Hood the Heartless

Hood the Heartless kills again

Today, inclement weather has forced rescuers to suspend their search for two missing climbers on Mount Hood.  Missing since Friday, December 11th, are Katie Nolan and Anthony Vietti, two members of a trio who attempted to scale the mountain. The body of the third member, Luke Gullberg, was found Friday.  Gullberg had died of exposure.

Rescuers speculate that there was an accident involving Nolan on Friday, and that Gullberg set off to get help when he fell to the foot of the Reid Glacier.  There were signs that Gullberg had survived the fall, but succumbed to the cold.

Hopes for the two missing climbers are swiftly waning as snow continues to blanket the mountain.  Read the full story here.

Gullberg, Vietti, and Nolan

In the decade previous to this incident, 22 people have died on that mountain, including my two dear friends, Carey and Tena Cardon.  I imagine that having the mountain nearby is like living in the Alaskan bush in proximity to a grizzly bear.  If you leave the bear alone, you'll be alright.  But, human beings being what we are, we cannot be confined by such prudence. 

Carey Cardon: 1968 - 1999

My heart breaks for the families of the climbers, and I ardently hope that Nolan and Vietti will be found alive.  But one must wonder at the wisdom of attempting to scale the mountain in mid-December when weather forecasts called for cold and precipitation.
Was this ill-fated climb a symptom of youthful disbelief in mortality?  Or, tangentially returning to the grizzly bear analogy, was there an element of Timothy Treadwell self-destruction involved?

I don't imagine that anyone can answer those questions with any degree of certainty.  All we can really do is recognize, yet again, that Old Man Hood, Hood the Heartless, is powerful and dangerous, and that, like the bear in the bush, he occasionally kills.