The Mount Hood Field Trip Disaster of 1986 | Episode 100

You ever go on a field trip at school and every time you look over your shoulder you feel like there's a teacher or a chaperone giving you the Stinkye, We'll try to imagine a field trip where you look up and all of your old relatives are waving you into a tunnel of warm, white light. Ella and Welcome to Doomsday Histories Most Dangerous Podcast. Together, we are going to rediscover some of the most traumatic, bizarre, and on inspiring but largely unheard of or forgotten disasters from throughout human history and around the world. On today's very special Milestone one hundredth episode, you will hear about my school trip to a French strip club. You will learn about a man of God who unintentionally brought a flock of young faithful to meet him. And you will see why I believe riding through a tornado would be somehow less frightening and uncomfortable than the rigors of today's story. And if you were listening on Patreon, you would learn how my entire worldview was shaped on a bus. While listening to Shaka Khan, you would hear about some of the worst ways people have finished school trips unexpectedly early you would learn about the fake US president who died from the largest landslide ever recorded, and you would learn how today's tragedy could have been prevented by simple diarrhea. This is not the show you play around kids, or while eating, or even in mixed company. But as long as you find yourself a little more historically engaged and learn something that could potentially save your life, our work is done. So with all that said, show the kids out of the room, put on your headphones and safety glasses, and let's pick in. Did you ever go on a school trip? And I don't mean a trip to the museum or the local skating rink. I mean like a camping getaway or a senior class trip out of town. The history of class trips is rooted in the historical philosophy of outdoor education. Back in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds, at a time when most children didn't go to school and were already half dead from working in minds or textile factories, wealthy European schools would sometimes load their students into carriages and risk them away to study some architectural site or a botanical garden, or even a demonstration of modern science object or exposure based learning was becoming quite fashionable at the time. Anything you brought in the educational enlightenment of the leaders of tomorrow. Fast forward to the early nineteen hundreds, and the tradition of a educating children and b wanting to expose them to new things became more widely adopted and even spread overseas. Of course, in North America, the idea was less about building the scientists and philosophers of tomorrow on idyllic pastoral outings and more about increasing character building through hardship, more roughing it in the woods than t at the Natural History Museum. But at least it was becoming available more democratically across the board, and for the kids it was a day out of class. I don't know where you may have gone on a school trip, but my schools made weird choices. In public school, we took a bus all the way to Sue Saint Marie and Thunder Bay, returning through mckinaw Island, landing in Barry, Ontario, just in time to experience one of the top ten most devastating tornadoes in Canadian history, depending on the metrics of choice. I have seen it listed as the sixth worst. It was rated as an F four on the Ujita scale. It killed eight people, injured another one hundred and fifty five, flattened hundreds of buildings, and we rode it out in a bus under an overpass. Now imagine being on a rented passenger bus and you are twelve, and you're aware that you are the only one who understands you are about to potentially be ripped into confetti and scattered to the four winds by a cyclonic scrubbing pad, and no one else knows because people are stupid and everyone is singing very loudly to Shaka Khan. That was in public school. Then in high school, they sent us to Old Quebec City, the crown Jewel of love Bell Provence. Google image search it and I promise you will not be disappointed. It's a slice of medieval Europe, founded in sixteen oh eight and only an eight hour drive from Toronto. This was the same trip where I've previously mentioned we watched all those dead children pour off that yellow school bus like firewood at the Plains of Abraham after driving all the way from Michigan High atop the cliffs overlooking the Saint Lawrence River is said to be the most photographed hotel in the world. Two things we did not stay at the Chateau Frontenac and Quebec is the province with youngest legal drinking age, And we immediately figured out you could use an extremely sharp pencil and nail polish to skillfully and passibly change the dates on our IDs, at least enough for a bouncer who was sketchy enough to let school children into a strip club in the New City. And I had my first beer surrounded by naked practicing English on me. From there we stumbled to a nightclub where the day glow abortions were opening for poar. I'm not kidding. I don't remember how many days we stayed or where our teachers were, but it wasn't many before our hotel confiscated our radios and even a few mattresses till damages were paid by the school To say we made a nuisance of ourselves does a disservice to the word nuisance. On our last night, a few of us were walking along the historical wall dividing the Old and New City when our friend Matt slipped and fell thirty feet belly flopping spine side down, landing right in front of a police car, which turned on his cherries and gave Matt the business. Someone shouted he's dead and we ran. We were disinvited from returning to the province and they made Matt's parents drive all the way to Quebec to pick him up. Of course, not everyone has to survive a tornado or flee the cops on a field trip. There are plenty of schools in more remote or natural areas that provide field trips that double as survival courses that actually contribute to their grades. They do wilderness survival or long ass live off the land style canoe trips, or even mountain climbing. We talked about this kind of thing in our recent Cave Creek episode. Students in Norway and more northerly parts of Canada have been known to visit the Arctic before, you know, crossing glaciers, hiking ice shelves, maybe fighting the occasional seal. And in many parts of the world, especially North America, students from less rural parts used to get taken to the kind of more industrial destinations where they might get to spit from a catwalk onto a blast furnace or try not to get pressed and welded to death on an assembly line. It's a bit of a departure from all the wildlife and sunlight and fresh air, but like they say, at least it's a day away from school. British and German and South African schools have been known to send their students to the bottom of mines. Imagine being an Icelandic parent signing the permission slip to send your child to an active lava field, or a Rwandan parent sending your child to the site of a massacre, or a parent from anywhere from Ireland to South Korea to Israel and all of those former Eastern European Balkan states that have shipped their kids off on tours of war zones and sometimes one still in active conflict, or a Polish or German parent reading the words Chernobyl radiological zone on a permission slip. Well, we're not going to catch any venereal diseases or stray bullets or a terminally unhealthy radiological glow today, but by the time we are done, you might wish that we had pack your flannel coat, your ice boots, and your favorite umbrella For today, we are traveling to Portland, Oregon, in the American Northwest. Portland is a place that has one of those weird reputations, literally for keeping things weird. Most people think it's the kind of place where you can grow out a handlebar mustache and unicycle to work at a lesbian bookstore, which is true. But it's so much more than that. It's a pretty liberal place that emphasizes policies designed around nature and politics and civic culture that are generally considered pretty progressive. They believe in conservation and public access and grassroots activism and not paying sales tax. That's a nice one. But let's say you don't care about politics or ecology or civics, and you certainly don't have to. This is not a politics or ideology podcast, and I'm not going to let anyone bug you about hugging a whale or saving a plant while we're here. People living outside the Pacific Northwest often mix up Portland with Seattle. I mean, they're both rainy Pacific Northwest cities with taxanes and coffee culture and flannel based nose ring bands. But Seattle is more corporate, while Portland is more artisanal and counterculture. But again, we're more likely to take advantage of their globally renowned coffee and beer scene and getting our symptoms pierced. Today, we won't be protesting a bank or writing a zine now. Today we're going on a field trip. We will be joining a tenth grade class from the Oregon Episcopal School. It's a small private academy on a beautiful hilly campus in southwest Portland, and we are going to be taking part in their annual base Camp wilderness education program. Oregon is a pretty wild and natural place, like I've suggested, and Oregonians grow up learning trail names the way others learn the names of bus routes. This is one of the only places where you can experience a rugged ocean coastline, glaciated peaks, volcanoes, ancient rainforests, deserts, waterfalls, and fertile vineyards, all in one state, all actually within about ninety minutes of each other. This is our first trip to the American Pacific Northwest, and it's just what you would think, pretty as a postcard and rugged as hell. I've heard the coastline described as draw a coastline on a paper. Now crumple up that paper, and now you're starting to get it. This is a part of the country where the sky hangs low over forests that look like they predate human history, Rivers pour through valleys carved by glaciers, while mountains, pushed by the unstoppable power of plate tectonics, disappear into the clouds. It doesn't look unusual on a map, but beneath that map, the landscape obscures a chain of volcanoes powerful enough to make half the continent ruin their pants in shock and awe if they felt like it. This part of the American Western coastline is one of the most active tectonic zones on Earth. What most people don't realize is that the Cascade Range of mountains actually stretches from British Columbia all the way down to northern California. But everyone knows its most famous resident mount Saint Helens, which blew its top and most of its side in nineteen eighty. Sitting just north of it is Mount ray Neer, which, given its proximity to Seattle, makes it way more potentially dangerous. Both these mountains sit just above the border into Washington State, but because they are so visible from Portland. People sometimes confuse what state they actually belong to compared to them. Mount Hood isn't the tallest or the most explosive, but it is as photogenic as hell and surprisingly accessible. Quick correction, mount Hood is the tallest in Oregon, which makes it its most defining landmark. It basically creates a postcard backdrop for the Portland area. It looks like a rugged pyramid of snow capped rock. Its last major eruptive period was in the seventeen eighties, and that was around the same time American revolutionaries were debating independence. And in all this time it continues to fart steam and gas and give the occasional seismic wiggle. But do not worry. No one's going to be picking lava out of their eye sockets today. The idea today is we're going to be put into a situation that requires problem solving and teamwork. To put it more succinctly, along with every other tenth grader at the oes, we're going to climb an actual mountain. And what a mountain, mount Hood. This climb was more than just some curriculum requirement. This was a rite of passage that generations of students had completed well before we got here. The summit of Mount Hood is only eleven two hundred and forty feet that's three four hundred and twenty six meters. That's about two miles or three point two kilometers straight up. I mean, not really, but you know what I mean. Imagine climbing the stairs of a building with over eleven hundred floors, and that sounds bad, but it's still one of the most climbed peaks in all of North America. That's what makes it really dangerous. It's not because it's hard to climb. It's because it's easy to get to. It attracts a lot of people who should have maybe spent a little more time on YouTube or maybe even a stair climber before their visit. It's just it's right over there, and the slopes look gentle, you know, from a distance. Looking at Mount Hood from the car is one thing, but climbing past the treeline is quite another. This is the kind of place with glaciers and steep and visible drop offs and crevices, and it's prone to sudden whiteouts in the weather. But since people have done what we're about to do count as times before we're not going to worry about any of that. Allow me to quickly walk us through our itinerary. We start with a simple drive to the Timberline Lodge. The Timberline is a massive hand built ski lodge that basically anchors the whole Timberline Ski area together, which is one of the greatest ski destinations in the Pacific Northwest and the highest in all of North America. It serves as the main launching point for climbers heading up to the south side of Mount Hood, and it sits about six thousand feet or eighteen hundred and thirty meters above sea level, which off eleven thousand feet saves us an awful lot of footwork. From the outside, it looks like a storybook alpine lodge, but the inside was used for the interior of the Overlook Hotel in the Shining. We'll begin our journey at six thousand feet, like we said. From there, we will follow the chair lifts as we hike past about one thousand feet of ski runs and bunny slopes before entering the Magic Mile area, where we pass forested slopes and then above the Timberline into open, treeless alpine terrain above seven thousand feet From here, we follow the world famous Palmer chairlift across the Palmer Snowfield. They call it world famous because Mount Hood is one of the very few places on Earth where everyone from professional athletes to casual lift pass collectors can ski and snowboard year round. It has a permanent snowfield. You know that really old timey video game where you wagon across the Oregon Trail and try not to die of dysentery. Well, the Palmer snowfield and lyft are named after one of the more important characters in that game. And before you ask yes, they say that taking the chairlift is cheating, which is a shame because it would get us up to eighty five hundred and forty feet or about twenty six hundred meters, where this really starts to feel like a mountain. From here, we reach a narrow, rounded bridge of snow and nice that rises above the surrounding slope called the Hog's Back, and that will take us up to about ten five hundred feet or thirty two hundred meters in elevation. If you didn't know, if you were afraid of heights, there can be no better way to find out. And we are so close to the top by now. From here, Crater Rock looms above you. On the left, it's this big, toothy plug looking rock formation that showed up during the last major eruption. And off to your right are the Pearly Gates. I wouldn't read anything into that picture. These two really tall rock walls that funnel climbers upward through the steepest part of the climb up to the summit. I know this is a mandatory outing. I'd be trying pretty hard to get a note from my mom saying that my period was way too heavy for me to attend this trip up and down lungs included or coughed out, was scheduled to take about ten to twelve hours. And not to sound negative about the experience, but at least my tornado adventure was over in about twelve minutes. At this point, the route becomes as steep as forty five degrees in parts, and just when you think you can't climb any more, you suddenly top out over the crater rim and reach the summit. And at this point you realize you're not on a school trip. You are mountain climbing. I mean crampons, ice axes, the whole bit, no trees, no birds, no sound of any kind except for the wind, oh and the ooze and ohs of all the people now discovering the three hundred and sixty degree view of the whole state and beyond. So that plus the descent and being back at the lodge in time for dinner was the goal. And our story begins maybe eleventh, nineteen eighty six, Happy Mother's Day. So the way it works is they don't send the entire school up. They send up a handful of small groups, one at a time, and we will be joining one of those groups, led by Reverend Tom Gorman. He's going to be our lead climber. To give you a sense of the man, Tom Gorman had a Divinity degree from Harvard, a doctor from Claremont, and in the same spirit of when you find out about some kind of non monastery where they're all part of some metal band, Reverend Gorman was a mountain man. As our leader today, he's responsible for our choice of route and for determining if it's safe enough and turning us all around if things aren't that safe. And this wasn't his first rodeo. He had led kids up the side of Mount Hood eighteen times over the past ten years, and by all accounts, he was loved by his students. Fifteen grade ten students will be making the climb with us today, and yeah, it's bad enough having a priest on your climb. You know, got to keep it together, stay in line, not be too goofy. But the dean of students will be joining us too. Her name was Marian Horwell and she wasn't an experienced climber or anything, but neither were most of the students, so no shade there. To make sure that Reverend Gorman wasn't solely responsible for making sure everyone knew how to tie their shoes, he brought along two volunteer guides as well, Ralph Sumner and De's Douniak. Both of them had helped with previous climbs, and in the months leading up to the expeditions, they had been brought in to help teach the technical aspects of climbing. The only other adult on this trip will be Sally's Spray. And what did her daughter Hillary get her for Mother's Day? Why a permission slip took the climb a snow capped mountain. Parents weren't exactly encouraged to come, but they were allowed to accompany the group up the early part of the climb, like in the first hour or so, while it was still categorized as a strenuous hike and not yet a technical ascent. Fifteen students, one priest, one administrator, two guides and a mom. Twenty people in all. Our group were up dark and early around three in the morning, packing up all our carabineers and harnesses and slings and crampons and a field stove and a sleeping bag and a large nylon tarp, a shovel, trail markers, two first aid kits, just all the things you could think of, and if you just add the ice axes and the helmets, off we go. We're starting close to the tree line, already in calf deep snow, but it wasn't uncomfortable out. It was at least above freezing. That said, the forecast had predicted that a multi day storm was on the way, with heavy marine moisture and strong winds, but everything seemed perfectly calm this morning. It was cold and overcast and maybe a little windier than we would prefer, but so far, so good, and Reverend Gorman was confident that will be up and down before it. Weather becomes an issue, so off we go six miles door to door. I don't know what the dropout rate for this kind of thing is, but maybe forty five minutes into the hike, Hillary Spray complained about stomach problems and opted out for that lodge life. Gorman tried to talk her out of it, but throwing up or worse on the steep side of a world famous mountain in front of her class was not her wish, so her and her mom did an about face and made their way back down. As the rest of the group continued. They reached a warming station called the Silcox Hut around seven thousand feet that's about twenty one hundred meters. Maybe it was something about being comfortable for ten seconds, but two more students, Lorc Smetana and Coordiney Boatsmen, both developed cramps and left. It started to become popular, almost trendy, and before or long, three more students would drop out, everybody with their own reasons, and the group shrank to fourteen. I can't cast any dispersions about anyone's sincerity. I simply wasn't there. All I can say is I wouldn't blame anyone. Whether in the mountains is no joke. It can change fast, and the kind of things that you stomach pretty well at sea level are a lot more frightening thousands of feet up a broken escalator made of stone. It was about this time that the clouds began to thicken and fog was increasing, and visibility tanked as the wind picked up and started tossing around loose snow. The kids were still cheerful, but fatigue was starting to show. The cold pierced at their hands and their feet as they pushed upward through deteriorating conditions, and the temperature just continued to drop around them. As snow and fog continued, the world around them shrank behind a curtain of glowing whiteness that slowly began to burn the eyes out of de Zudniak's head. It was actually just snowblindness, which is only really the burning of the corneas out of her head. She stumbled back to the lodge, and with that the group was now down to thirteen. But you know how winy teens can get, so Garmin decides they're so close to the summit at eleven thousand feet about thirty three hundred and fifty meters, so they really should just keep pushing. Not right now because I'm still talking, but if you think of it later, google the sunk cost fallacy and counterpoint to his argument, why summ it's something you can't even see. While the rest of the group tried to huddle and maybe get a little warmer for a second, the remaining guide, Summers, took off a head just to Scout, realized, yeah, this is no good at all, came back, and was finally able to convince Gorman to turn back. However, by that time it was too late. Everything from the mountain to the sky to the horizon bled to white before their eyes. Things like the hogs Back and Crater Rock and the Palmer Glacier disappeared all together. That howling mass of bad weather that the news had predicted had arrived right off the Pacific. As the group tried to descend, they had to stop and rest as the cold and wind sap their strength. It was the kind of wind that you had to huddle against to keep from stumbling. This was a bad situation, and it started to really complicate when the youngest climber, a fifteen year old named Patrick, McGinnis started to slur his speech. Before long, he staggered and then collapsed, and he told the group he just wanted to go to sleep. So you're out in about ten thousand feet above sea level, surrounded by snow, and the wind picks up and the temperature takes a dive. You're worried about your safety, but before long you start to make not think so good, and oddly you don't feel quite as cold anymore, and you start to mumble safety, smafety through lips that no longer cooperate. You know what to do. Hypothermia happens when your body loses heat faster than it can replace it, and your core temperature drops. A little wet fabric and wind can make this happen because wetness strips heat away from the body twenty five times faster than air. The problem is your body tries to keep your heart and brain warm, and sometimes it starts shutting off your other organs to make that happen. Eventually, it leads to some kind of cardiac event, and around the world about twenty thousand people die from it every year, and it always starts small. You don't feel yourself getting quite as cold. You just start to get a little quiet, and then your judgment starts to tank. Those are the first warning signs. Sloppy speech and confusion and irritability and overconfidence in their own opinions are also early signs. You get cold enough and you might stop shivering and just want to sit down. They call it paradoxical calm, and it puts a hard underline on your inability to recognize danger and can even come with hallucinations. The one thing that makes hypothermia unique from other life threatening situations is it can make you too numb or dumb to panic, and they call that hypothermic apathy. People have been known to shed their clothes, which obviously just makes things that much worse. And it's all because of that overly warm feeling, almost like you're burning. It's all just a trick of the blood vessels that can strict from the cold and it can make them feel too warm. I sometimes have unique opinions on the show that you won't hear elsewhere. I'm going to suggest that the reason that this is so crazy to watch is because the hypothermic response predates human clothing. So here's some things you can do and try to do as many as you're able. Stop, layer block the wind, eat some calories, sip something warm, and let your body catch. Once someone starts to stumble, they are past the point where they are able to help themselves as a climber. This is the point where you now need to dig in and shelter up and build walls from the wind. Wrap yourself up in everything you've got, and then wait for rescue. Before you even leave the house, make sure you're wearing something that's going to absorb moisture but not leave you wet, followed by something puffy or insulating, which is going to trap heat. Fleece is always a great choice, followed by an outer shell of clothing that deflects wind and water. Warm, dry socks, gloves, and a hat are obvious, but less so are backups. I'll tell you a story. Years ago, I took my kids to Boggaining and they got slush in their boots, and then the weather went south in a hurry. We got back to the car. The kids were sad and freezing, and yeah, the car provides a great wind block, but it wouldn't start. So I started by pulling off everyone's wet socks, and then I let them put their freezing little feet all over my back and stomach, because skin to skin contact is the best for warming. The worst part of it, of course, is that once they've leached all the heat from one spot on your body, they then have to reposition their feet somewhere new to continue. You have to love someone quite a bit to let them do this, And once their feet didn't hurt quite so much, I gave them my socks, and I wrapped them up in everything even remotely pliable for additional insulation. Sleeping bags, emergency blankets, that bag of old clothes for donation that's been in your trunk for the last six months. Even crumpled up newspaper wrapped in a floor mat is literally better than nothing in a real emergency. I told them stories to keep them distracted and engaged, and then gave them snacks, because even little bodies burn calories to stay warm, so eating can be a good way to stoke the furnace a bit. If I'd actually had some kind of automotive heating pads, I would have put them on their feet, unless they had seemed hypothermic at all, in which case I'd ignore their feet and just put them on their torsos. Keeping that core warm is the most important part of cold survival. If we'd been trapped without a vehicle, I would have started building a little shelter out of snow or whatever I could find, at least some kind of wind block. So it all worked out, and let's say it didn't. The bottom line is in the event, if they had stopped breathing altogether. In a case like that, prolonged CBR has been credited with survival in the past. Even a severely hypothermic person can look completely dead but come back. It's super easy to miss their pulse or even their breathing. It's like they're almost in a state of suspended animation, and the key is to treat the person gently, wrap them up, warm up their core, and never give up. For me, the goal was triage the kids, then figure out how to get the car moving, and if you found yourself in a situation like this where you started to feel different, speak up. There's nothing in this world that you can open by pretending it's not happening. The group placed Patrick McInnis in the only sleeping bag they had and huddled around him to give him warmth, which is hard to do when you yourself are not. It was around three point thirty in the afternoon, and students were crying quietly or stumbling or falling behind and having to be pulled back into line. No one was one hundred percent sure that they were even going in the right direction. The adults were overwhelmed by the wide out and huddled with maps and compasses for a terrain that they could no longer see. It was clear to Summers that both the Reverend and the Dean had gone full hash Browns. That is a reference to a video of a US Army Special Forces boot camp trainee who, after a few sleepless days of NonStop exercise, was so out of it. When they asked him if he knew where he was, he said Hash Browns. Summers and a senior student named Susan mclage took over the decision made and led the way. Winds were now topping seventy miles or one hundred and twelve kilometers an hour, with a windshield near minus twenty celsius or negative five fahrenheit, and visibility had shrunk to less than ten feet. Summers told everyone to follow in his footsteps because snow tends to obscure crevices that eat climbers alive. But after he put one of his feet through some snow into an abyss below, they decided hunkering down was going to be less dangerous than descending blindly. They were going to need to shelter in place, But how do you hide at eighty two hundred feet twenty five hundred meters up the side of a mountain in a blizzard. Their only option was to dig a snow cave as a temporary shelter to wait this mess out. Step one was finding a spot where wind deposited snow formed a drift large enough to excavate horizontally and turn into a living room. On a good day, this still not that easy, but today they could barely see the ends of their own arms. They settled on a drift just below Crater Rock, and by now it was about seven PM and the storm had become so fierce that they found themselves scraping for their lives using everything they had. The students were instructed to dig an entrance low and slightly downhill, then dig upwards into the drift to create a chamber large enough for the group, and to make sure that the ceiling was arched enough to provide better support against a collapse. They might as well have asked them to dig a coat room and a lobby, because here's the thing. If you live in an area that experiences snow, then you can picture how dense a snowball can become. But this here was something entirely different. See snow blown at high speed. It doesn't just move, It compresses the snowflake slam together tightly, and it squeezes out any air, causing snow crystal, which then break and interlock and freeze, and it leaves you with an ice like density that's extremely difficult to dig through. It took the better part of an hour to dig out a shallow hole large enough for one single person to fit inside on their hands and knees. They needed to dig one large enough to fit two Dodge caravans worth of passengers. The next hour was spent with students rotating through shifts, digging, trying desperately to deepen the cave and the whole, while every inch they dug was immediately refilled with blowing snow. Most of the group were exhausted and by now showing the early signs of hypothermia. They'd been shaking uncontrollably and finally had enough. Staying outside with that windshill was a death sentence, so they all squeezed in, ready or not, Space be damned, and what they had was a cave about twelve to fifteen feet long. It's about three and a half to four and a half meters, roughly six to eight feet wide, about two to two and a half meters, and only three to four feet tall. That's right about a meter, which is just tall enough for someone to sit crouched or huddled inside. They crowded shoulder to shoulder in the cramped space. About six people could comfortably fit, but the group needed to squeeze thirteen through the tiny opening, and once they were all in, before long, the walls began to thaw from all of the body heat being generated, so anyone in the center of the area would find themselves sitting in an icy bowl of water. I'm not even mentioning the claustrophobia. And as the snow continued to pile on the roof above them, with all that extra weight, the cave actually began to compact, at least enough for the group to recognize that the ceiling was in fact slowly lowering. Also, outside, the entrance continued to fill with snow faster than it could be removed, which is a problem when your entrance doubles as your major source of ventilation. Heat escaping their bucks combined with the snow pouring into their space, turning it into a kind of a tomb that protected them from the elements but trapped them like kids in a refrigerator. And this was only their first night. Reverend Gorman spent most of it outside in the storm, trying to keep them breathing, but he lost his shovel in the wind, and when Summers asked him if he could come to ten, he started listing colors and grocery items. Summers and another student, Molly's Shula, ended up leaving the cave and trying to find rescuers. What they found was the missing shovel, and then the mount Hood Meadows lodge, so you know that put them about two miles or three kilometers east of the Timberline Lodge. They tried to come down straight, but clearly the group had been way off and given the conditions of their stumble, when asked, they were not able to provide a very strong sense of where they had come from, and so for the next two days the students and staff did what they could to maintain the shape and condition of the cave. Over time, their voices slowed and became mumbly, and their breathing grew shallow. Hypothermia was setting in, and no one inside had the strength or clarity or blood oxygen levels to fix the entrance again. Even if they had the strength to sit up and try. They were at a point where they couldn't even remember how, and the cave walls began to freeze them in as if sealed inside a glass bottle. Most slipped peacefully into unconsciousness, and at some point late into the second night, Alison Litzenberger mustered up the strength and courage to make her way outside. Aaron O'Leary and Eric Sandvik decided to follow her, but once they realized it was a terrible idea, enough snow had already come down that they couldn't get back in the cave. Four feet of snow had fallen in the first twenty four hours, and the cave was effectively sealed. They could barely stick a foot back through the entrance. Around sunrise on the third day, rescuers saw a few black dots on the side of the mountain. Those dots were the bodies of Allison Litzenburger and Aaron O'Leary. The body of Eric Sandvich lay near by. They were all flown to Portland, where they were given emergency life saving measures and rewarmed, but the two girls never regained consciousness. They were able to resuscitate Eric's heart, but still he passed away shortly after. By now they had airlifted Somers back up the mountain to try to help pinpoint the location of the cave, only about one hundred and fifty feet from where the children had been found, and just so. It is said the memory of that search made him emotional for the rest of his life. Everyone from the Army to the Air Force, to various mountain rescue services, firemen, law enforcement, the Red Cross, Germans, search dogs, even volunteers from forestry and snowmobile clubs poured over the mountain. Collectively, it is said that they spent five thousand, eight hundred and seventy four hours searching for a white cave covered in snow on a snow covered mountain in white out conditions. By Wednesday, the weather finally passed, and starting at eighty five hundred feet, lines of men standing three feet apart moved slowly down the mountain, pushing ten foot avalanche poles into the snow, and at five thirty eight PM, just twenty two minutes before the day's search was to be called off, their effort was finally rewarded, and when they cut into that cave, steam escaped. Bodies were described laying like porcelain figures. Some were barely alive, others less. So the survivors were pulled out carefully and the deceased were carried down the mountain. Helicopters rushed the victims to nearly every Portland area hospital, and doctors did everything they could, but with little success. Multiple students were unresponsive and only a few were revived. Nine lives were ultimately lost. So what happened? If you're asking what went wrong? I ask what didn't go wrong? For starts, If you look at the weather forecast for an incoming multi day storm and somehow assume you can just beat it, your judgment is already impaired. Any risk of eighty to one hundred mile or one hundred and thirty to one hundred and sixty kilometers an hour winds or temperatures dropping to below freezing or fog or snow or blizzard conditions, and I am out just fail me. I'll take it again in summer school. It would be easy to lay all the blame at Tom Gorman's feet. And that's kind of what we're going to do. That's just how responsibility works. Joe Shallatt was a student who spent time with Gorman and his family, and, in his words, he came to see him as what he described as quote a seriously troubled man. He'd witnessed some pretty reckless behavior from among other climbs, including one time where he was supposed to be teaching a group of already nervous students how to belay down a cliff, and he chose to show them how easy it was by taking off his helmet and swan diving over the ledge and then into it, repeatedly bouncing against the wall until he was bloody, like Homer trying to jump the Springfield Gorge. Hillary Spray later said that Reverend Gorman pressured her to stay in spite of her feeling ill, and that's just not the kind of man that strikes confidence in me. Hilary's mother said that for the rest of her life, she would never forget the sight of the other climbers walking away continuing upward. Once the white out hit, two things went wrong. They drifted off the standard descent route when the wind pushed further west instead of going straight down, and by the time they decided they needed to cut into mount Hood like a tonton, most of the group had already become exhausted and disoriented and lightly hypothermic. Rescuers later described what they found as one of the worst engineered survival shelters that they had ever seen, which wasn't a slight it was an acknowledgment of how impossible it was for the group to create an adequate shelter while exhausted and working in hurricane like conditions. The winds were recorded at one hundred and three miles per hour that is one hundred and sixty five kilometers an hour, that is category two hurricane force winds. Once inside, too many people into little space created too much heat and moisture, which accelerated melting and refreezing, and humidity inside the space, which only sped hypothermia. Once the entrance collapsed and their ventilationition hole clogged. They were effectively sealed in and co two levels inside the space rose while their oxygen levels dropped. Tom Gorman, Marion Horwell, Patrick McGinnis, Tasha Amy, Richard Hayter Junior, Alison Litzenberger, Susan McClay, Aaron O'Leary, and Eric Sandvik were peer pressured into a school credit and never saw their families again. They died terribly in unimaginable conditions that truly would have been every parent's worst nightmare. When Hollywood writers came knocking wanting to dramatize the event, the families unequivocally told them to kick rocks when I said it would be easy to lay blame at Reverend Gorman's feet. The school commissioned an official inquest, and they agreed with me. He pushed way past the point of common sense, all to get the students to the top on his schedule. Some parents felt that Gorman was a fine man who would never have knowingly endangered someone's life. One parent agreed to disagree, calling the whole base camp concept quote the death march of a disastrous killing program. Wrongful death lawsuits were filed and payments were made. Summers was found to be not liable for what happened, but it didn't matter. He couldn't stay. He left Portland, and interestingly, as the survivors grew, many of them gravitated towards jobs in counseling others. Society has this idea that grief goes away, or you eventually outgrow it or just get over it, but that's not really true. On whatever level, it changes you forever, and you eventually do come to terms and what you're left with is your new reality. In two thousand and two, a black Hawk helicopter slash rescue helicopter crashed while rescuing climbers on Mount Hood, killing three. It can be really hard to maintain lift in this kind of environ and this chopper lost its lift and crashed and cartwheeled down the slope. Then in two thousand and seven, three experienced climbers found themselves caught up in another unexpected storm. One had been found deceased in a snow cave, and I believe the other two were never recovered. Ever since people got GPS on their cell phones, the number of people who visit the mountain has quadrupled, and looking back in time, the local tribes called it Way East and they considered it sacred, so they weren't posting any numbers. But today, as many as ten thousand people attempt to climb Mount Hood in a year, and as many as fifty of them will need rescuing. And here's a really weird stat three percent of people who need rescuing off of Mount Hood were mushroom collectors. From what we know, since records were first kept, about one hundred and thirty people have died trying it to climb the mountain, not eat the wrong mushroom. Is not on common for people to get struck by ice or rock and fall a thousand feet to their deaths. There is a Mount Hood Climbing Accident's Wikipedia page that details all of the deaths, and it is a long, long read. During today's rescue, I read that a snow cat flipped over in the wind, and of course I'm talking about the same kind of six thousand pounds snow equipment that ran over Jeremy Renner. The first person we know who died here was in July of eighteen ninety six, a guy named Frederick Kim deeked out his guide and made a run for the summit, right up until the summit decided to make a run for him an armbardom in the face with an avalanche. He fell forty stories because of the wrong inner voice, putting himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. But our story today is the single worst thing that has ever happened on Mount Hood. Once the visibility collapsed and the winds exploded, it was snow cavered death. There were no other options available, and seven students and two teachers froze to death. This actually remains the second deadliest alpine climbing accident in North American history, only second to a military accident on neighbouring Mount ray Neer that killed thirty two soldiers back in nineteen forty six. But that is a different story for a different day. The fate of our field trip was decided during that short window where turning back would still have been miserable but survivable. The Oregon Episcopal School never sponsored another student expedition to climb Mount Hood, and there were other changes in the big book of who died how on Mount Hood. There were a few stories of children younger than this not making it down. But after this incident, the US Army restricted high altitude winter climbs for anyone without advanced mountaineering training. Also made it a rule that all of this captain going down with the ship and dragging everyone down with them, crap was finished. The truest test of leadership is knowing when to stop, but since not everyone has that in them on future climbs, anyone involved could call the whole thing off. This disaster created this shift in climbing culture itself, and to this day, only behind a military accident forty years earlier, the Mount Hood Field Trip disaster of nineteen eighty six remains the deadliest civilian alpine climbing disaster in North American history. I mentioned the Oregon Trail earlier in this episode, specifically the Oregon Trail video game. While they intended this thing as a tool for learning about decision making and resource management and having failed to reach Oregon, more than not, it also teaches the lesson that it is fully possible to do everything right and still die. This wasn't one of those stories, of course, and I'm never one to cast aspersions on anyone who has passed away, but it's hard not to sound like that when you spend two seconds thinking about the many points along the way when the whole thing could have been avoided. And it's especially hard when it was a man of the cloth. That just seems like blaspheme or juju or bad karma or whatever. I could really oversimplify the whole thing and just say, hey, if you don't want to die in a mountain, just stay off a mountain. But it's a little too If they didn't want the kids getting drunk with strippers, they should have clarified the point. For my tastes off topic, I really and personally wanted to thank Ben and Kala for making this episode what it was. They've been helping me try to make twenty twenty six our best year yet, and since Ben is a native of the American Northwest, it was my honor and pleasure to share a hometown story and hopefully put a little smile on his face. I don't know why he likes dead kids so much, but I hope you enjoyed. And thanks to Kla for helping me get to our one hundredth episode, and not just her, of course, I want to thank all of you, even you carry in with your empty pockets and your giant heart, and yes I am going to send you more stickers. Everyone's show of support has helped make this a reality. An off topic because this was an emotional episode for a lot of people, and the grief experience by friends and families continues to this day. I invite everyone to head over to patreon dot com slash funeral Kazoo, where I am going to post a quick video that will possibly help change the way you think about and process grief for the rest of your life. Speaking of Patreon, if you did not have to pay for five eight hundred and seventy four hours of overtime at your job, and you've got to you bucks left to spend, why not consider becoming a supporter of the show at patreon dot com slash funeral Kazoo. Your small monthly donation gets you add free episodes, extra content, all the good stuff, and it sustains the production, making the show available to one and all, which in a very real sense makes you, guys, producers. Donations from people like you are the only reason that I've been able to continue this as long as I have, and most supporters simply sign up and then cocoon themselves away to enjoy the results of their generosity. If you like the idea but aren't looking for a whole relationship, you're always welcome to visit buy me a coffee dot com, slash Doomsday and show your support with a one time donation quick but heartfelt shut out to Michael Baker, the Four Talents, Timmy Davis, Unsolved Va, and Terese Meta for helping support me on Patreon. Again, there is no show without you, guys. Everyone can feel free to reach out to me on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at Doomsday Podcast or fire me an email to Doomsdaypod at gmail dot com. Older episodes can be found wherever you found this one, and while you're there, please leave us a review and tell your friends and I always thank everyone for their support and encouragement. But if you can spare the money and had to choose, I always ask you to consider making a donation to Global Medic. Global Medic is a rapid response agency of Canadian volunteers offering assistance around the world to aid in the aftermath of disasters and crises. They're often the first and sometimes only team to get critical interventions to people in life threatening situations and to date they have helped over six million people across eighty nine different countries. You can learn more and donate at globalmedic dot CAA. On the next episode, we will be visiting the Yukon for the first time for what is probably our club zis Bad Day at Work episode we have ever discussed, and by the time we are done, you are going to know at what point an incinerating cow flips from peaking your appetite to inducing eye watering vomit. It's the Yukon riverboat disaster of nineteen oh six. We'll talk soon. Safety goggles off and thanks for listening.