Late evening on Monday January 14th, Portland Mountain Rescue received a call out to assist in searching for two overdue climbers on Mt Hood. The two men were attempting to climb Leuthold Couloir and were due back around 3:00 pm. When the girlfriend of one of the climbers hadn't heard from them she called Clackamas County Sheriffs Office requesting help. PMR convened at Timberline Lodge at 5:00 Tuesday morning. Two teams of PMR rescuers headed out sometime around 7:00 am in a Timberline snow cat, which took rescuers to the top of the Palmer snowfield. Due to poor weather conditions, the rescuers were forced to turn around and return to the lodge. Around 9:00 am cell phone contact was established with one of the climbers and they were able give coordinates of their location, near Government Camp. A third PMR team along with a team from 304th PJ's hiked up from Glacier Point Sno-park, reaching the climbers shortly after 11:00 am, and escorted the two men out.

According to the two men, they began their climb early Monday morning, but weather moved in and forced them to turn around. During their decent, the climbers were unable to navigate back to Timberline Lodge due to poor visibility. Eventually, the men dug a snow cave and waited the storm to subside. Early Tuesday morning the two men continued to make their way off the mountain heading towards Government Camp.