ipl-logo

Mount Hood Case Study

612 Words3 Pages

On the night of May 12th 1986 a very terrible event took place on Mount Hood in Oregon. Nine people died that night including seven teenagers. Mount Hood is Oregon’s tallest peak, standing 11,250 feet above sea level. To some people this may not seem very tall but to us from the Pacific Northwest that is very tall and formidable. On this night judgement played a huge role in the events that occurred. In this paper we will discuss how this tragic event could have been avoided and what could have been done differently. Most importantly we will analyze the decisions that were made, why they were made, and who made them. To do this we will look at personal accounts of the event from some survivors as well as accounts from people who advised the group leaders not …show more content…

The group was from Oregon’s Episcopal School and they were climbing to 1986 MT. HOOD DISASTER 3 complete the schools required “wilderness experience.” The members of the group included fifteen students, one parent, two teachers, and two expert consultants. Just a mere three hours into the climb the only parent and 5 students turned back because they were suffering from altitude sickness and wetness. After three more hours one of the professional consultants started to suffer from snow blindness. Keep in mind he was a “professional” and was supposed to guide the group. Even after being seven people down the rest of the group continued to climb up the mountain. They did not turn back until the weather got worse, on their way down they were caught in a complete blizzard where visibility was almost completely gone. At this point they made the decision to make a snow cave shelter. They managed to survive the night and the next morning a student and professional mountaineer hiked for 16 hours until they found help. After these two three more students attempted to hike down the mountain. Their luck was not as

Show More
Related

  • Tragedy On Longs Peak: Kiener's Report

    1077 Words  | 5 Pages

    Noted for her prominence in a number of Colorado’s climbing associations, Agnes Vaille was the first woman to successfully scale the east face of Longs Peak, which ultimately cost her her life. In James Pickering’s section of Western Voices: 125 Years of Colorado Writing, titled “Tragedy on Longs Peak: Walter Kiener’s Own Story,” the tragedy of Agnes Vaille is recounted by her climbing companion Walter Kiener, who had imparted the story to Charles Hewes. Kiener’s tale reminisces the harrowing nature of Vaille’s death on Longs Peak and the struggle to retrieve her frozen body, which resulted in the death of Herbert Sortland, the caretaker at the Longs Peak Inn. However traumatic this story, Hewes had chosen not to include it in his autobiographical journal that was published six years after her death. Detailed in Pickering’s report is the recovery of Kiener’s story, the nature of Vaille’s death, and who was responsible for Vaille and Sortland’s deaths, as well as the controversies surrounding each issue.

    Read More

  • Dust Bowl In Imogene Glover's Story

    147 Words  | 1 Pages

    Imogene Glover- Even though Imogene Glover’s story is a bit sad, it is interesting to learn about the way people adapted to the dust bowl. From using telephone poles to drive by, or taking only necessary tools into the cellar, it was neat to see how people dealt with the storms. Melt White- In Melt White 's story, it’s weird to know that many people thought the dust storms and meteor would be the end of the world.

    Read More

  • Scott Mason Research Paper

    349 Words  | 2 Pages

    Scott Mason, a teen from Massachusets was trapped on the 6,288 foot Mount Washington for three days. He faced many hardships, including a sprained ankle, river rapids, and being stranded in the wilderness. His story can be used as a lesson about the dangers of hiking solo. However, how did Scott even arrive at this dilemma? Scott, a former Boy Scout, knew Mount Washington like the back of his hand.

    Read More

  • Summary Of Beck Weathers

    314 Words  | 2 Pages

    Beck Weathers, a pathologist from Dallas, is not a likely to be seen as a strong character. In fact, even the author’s first impression of Weathers was that Weathers was only “looking to buy the summit of Everest for his trophy case,” but after a while, the author agreed that Weathers was the strongest member on the expedition (170). Despite his torn mountain boots, Weathers kept climbing up Everest without even talking about his pain (171). This shows his strong character because many other members of the expedition, including the author, frequently complained about their fatigue and pain, and some even stayed back on a few days. In addition to this pain, Weathers should have been hindered by his radial keratotomy, which affected his eyesight

    Read More

  • Climbers In Into Thin Air

    1249 Words  | 5 Pages

    For as long as anyone can remember, people have dreamed of reaching the summit of Mt. Everest. During May of 1996, an expedition set out to Nepal to attempt a climb up Mt. Everest. By the end of this expedition to the top of Everest, many climbers lost their lives due to the brutal weather. In Jon Krakauer’s novel Into Thin Air, he takes readers through the story of the expedition, and he talks about the climbers who died. Among the list of the dead was a man named Doug Hansen.

    Read More

  • Justice In Into Thin Air

    864 Words  | 4 Pages

    Once they hit summit and were at the top of the mountain, some of the groups caught in the end by the storm. Sadly, Hansen, Hall and Fischer were left stranded. Hansen ran out of oxygen, and Fischer was found dead. Some groups were saved, but others were presumed dead. Krakauer survived and achieved the task of climbing the mountain that most people would not or could not do.

    Read More

  • Into Thin Air By Jon Krakauer

    721 Words  | 3 Pages

    David and his team had been climbing Everest and doing the IMAX film at the same time the other three expeditions had been climbing Everest in 1996. On the morning of May 10th his expedition team as well as himself had made it to the summit and were able to capture amazing shots on the summit with clear blue skies for their film. During the time that they were climbing down from the summit, they had passed many people from the other expeditions, whom they would be later rescuing. When David had made it to camp two, the storm had started. Even though his own life was at risk, he had put his 5.5 million dollar film at risk and decided to help rescue people on Everest.

    Read More

  • Into Thin Air By Jon Krakauer

    770 Words  | 4 Pages

    In 1996, 29,029 feet above sea level, a expedition to climb Earth's largest mountain went horribly wrong. In the autobiography, Into Thin Air, eight climbers lost their lives trying to descend from the top of the world making this the second worse fatality rate ever to occur on Mount Everest. To be able to successively climb Mount Everest, clients must be intellectually competent, which is one of the pillars of the Grad at Grad. Being Intellectually Competent means that students go above and beyond the expectation both academically and in every day experiences, while taking the knowledge students learn in class and present it into the community. Jon Krakauer, the author, shows in his expedition multiple cases of him growing to be Intellectually

    Read More

  • William Dilley: A Personal Narrative

    504 Words  | 3 Pages

    I’m William Dilley, I was camping with neighbors when this tragic event unfortunately happened. We thought we were safe but the big clouds of ashes kept approaching. There were people camping on the other side of us, but unfortunately they didn't make it. Martha is my neighbor and her and I were sent out here to investigate the mountain.

    Read More

  • Personal Narrative: Pike's Peak

    660 Words  | 3 Pages

    Pikes Peak This past summer I went on vacation with my aunt’s family to Colorado, and being from iowa, the land of corn and flat ground, we wanted to do all the mountain things you can do in Colorado. one very memorable mountain we visited was Pikes Peak, one of the tallest mountains in Colorado 14,114 thousand feet above sea level. There are two ways you can get to the top of Pikes Peak, you can drive up the side of the mountain, or you can ride the train up the other side, if you ride the train then you can only be on the top for 20 to 30 minutes, but if you drive you can do whatever you want, so we chose to drive up. The drive up was beautiful, even though the road was really windy and made me car sick it was still really cool to see.

    Read More

  • Into Thin Air Essay

    607 Words  | 3 Pages

    Many things could go wrong climbing the highest mountain in the world with an elevation of 29,029 ft. 12 people died climbing Mount Everest. No is responsible for those death. The climbers had chosen to climb the mountain. In the novel it states, “Hall was charging $65,000 a head to guide clients to the top of the world” (Krakauer 35). This shows that a person is willing to pay to go through so much pain, risk and sickness to summit the top of the world.

    Read More

  • Mann Gulch Incident Case Study

    1417 Words  | 6 Pages

    Mann Gulch Disaster Dodge led a small team of smoke jumpers to fight a seemingly routine 10 o’clock forest fire. Unbeknownst to any team member, they would soon find themselves in a critical situation. Shortly after landing, the wind suddenly changed direction, changing the intensity and course of the fire. In turn, it prevented the team from reaching the river, their only safety net.

    Read More

  • Imagery In The Perfect Storm And Into Thin Air

    705 Words  | 3 Pages

    Tom Ryan had hiked as a kid with his father, so he knew the basic wilderness rules. On top of that, there was a fee of sixty-five thousand dollars to be guided up the mountain. Due to their inexperience the climbers going up Mount Everest died. They were behind schedule and they had a certain window to get to the top. One man was on his third trip up the mountain and had never reached the summit before so he told the guide that he did not really care what happened to him, he just wanted to get to the summit.

    Read More

  • Dyatlov Pass Research Paper

    780 Words  | 4 Pages

    Avalanches are very common in this area and could have quite possibly happened while they were camped out. An avalanche would of caused panic to the hikers and would explain why the tent was cut opened from the inside and was covered in snow. An avalanche would also explain why the remaining four hikers that had taken a few months to find were buried under about four meters of snow. Along with proving why there was flesh embedded into the bark of a tree along with branches being broken up to five meters high. This suggests that they were climbing up this tree to escape the avalanche and from being buried to

    Read More

  • Sukhman Sidhu's Story: The Big Hike

    562 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Big Hike The grade 7 students at ladner elementary went to Evans Lake, and had a awesome time, Sukhman Sidhu one of the grade 7’s at Ladner Elementary told us a story about the big hike and asked if we could share the story, so we are here to tell you about the story “The Big Hike”. It was around 10:00 am when the grade 7’s went on a hike, on this hike they hiked up a mountain, and at the top chief told them a story. It was a beautiful day at Evans Lake, all the students were lined up in front of the rec hall in their cabin groups waiting for instructions. At around 10:10 the teachers gave the students information and instructions, they were informed that they were going on a hike and it would take about 40 minutes to hike up the mountain and 40 minutes to hike down the mountain, all the students were very happy.

    Read More

More about Mount Hood Case Study

Open Document