women, came out anyway: the sheriff鈥檚 log records a wave of arrivals. First was PMR, at 5:21. At 8:53 came the ground crew from the 304th recovery squadron, a unit of Air Force pararescuers. Throughout the morning other teams arrived, with some people bringing Tucker Sno-Cats鈥攂ig, bulky all-terrain vehicles that weighed more than two tons each. The sheriff鈥檚 office established a staging area and sent searchers out into the weather.

They found nothing. They had no idea, after all, where to look, since the whiteout meant helicopters couldn鈥檛 fly. Searching through the worst of the storm鈥攃overing a vast, snow-blown area鈥攖he volunteers struggled to see or hear anything. The wind howled. Snow piled up. Visibility, for parts of the day, was less than an arm鈥檚 length. David McClure, the base operations chief for PMR, told a reporter at the time that 鈥渢he severity of this storm was certainly one of the worst this mountain has ever encountered.鈥

鈥淧eople don鈥檛 understand the brutality of it,鈥 says Tom Hallman Jr., who was among the first people to arrive at Timberline that day. 鈥淚 remember one guy staggering into the staging area looking like the abominable snowman.鈥

During the initial day of searching, the winds were strong enough that they flipped over a Sno-Cat; after it was put back upright, a window popped out. And still the volunteers went out.


During a storm emergency, a snow cave can be a lifesaving shelter. After an exhausting day, Ralph Summers managed to dig one鈥攚ith Goman鈥檚 assistance鈥攊n about an hour. When it was finished, the cave had floor space measuring roughly six feet by eight feet and was four feet high inside.

The students and adults got on their hands and knees and crawled into the compact space two at a time, passing through a three-foot entrance that would have run slightly uphill. They wedged their bodies through. Legs crossed over legs, arms jammed into the snow.

It quickly became clear that the cave was too small. It was big enough for six, but they were trying to fit in 13. It was claustrophobic inside, and the walls soon began to thaw from body heat. Snowmelt accumulated in a slushy trough on the cave floor; anybody in the middle ended up in a shallow pool of ice water. Terrified, the students struggled to breathe. 鈥淓veryone was panicking about air,鈥 one of the survivors later said.

The students set up a rotation鈥攖hey would take turns sitting outside in the gale-force winds. Goman, already shaking with cold, spent part of that first night outside the cave, fully exposed. 鈥淚 remember him screaming,鈥 Thompson told Hallman in 1996, in a tenth anniversary story for the Oregonian. 鈥淚 remember that sound.鈥

As was true for the others, Thompson鈥檚 position inside the cave probably changed over the next three days, but he would end up near the entrance. Together with other students, he struggled to keep the cave mouth open. At some point during the night, the wind outside the cave entrance sucked away both the shovel and the sleeping bag. Without the shovel, the students had to try to keep the entrance clear with an ice ax and by moving in and out of the cave.

By first light on Tuesday morning, the situation had become untenable. As Hallman recounted in 1996, Summers asked Goman to count to ten and he was unable to. So Summers decided he had to leave, to try and get down and find rescuers. 鈥淭he only chance to keep alive and to get help for the group was to strike out and keep walking,鈥 he said in his statement.

Summers asked if anyone wanted to go with him. Molly Schula, one of the advanced climbers, volunteered. They got started and vanished into the whiteout.

As they descended, glissading down a steep slope, Schula saw the shovel鈥攁 critical piece of equipment for keeping the entrance open鈥攍ying on the snow. But if they鈥檇 turned around and taken it back up the hill, they might very well have died. Instead they trudged forward, step by step, still going in the wrong direction. A few hours later, by 9:50 A.M., they鈥檇 made it to the lodge of Mount Hood Meadows, a ski resort roughly two miles east of Timberline. They鈥檇 veered badly off course, but they鈥檇 somehow lucked into a different facility and were saved.


The聽11 remaining聽climbers continued to lose ground, and the storm didn鈥檛 ease.

Inside, they waited, vacillating between hope and despair. The air was cold and damp. It must have been painful to breathe. And the cave opening was getting smaller as new snow kept coming in. 鈥淪imply stated,鈥 the American Alpine Club鈥檚 summary said, 鈥渆vents for the next two days … involved a prolonged and valiant attempt on the part of the students to maintain the cave.鈥

The historical record鈥攚hich includes dozens of news articles from 1986 and the years following鈥攄oesn鈥檛 provide a completely detailed picture of what transpired inside the cave during the worst hours, and perhaps that鈥檚 for the best. In a real sense, this was a sanctified space, and it should be respected as the place where four children and two adults died.

At one point鈥攎ost likely on Tuesday night, the group鈥檚 second in the elements鈥擜lison Litzenberger gathered her courage and went outside. The blizzard was still raging. The cave鈥檚 entrance was nearly sealed shut. But she was small; someone her size could still fit through it, clearing an air passage if the group was lucky. She moved into the maelstrom.

Both Erin O鈥橪eary and Erik Sandvik followed her. Thompson has said that he remembers Sandvik trying to get back inside and trying to help him do so. But Sandvik couldn鈥檛 get more than a single boot back through the entrance.

Four feet of snow had accumulated in 24 hours, and at this point the mouth of the cave was effectively sealed. Three students were outside; eight people were in鈥攂uried now, deep under the snow.


The weather cleared on early Wednesday morning. Around 2 A.M., Mark Kelsey鈥檚 team rode in a Sno-Cat from Mount Hood Meadows up the side of the mountain. 鈥淭hey set us right on the nose of the glacier,鈥 he says.

Exposed to the elements, whipped by the last gusts of the storm, Kelsey鈥檚 group sheltered in place for hours. After sunrise, at 5:45, they noticed two black dots on the flank of an area called White River Canyon.

They went over to investigate. What Kelsey saw next has never left him: two bodies, apparently lifeless, lying on the snow. 鈥淭hey were in the fetal position, one right above the other, the two at the bottom of the hill,鈥 he says. 鈥淣ot in a position like they鈥檇 fallen, but in a position where they鈥檇 curled to stay warm.鈥 It was Alison Litzenberger and Erin O鈥橪eary. Their body temperatures were in the forties.

Around this time, not far away, a different set of rescuers spotted a third body, that of Erik Sandvik. After trying fruitlessly to get back in through the opening of the cave, Sandvik had simply fallen on the snow. He was located almost directly on top of the rest of his friends.

Kelsey was his team鈥檚 navigator, responsible for the radio. So he called for a helicopter to come and collect the victims. He also looked at the positioning of the bodies and saw a clear fall line between them.

鈥淲e started probing up toward the third individual,鈥 he says. They began moving steadily toward the location of the cave. 鈥淲e were about 150 feet away, I think, with the avalanche probes.鈥


Back at the operations base, a helicopter from the 304th recovery squadron took off and headed up to where the students had been found. Though all three were probably dead already, for a lengthy period of time both law enforcement officials and members of the media had the mistaken impression that they might be alive.

Kelsey believes this happened because the helicopter radioed to base personnel that they should prepare warm oxygen鈥攁 standard treatment for hypothermia victims鈥攇enerating a horrific false hope that circulated among the parents. But whether the misunderstanding really occurred for this reason is unclear.

The confusion was certainly real, though. In the sheriff鈥檚 radio log, a deputy named Dave Kennell records the initial mistake. 鈥0554,鈥 Kennell wrote. 鈥淔ound Survivors.鈥 Later, an officer named Gene Hanners described this period in the sheriff鈥檚 official search and rescue report.

鈥淎t 6:00 A.M., the command post was notified by the 304th Parajumpers that they had found three 鈥榮urvivors,鈥欌夆 he wrote. He told a deputy 鈥渢o inform the parents of the lost climbers that they had found three survivors, however their condition was not known at the time.鈥

Hanners was unable to get an update on the climbers for close to three agonizing hours鈥攚hen he finally met a 304th helicopter in a parking lot. 鈥淎 PJ ran to us and told us that they had two 鈥榙eltas鈥 for us,鈥 he stated in the report. 鈥淗is crew unloaded two bodies and placed them on the ground in front of us. I informed the PJ that I thought the climbers were alive and he reported that all three were dead.鈥 The two deputies removed the gear from the cargo bed of a Toyota pickup and drove the bodies away.

Attorney Paul Luvera in court in 1990
Attorney Paul Luvera in court in 1990 (Marv Bondarowicz/Oregonian)

Back on the mountain, Kelsey鈥檚 team was pulled off its line. The search was redirected after Summers went up in a helicopter to pinpoint the location of the cave, but reports differ on where he thought it was. Kelsey thinks he and his team must have been very close to the cave when they were moved, and that they may have been only a few feet away. 鈥淚t was a perfect storm of mistakes,鈥 he says.

Even 32 years later, Kelsey is overcome with emotion when he describes returning to the base at the end of that day鈥檚 search. 鈥淟isten, I鈥檓 going to tell you something鈥 and I鈥檓 going to try and do this.鈥 He pauses. 鈥淏ecause I still remember getting off that helicopter. And all of the parents start moving in toward us. Just these faces of hope. Of desperation鈥 鈥楪ive us something, please.鈥 And to have to not say anything… That was tough. Because those people wanted…鈥

His voice trails away, and he shakes his head. 鈥淵ou just wanted to tell them, hold them, do something. But we weren鈥檛 allowed to. There was a procedure for that.鈥


By the end of the mission, volunteers would log 5,874 hours on the mountain. They鈥檇 come from alpine rescue groups all over Oregon and Washington鈥擟orvallis Mountain Rescue, the Hood River Crag Rats, Alpine Ambulance, the Mazamas, Seattle Mountain Rescue. There were numerous firemen and law-颅enforcement officers, and volunteers from the Forest Service, the Mount Hood Snowmobile Club, the American Red Cross, and German Shepherd Search Dogs of Washington State.

Wednesday passed with no further developments. The weather finally cleared, but the damage was done. All sign of the climbers had been erased. 鈥淚t was like the mountain had been wiped with a trowel,鈥 a rescuer told me.

One person, a master sergeant named Richard Harder, firmly believed that it was still possible to find the climbers, and he had a hunch about where they were. Harder was a member of the 304th, which鈥攖ogether with a private company, Hillsboro Helicopters鈥攆lew 58 sorties that week, ferrying gear and rescuers up and down the mountain at altitudes as high as 9,200 feet. A tall, handsome service veteran, Harder had earned the nickname Bagger because his first 24 missions with the 304th had, unfortunately, ended without any live rescues.

According to a United Press International story published at the time, Bagger 鈥渨as sure the search team was too high on the mountain and was wasting valuable time.鈥 With David McClure on board, he jumped into the Huey and, at 8,200 feet, leaned through his side hatch and threw out a flare to mark where he thought the cave was. He radioed that this was where he believed the search should concentrate.

Richard and Judith Haeder in court in 1990
Richard and Judith Haeder in court in 1990 (Marv Bondarowicz/Oregonian)

That met with resistance. 鈥10:33. The Bagger put smoke down in area of probable search. Field OL feels that they鈥檝e covered marked area thoroughly,鈥 the radio log notes.

Later that afternoon, Bagger finally organized a group of searchers鈥攁mong them Summers鈥攁nd set up what was called a fine probe line. Starting at 8,500 feet, working about three feet apart, the rescuers moved slowly down the slope, pushing ten-foot avalanche poles into the snow. It was a last, desperate measure, and it worked. At 5:38 P.M.鈥攋ust 22 minutes before the scheduled end of that day鈥檚 search鈥攁 304th sergeant named Charlie Ek hit something solid. Frantically, everyone started digging.

Pierre Bustanoby of the Seattle Mountain Rescue Council describes the moment when the cave was located. 鈥淥ne of the PJs stuck his head down, smelled the void, and said it had a bad smell. This immediately told us we were on target, and moments later we heard moaning coming from the main cave.鈥

From inside the tiny space, lying just beneath Giles Thompson in the entrance, a student named Brinton Clark was visible. She was semiconscious and moaning. Admissions data at a hospital in Portland recorded her core temperature at 74.12.


Patrick聽McGinness鈥檚 core temperature was measured at 54 degrees. The other climbers鈥 temperatures were as low as 37.4. Clark and Thompson both survived, and one can only guess as to why.

Asked by Oregonian reporters why Thompson came through, a cardiac surgeon, Duane Bietz, said, 鈥淗e had pretty good equipment on鈥攁 good pair of rubber pants, a good pair of wool pants.鈥

Helicopters rushed the victims into the city. At nearly every Portland-area medical institution鈥擡mmanuel, Providence, Good Samaritan, St. Vincent, and Oregon Health and Sciences University鈥攄octors did everything they could, with little success.

鈥淵ou have to understand what a heroic effort this was,鈥 says one physiologist. 鈥淭hese medical procedures demand massive resources. A single hospital rarely has the capacity to treat more than a few of these patients.鈥

Parent Richard Haeder Sr. emerged as the school鈥檚 most vocal critic. He called the expedition a 鈥渄eath march鈥 and Basecamp a 鈥渄isastrous killing program.鈥

During the first moments of Thompson鈥檚 treatment at Providence, he went into cardiac arrest. The surgeons opened his chest and massaged his heart by hand, triggering the resumption of its usual rhythm.

That May, June, and July, doctors fought valiantly to keep Thompson alive, but they couldn鈥檛 save his legs. During this period, Giles鈥檚 older brother, Ross鈥攁 senior at Oregon Episcopal鈥攕at once in the little hospital room and at other times in the stairwell of the ICU and practiced scales on a classical guitar. His music would become, in an explicit sense, a form of healing.

鈥淚t鈥檚 all about vibration,鈥 Ross says today. 鈥淚 use a lot of minor keys. It鈥檚 great for the brain.鈥 He offered the music as a kind of gift; it floated out toward his brother and the phalanx of doctors who鈥檇 installed themselves in his room.


In the wake of the disaster, predictably, inquiries and offers came flooding in from writers, publishers, and Hollywood. Some individuals鈥攁nd even the school itself鈥斅璫ooperated with the basic needs of journalists working on deadline, but they shut the door on tabloids and movie deals.

鈥淭o profit from the pain of grieving families, the sadness of a school, and even the relief of other families is abhorrent,鈥 said a statement issued by the Oregon Episcopal School. Mariann Koop, the school鈥檚 spokeswoman at the time, elaborated. 鈥淚t鈥檚 repulsive. Our answer to all of them is no, period.鈥

One project briefly got traction, then stalled. Portland Mountain Rescue began working with Charles Fries, a veteran television producer who was known for a TV series called The Amazing Spider-Man. Months after news of a potential movie deal broke, in September 1986, some of the families who鈥檇 lost loved ones composed a written pact. 鈥淎cceptance of fees, royalties or other payments by either families, the school or any other organization is inappropriate,鈥 it said. This was a nonbinding, self-policed prohibition. But the idea behind it鈥攖hat telling your story might be destructive鈥攍ingered for many years.

There鈥檚 never been a movie about what happened. The only book that emerged was The Mountain Never Cries, a memoir written by Giles Thompson鈥檚 mother, Ann Holaday, in which she lamented the hunger for recrimination that seemed to preoccupy some people in the tragedy鈥檚 aftermath.

鈥淓ven at that critical time, all they wanted to hear was the emotional side and whom did I blame,鈥 she wrote of the TV and newspaper reporters who covered the search. 鈥淭hey wanted me to point fingers鈥攁t whomever, at whatever. The school, the system, anything.鈥


A more important question remained: what to do about what had happened.

At graduation ceremonies in June 1986, Oregon Episcopal administrators chose to honor all the climb鈥檚 participants, including Susan McClave. She was cited for her leadership on the mountain, and she collected four posthumous awards, including the Alumni Award, an accolade given to the senior who most exemplified 鈥渁cademic accomplishment, demonstrated leadership, and loyalty.鈥 Her ashes would later be interred on campus.

Climber Molly Schula
Climber Molly Schula (Jack Smith/AP)

The school then commissioned an official inquest, convening a panel of climbing and hypothermia experts, including a well-known Oregon doctor named Cameron Bangs. The report, which was published in July 1986 in the Oregonian, assigned blame primarily to Goman, who failed to turn back in bad weather, striving beyond the point of common sense to get the students to the top. Parents reacted with a mix of anger, criticism, and understanding.

Susan McClave鈥檚 father, Donald, was notably reserved. 鈥淗opefully we can get on with our lives,鈥 he told the Associated Press. Later in the article, he added: 鈥淲e will never know, any of us, for sure why [Goman] climbed as long as he did. But he was a fine man who never would have endangered his own life, let alone anyone else鈥檚.鈥

Families of the seven students who died were offered settlements by the school鈥檚 insurer. The McGinness family took a different path, filing a wrongful-death lawsuit in September 1986. Fifteen months later, on December 7, 1987, Cecil Drinkward, the chairman of the Oregon Episcopal School board, filed an affidavit in Multnomah County Circuit Court, begging for the lawsuit to be postponed.

鈥淭his is now our Senior Class,鈥 he wrote of the students who had been tenth-graders in 1986. 鈥淭o hold what I am sure will be a well-publicized trial in the last three months of their senior year will require those students to relive the trauma again at a time when they should be allowed to have the normal teenage ex颅periences which come with high school graduation.鈥

The judge ultimately scheduled the trial鈥檚 opening statements for late June in 1988, just after graduation. Forty-eight hours before the first court date, the opposing parties were able to negotiate a settlement.

One family persisted, however. In a two-year period after the climb, Richard Haeder Sr. had emerged as the school鈥檚 most vocal critic. He called the expedition a 鈥渄eath march鈥 and Basecamp a 鈥渄isastrous killing program.鈥 He and his wife, Judith, demanded $2.76 million in damages, claiming negligence on the part of the school and guide Ralph Summers.

During one deposition, Judith Haeder had a tense exchange with an attorney named Mark Wagner, a Vietnam veteran who was representing the school. He asked about her and her husband鈥檚 motivations for bringing the lawsuit and whether she was being overprotective of her kids.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 think I鈥檓 overprotective, but I think I鈥檓 more cautious,鈥 she said. 鈥淚 think I鈥檓鈥攈ave you ever lost a son?鈥

鈥淚鈥檝e never sued anybody for $3 million. That鈥檚 not the question.鈥

鈥淲ell, anyway, if you had, you would know鈥斺

鈥淲ell, I鈥檝e lost more people than you would ever know in Vietnam.鈥

鈥淭hat鈥檚 not the same.鈥

Climber Giles Thompson
Climber Giles Thompson (Randy Wood/Oregonian)

The jury found Summers not liable and found Oregon Episcopal negligent, awarding the Haeders a smaller amount鈥$500,000鈥攖han they had sought.

After the trial, Summers moved away from Portland. He rarely spoke to the media. He earned a master鈥檚 degree in social work, and spent over two decades as a mental-health manager for the State of Oregon. Today he lives in White Salmon, Washington, a small town of 2,500 located on a bluff overlooking the Columbia River. It鈥檚 a place known regionally for its breathtaking view of Mount Hood.

Master Sergeant Richard Harder died of a heart attack in 1996, at 44. His grave, at Willamette National Cemetery, in Portland, displays his name and rank, the two wars in which he served, and then鈥攐n either side of the Air Force crest鈥攖he words Our Hero. The Bagger.


As the years went by, survivors and families of the deceased found different ways to interpret and understand the disaster on Mount Hood.

Like other teenagers involved in or touched by the tragedy, Brinton Clark built her life around trying to heal others. After graduating from Oregon Episcopal, she went to Stanford, then spent two years in Ghana with the Peace Corps. She returned to attend medical school in San Francisco. In 2005, she became an internist and teaching doctor in Portland.

(Clark declined to speak on the record about the events of 1986, as did officials from Oregon Episcopal School.)

Lorca Smetana, who left the climb before the storm hit, became a human-resilience counselor and teaches at Montana State University. 鈥淚t鈥檚 been my work ever since Mount Hood to somehow claim joy along with the pain,鈥 she says. 鈥淩eturning always to compassion, to resilience, arriving at peace by repairing, adapting, doing the work. And I will be remembered now more for joy and compassion than for tragedy.鈥

Starting in 1988, Christine McClave, Susan鈥檚 mother, trained to be a volunteer facilitator at a small nonprofit called . At the time of her arrival, the center was housed in a tiny rented house on the campus of Warner Pacific University.

鈥淪he was a pillar of our community,鈥 says Donna Schuurman, the center鈥檚 former CEO and executive director. 鈥淪he did it all.鈥 Last spring, the day before the center honored her three decades of work, McClave suffered an aneurysm that later took her life.

Over the past three decades, places like the Dougy Center have been trying to transform the way grief is treated, to break our culture鈥檚 deep social prohibitions about discussing death. 鈥淪ociety has this idea that grief goes away or eventually you recover,鈥 Schuurman says. 鈥淏ut grief doesn鈥檛 go away. Period. It changes your life forever, and you have to accommodate to a new reality.鈥

Mar Goman鈥擳om鈥檚 widow鈥攁grees. 鈥淎t the time, I couldn鈥檛 imagine how I would ever survive. I never thought my life would be good again. But I now see grief as a transformative part of living.鈥

Goman believes she was able to heal from the events of 1986, ultimately, because of the love of her current partner, Virginia. 鈥淢y sexuality caused a schism with the church,鈥 she says. 鈥淏ut I feel like I have been loved, unconditionally, twice in my life. Once, by Tom, for 18 years. And now a second time, for 30 years, by a woman. Both of these loves are an immense gift. But one came out of a great and tragic loss.鈥

鈥淚t was difficult to go back,鈥 Ross Thompson says of returning to Oregon Episcopal for Service Day. 鈥淚 had so much anger, so much rage. But, going back, I expressed my anger.鈥

This echoes what Amy Horwell鈥攖he daughter of former dean Marion Horwell鈥攂elieves. In 1986, she was just 12, and her mom was raising her alone. There could be no larger disruption, no more significant trauma, than a loss like this.

鈥淚 very much believe that trauma is not something to 鈥榞et over鈥 but needs integrating into one鈥檚 sense of self and worldview,鈥 Horwell told me in an e-mail she sent from South颅end-on-Sea, England, where she works as a psychotherapist specializing in trauma.

Horwell moved to England to live with her father after her mother鈥檚 death. Reflecting on her own path since then, she was unequivocal. 鈥淚 think my experience of traumatic loss hugely influenced and informed my professional development, my choice of career, my identity as a psychologist and psychotherapist,鈥 she writes. 鈥淥f course, the loss of my mother was not an event that occurred in isolation, and it had significant repercussions in terms of subsequent losses.鈥

She continued, 鈥淚t made me realize just how much loss historically has been a part of my life and how much it has defined my identity鈥攁nd I wanted to do something with that.鈥


It's later in the morning on Mount Hood Climb Service Day, and kids in first through fifth grade from the Lower School have gathered in the chapel. Phillip Craig, the school鈥檚 chaplain, stands in front of the altar.

Service Day is about listening, remembering, and doing. In an hour, my son and daughter will depart for the Oregon Food Bank. Each second-grader, on this morning, will prepare 41 pounds of food for distribution in the Portland area.

First, however, the students listen to Craig explain the meaning of their day of service. He stands near the front row, holding a wireless microphone in one hand.

鈥淲e do take a chance … every single year before Mount Hood Climb Service Day, to remember the story of the Mount Hood climb,鈥 he says softly. 鈥淲hen we鈥檙e finished with the story, we鈥檙e going to ring a bell. And I鈥檇 like to invite you, for just a minute, to sit in silence, and to think about what we might learn from this story that we hear, each and every year. And after that we鈥檒l sing a song.鈥

鈥淎 story can be like a candle, shining in the dark,鈥 he continues. 鈥淚t can light up a path in front of us, so we know where to go. It can help us search out the truth. It can light up the faces of all those around us. And it can remind us that we are never alone. Today, we are going to hear a story that is part of our OES family story. Some of you may have heard it before, some might be hearing it for the very first time, but it is a story we hear each year. And it happened over 30 years ago. And it is true.鈥

Earlier that day there was another service, held in a small chapel that鈥檚 tucked behind the main altar of the church. Giles Thompson was there. He arrived just as the mass began and sat beside his brother in the last of the four rows. The service was short and simple, a remembrance of the victims.

As we knelt for communion, I noticed the ease with which Thompson, who has worked for years as a theater technician in Seattle, lowered himself to the padded railing. His prosthetic legs, a bright and intricate metalwork, were visible beneath the hem of his cargo shorts.

Afterward, he was mobbed by eighth-graders. They stood around him in a tight cluster, wanting to talk to him, wanting to hear his account of the climb and the things he鈥檇 endured. Later, he would speak to those same students鈥攚ith his brother鈥攖elling them what the tragedy meant at the time and what it means today.

鈥淚t鈥檚 raw,鈥 Ross Thompson told me later. 鈥淚t was difficult to go back. I had so much anger, so much rage. But, going back, I expressed my anger. Father Craig was deeply helpful. He was able to listen to us.鈥


Over the past 32 years, there has never been another Oregon Episcopal鈥搒ponsored student expedition to climb Mount Hood. Before its inquest, the school suspended the Basecamp program.

As the years passed, one student from the school鈥擯atrick Lamb鈥攔emained particularly haunted by the climb. In the spring of 1986, Lamb was a sophomore at Oregon Episcopal; he鈥檇 trained all year with the climbing group. Two days before the trip, he sprained his ankle playing soccer and wasn鈥檛 able to go.

In 1999, Lamb returned to Mount Hood. He took a string of Tibetan prayer flags and a short invocation written on a laminated piece of paper, and he left both items at the summit. 鈥淟eaving a prayer for eternal healing and acceptance of what we cannot understand,鈥 the text read, 鈥渇or all those impacted by the OES climb of Mt. Hood May of 1986.鈥 Lamb is aware that his loss鈥攖hough deep鈥攚as not commensurate with the loss of a child or a sibling or a parent or a spouse. But his grief was enormous.

鈥淚鈥檝e cried limitless tears,鈥 he says. 鈥淎nd I think it鈥檚 really interesting that I鈥檓 able to talk about it now. You know, you鈥檇 think that just because you get older it鈥檚 going to dim, or that you could get over it. I disagree. I think it stays right in front of you until you deal with it. I mean, if you don鈥檛 face it鈥攄on鈥檛 look right at it鈥攚ell, then you鈥檒l never be at peace.鈥

Pauls Toutonghi has written for The聽New Yorker, Granta, and other publications. He teaches at Lewis and Clark College in Portland.

Corrections: (05/02/2025) An earlier version of this story mischaracterized the American Alpine Club's report as a separate investigation. The story has been updated to reflect it was a summary of the OES inquest. 国产吃瓜黑料 regrets the error. From 国产吃瓜黑料 Magazine, November 2018 Lead Photo: Jack Smith/AP