Posted on 12/18/2006 8:47:53 AM PST by george76
A missing climber found dead in a snow cave on Mount Hood was identified as a Dallas man who had placed a distress call to relatives a little more than a week ago, a person close to the family said Monday.
Searchers found the cave Sunday near the spot located by cell phone signals traced from Kelly James, who made a four-minute call to his family Dec. 10 just below the summit, said Jessica Nunez, a spokeswoman for the climber's family.
On Monday, a recovery team was expected to retrieve the body, which remained on the mountain over night because darkness made it too dangerous to retrieve. The search for two other climbers also was to resume on the treacherous north side of Oregon's highest mountain.
His body was found in a second snow cave near the first, about 300 feet below the summit. Rescuers found two ice axes, a sleeping bag or pad and rope in the first. It was not known if any gear was in the second cave.
Monday's search would center on possible descent routes on Eliot Glacier and Cooper Spur, relatively lower levels of the mountain, in case the other two got down that far...
"Eliot Glacier is real dangerous so we will do that by air only," Hughes said Monday. "It's a bad avalanche area with crevasses. There are still people in crevasses that have never been recovered."
Searchers dug through the first cave to ensure no one was there and took the equipment, which will be examined for clues. The second cave with the climber's body was found a short time later.
It was not immediately clear which cave was occupied first, or why or when the climber, or climbers, decided to move from it.
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
I bet one could put a large building into some of these " gullies. "
They could be very deep ( hundreds of feet ? ).
If one were to fall into one of these gullies during a snow storm...then they could be buried quickly by many feet of snow.
I think they are near the Cooper Spur?
A map!
http://www.oregonlive.com/cgi-bin/prxy/accessor/nph-repository-cache.cgi/base/pdf_captions/1166423104162980.pdf
I am beginning to think that they found the small cave first, with the items left behind. Then found the larger cave Sunday with James inside. Could that be possible? So confused!
The gullies are not crevasses. Not sure what they are, I think maybe some topographical features. Sounds like they run along where the climbers went up on the north side, near Cooper Spur.
http://www.oregonlive.com/cgi-bin/prxy/accessor/nph-repository-cache.cgi/base/pdf_captions/1166423104162980.pdf
You need Adobe reader to see this, but it explains the whole cave thing.
Great minds......
LOL! Not sure it explains the cave thing exactly. I thought they found the large cafe first, empty but with gear left behind, then found the small cave with James inside. Now it sounds like the opposite is true. That's why I'm confused!
Incosiderate of these climbers not to rent a locator to help find their bodies. Wonder if the one they found left a note as to what happened??
Pray for W and the Families
I saw the news conference this morning.
According to the report, the small cave, with the items left behind was found first. It was higher up on the mountain, and appeared to have been built in haste and poorly to provide them shelter from the wind (them= 2 other men).
Later, by "luck" they found the first, but larger snow cave that contained the body.
Good information that more people need to know.
You have good points.
A nice personal locator beacon would be nice.
In the dead of winter with blizzard warnings.
Hunters hunt for a reason - either to have a trophy (which I disagree with) OR to provide meat for their families, alot can't stand commercial meat.
Hunters know that there are other people in the woods with guns at that time of year. These people - went into a dangerous area just for the thrill of it.
Last time I looked there were very few Hunters putting others at risk to save their lives, I can't remember the last time Hunters had to have the military looking for them.
Absolutely. Hood and Rainier's ready access to large population centers guarantees it.
I'm back for a brief time.
Not sure what it was on, whether one of the Fox News nightly shows, or Nancy Grace, because I was in and out with the tv and channel hopping as well, but there was talk and an explanatory diagram shown to the effect that WHAT WAS ORIGINALLY TOLD US IS WHAT THIS PROGRAM WAS STILL TELLING US.
That the first cave found was the larger one and properly built and they found the gear there. The second was just barely under the surface, small, no gear, and contained the body of Kelly James, which was frozen solid. I believe the Sheriff has explained it the reverse of this.
The Sheriff's pressers have confused me, too, sissyjane.
I don't know where the disconnect is on the info that is out there, was out there from rescue day one, and is out there now. For me, it still doesn't add up to clarity, either way. But all my posts were based on the original information. Remember, I even speculated as to how James's body could have ended up in the second cave if he originally was left in the first one because of some problems he was having.
I remember the Sheriff did say that the complete cave with all the stuff there...I could almost swear he said the three men spent the night THERE, the two went on without James, and that he believes that was where James made the phone call. Do the rest of you remember his version that way??
Yet...yet...yet...it seems to me under that scenario, his BODY was found in a different place. Not that the Sheriff addressed that seeming discrepancy. He didn't. Which is one of the reasons I find this whole thing impossibly dense.
Abigail, your last post said you were beginning to believe the version that was the opposite of what we were originally told. Can you logically reconcile that version? Does it make sense and hold up to detailed scrutiny? Does it explain most everything or leave major, dangling questions?
I think it's significant that the one climber they found, who was apparently in the most trouble the earliest on, if you take the fact he said something to that effect (coherent or not) in the phone call, that he was found left alone, and that he was apparently injured (his arm), that THAT CLIMBER'S BODY WAS FOUND FROZEN SOLID.
I forgot to mention that on whatever show this was...maybe NG's...they had one of the rescuers on and he said he was using his ice ax or pick as he was carefully moving on the mountain, and that he accidentally found the cave where the body was by the fact that his tool happened to pierce the surface and presto, he found the shallow cave right beneath it with the frozen body. He said it was very close to the surface. Now, is that where you would leave someone who needed protection?? Not if you could help it.
So whether it was the first order, or the reverse order the Sheriff gave, or a combination of parts of each of them, whatever the truth is, this man who was in trouble and the other two went on to try getting down, was found barely under the surface and his body was frozen solid.
As awful as that is, it rivets my attention on something very key in this story. Which needs to be explained...
A new map PDF, takes a while to load:
http://www.oregonlive.com/cgi-bin/prxy/accessor/nph-repository-cache.cgi/base/pdf_captions/1166505904155620.pdf
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