With its imposing mass and elegant lines, Mount Hood dominates Portland’s eastern skyline. On clear, sunny days the mountain invites both the skilled and unskilled to climb its flanks. It is an oft-cited and well-known fact that Mount Hood is the second-most climbed glaciated peak in the world, just behind Japan’s Mount Fuji.
What isn’t as widely known is the fact that every year, scores of climbers find themselves in danger while attempting to reach the summit. Even less known, are the volunteers behind the dangerous rescue missions that often save these injured climbers – as well as lost hikers, errant snowboarders and backcountry skiers. Made up of highly skilled climbers and experienced outdoor enthusiasts, Portland Mountain Rescue, or PMR, has been saving lives on the slopes of Mount Hood and beyond for almost 30 years.
Like the sport of mountaineering itself, organized mountain rescue was imported to the U.S. from the European Alps. After WWII, a large number of European climbers had settled in the Seattle area, having brought established rescue techniques from Austria. In 1948, with the help of these ex-pats, the Seattle Mountain Rescue unit was formed.
A decade later, representatives from a dozen Search and Rescue (SAR) teams from around the West met in the fire-warmed luxury of Mount Hood’s Timberline Lodge to discuss how to best advance the relatively new idea of organized, volunteer-run mountain rescue units. Out of that meeting was born the Mountain Rescue Association (MRA), the umbrella organization that currently oversees more than 91 SAR units in the U.S., Canada and abroad.
Present at that 1958 meeting were local mountain legends such as Dick Pooley, Hank Lewis and Louis Seigal who together, in 1977, would help form Portland’s first local mountain rescue team from the remains of the Mountain Rescue Council of Oregon (MORESCO), a state-wide mountain rescue association that had become ineffective due to multiple locations.
Today, PMR is a well-practiced, well-formed, highly professional team that engages in continual and rigorous training to prepare for their 15-plus annual rescue missions.
While not connected to a government agency (they are officially a 501c(3) non-profit organization), PMR works very closely with local county sheriffs on SAR missions, particularly if the rescue involves a high-angle environment such as a rock-climbing accident or, especially, if there is an incident on the steep, slick, and glaciated slopes of Mount Hood.
“We are totally dependant on (PMR’s) expertise on the mountain,” said Detective Jim Strovink of the Clackamas County Sheriff. “They are consummate professionals and, for an all-volunteer organization, are amazingly organized and effective. They do a wonderful job for us.”
In 2004 alone, PMR was activated on at least 14 missions, where they helped to successfully rescue 13 lost hikers and injured climbers. But the nature of the work also includes missions such as the Aug. 26 body recovery of a 27-year-old female hiker who drowned while trying to cross a stream on the Timberline Trail. And, most recently, the Nov. 4 accident on the Sandy Headwall which killed one climber and seriously injured another on the remote northwest side of Mount Hood.
Since the early years of mountain rescue, every team in the country has been completely volunteer-run and completely donation-funded. PMR and other SAR units receive no government funds or tax dollars and members are not reimbursed in anyway for their time or expenses, such as gasoline and the thousands of dollars of gear that they must own.
But ask PMR members what they do get out of it and almost all will tell you sincerely that they participate because they want to give back to the climbing community – because they would want someone to do the same if they were in need of help. Yet most are not shy about admitting that PMR in an avenue for fueling a love for adrenaline-inspired experiences.
Steve Rollins, 29, is a computer security specialist for Nike and an eight-year veteran of PMR. Rollins cut his teeth as Incident Commander on missions such as the high-profile accident on Mount Hood on May 20, 2002 where three climbers died and an Air Force Reserve Pave Hawk helicopter crashed while trying to hoist up a patient.
“One of the most exciting times of my life was on a rescue,” said Rollins. “I was in a helicopter at night and we were trying to reach a stranded climber on a steep headwall. There was not
enough room to land so I was lowered onto the headwall while the pilot hovered using night vision. It was really intense.”
Rocky Henderson, 54, a member of the team since 1985 who has participated in more than 200 missions, admits they are adrenaline junkies. “We love it when that pager goes off.”
Many members of the team find themselves coming back year after year – not just for the heavy doses of adventure and altruism, but because they have found in Portland Mountain Rescue a community of like-minded mountain lovers with a dedication to the climbing community.
“We’re a family,” says Rollins, “with really tight camaraderie and also a common love of the outdoors.”
Traci Mahon, 30, is a professional nurse who joined the squad four years ago because she wanted to improve her climbing. “PMR offered so many connections to great climbers who were always willing to teach you something,” she said. Since joining the squad she has honed her climbing skills enough to work as a climbing ranger on Mount Rainier.
As one of the few females on the 90-plus-member team, Mahon adds, “PMR is not an old boys club. Everyone in it is extremely professional and dedicated. We are serious when we need to be, but we also know how to have fun.”
For the rest of us – those who play in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest – it isn’t as important to know why the men and women of PMR give their time, as it is to know that their expert help is only the beep of a pager away.
To find a Mountain Rescue chapter in your area, see www.mra.org.
– Michael Oliver, a freelance writer from Portland, Ore., teaches outdoor education at Mount Hood Community College.
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