I was born and grew up in Oregon, so it seems a bit horrific to hear about the recent spate of wilderness tragedies that have hit the state. First there were James and Katie Kim and their two children, who evidently tried to take a short cut from Grants Pass to Gold Beach and ended up stuck in the southern Oregon wilderness. Eventually, Katie and the two girls were rescued; James, who after waiting a week for help decided to go for it himself, and died, apparently of exposure, deep in a river canyon. And now we have the three climbers who were stranded on Mt. Hood more than a week ago by howling winds and driving snow; one body has been brought out already, and while they're still using the word "rescue" a more realistic assessment suggests that "body retrieval" is the main purpose of the current exercise.
Mount Hood is, someone has said, the most-climbed mountain of its class in the world (though I would suspect that its trans-Pacific near-twin Fujiyama is in contention); my own father claimed to have bagged the Mount Hood summit fifty-three times in his life (mostly in the nineteen-thirties). People tend to forget that the mountain can be extremely dangerous, either because of environmental conditions or because of poorly-selected routes. The three climbers who disappeared evidently made bad choices in both categories; instead of taking off from Timberline Lodge and going up the well-traveled south side route past Crater Rock and up the Chute (which may have a different name these days) in fine, calm, sunny weather, they chose the technically difficult north side of the mountain in the face of one of a series of storms that have been battering the Pacific Northwest since the beginning of November. I hesitate to make the gratuitously cruel comment that they asked for what they got, but the thought is there.
About the James Kim situation, my wife and I had a little argument. She insists that James should have remained with his family, waiting for the rescue that eventually arrived. I replied that it's not a cut and dried situation. My wife and I are both getting on in years, and our children are all gone from home; if we were stuck in the same place today, we'd be together and alone, and indeed I would choose to remain with her, whatever might come of it. But thirty years ago, when we would have had two daughters with us in the car, after a week of waiting for rescue that never seemed to arrive I would have done exactly what James Kim did — try to get help for my wife and children, never mind the possible danger.