HOOD RIVER, Ore. — Two climbers still missing on Mount Hood may have plummeted to their deaths over a massive cliff near the summit after they left their injured companion behind in a snow cave to get help.
Sheriff Joe Wampler offered that scenario as rescuers went back up the mountain in helicopters Monday to retrieve the body of Kelly James from the snow cave and try again to find his two companions, who have been missing for a week.
Wampler said James had an "obvious arm injury."
The sheriff spoke grimly about the chances that James' climbing partners were still alive, particularly if they had not found refuge in a fresh snow cave.
"If they did not get in a hole somewhere, we might be beyond survivability periods. You can last a long time in a hole. So we are looking for a hole," Wampler said. If they had fallen and been buried by the blizzards, "it's 10 feet of snow that these guys could be under. I'd be real concerned."
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Blizzards and wind gusts of up to 100 mph blasted the mountain last week, creating deadly conditions.
James' body was discovered Sunday and taken off the mountain Monday for medical examination, said Capt. Mike Braibish of the Oregon National Guard.
Wampler said climbing equipment found on the mountain — including two slings and two aluminum anchors driven into the snow — led rescuers to believe that James' companions, Brian Hall and Jerry "Nikko" Cooke, had tried to secure themselves to the steep slope. That was the last sign of the two.
Authorities were "narrowing the likelihood that there may have been an accident," the sheriff said.
The spot on the 11,239-foot mountain where the two men vanished is commonly known as "the gullies," with a 60-degree slope and a treacherous 2,500-foot drop-off. Thirteen deaths over the past 40 years have been recorded in the same area.
James, a 48-year-old landscape architect from Dallas, made a cell phone call from the cave on Dec. 10 telling his family the party was in trouble. Hall, 37, is from Dallas, and Cooke, 36, is from New York City.
Wampler said it appears the three climbers succeeded in reaching the summit from the difficult north side and started to go down the easier south side. They apparently tried to pass through a rock-and-ice formation known as the Pearly Gates, but did not find it.
They built a snow cave, possibly because of bad weather, the sheriff said. He said all three probably spent the night of Dec. 8 there. The next day, he said, two of the men probably left the cave to go in search of help for James. Then, the weather worsened.
The two had to dig another snow cave on a steep slope for themselves, about 300 feet from the first one, and apparently used snow anchors to secure themselves to the mountain as bad weather raged around them, the sheriff said.
"At some point they were standing there clipped into something, probably because it was so windy there. I mean this is a really steep, dangerous place on the mountain," Wampler said.
Two ice axes, a glove, some rope and a piece of sleeping mat were found along with the slings and snow anchors.
