Portland Mountain Rescue | Pressroom

Safety Education
· Brochure Series
· Safe Climbing & PLB's
· Mountain Safety Videos
· Request a Presentation

Member Services
· Members Only Site
· Event Calendar
· Document Downloads

Press Room
· News Headlines
· Mission Summaries
· Photo Gallery
· Mt Hood Virtual Tour
· Mountain Safety Videos
· Newsletter

Links
· Search & Rescue
· Climbing & Hiking
· Snow Sports
· Weather & Avalanche
· Live Cameras

About PMR
· What Is PMR?
· Our Mission
· Team Structure
· Board Members
· How to Get Involved
· Application Process
· Kent Swanson, Jr.
· FAQ's

Home Page

PMR Assists in Rescue of Injured Mt Adams Climber Sunday, July 11, 2004 Early Sunday morning and into the afternoon, a team from Portland Mountain Rescue joined with other rescue units to extricate an injured climber from 12,276-foot Mount Adams in Southwestern Washington.
The female climber injured a lower extremity during a glissading descent of the mountain on Saturday, but was in stable condition as of Sunday's mission. She and her climbing partners were hunkered down in a tent near the Lunch Counter area of Mount Adams, a relatively flat and popular bivouac site near 9,300 feet in elevation. Under the command of the Yakima County Sheriff's Office, teams from Portland Mountain Rescue, Central Washington Mountain Rescue and Tacoma Mountain Rescue left the Cold Springs trailhead around 2:30 AM Sunday morning. The first team reached the subject at 6:00 AM, packaged her into a litter (backcountry stretcher) and began lowering operations down the snowy slopes. Though snow conditions were firm, the teams followed safety protocols and performed lowering operations down to the dirt trail at the timberline. From there, a second group of rescuers attached a large wheel to the litter and carted the patient the remaining 2 miles to waiting medical personnel at the Cold Springs trailhead. Though conditions were overcast and snowing on Saturday, a high pressure weather system moved in Sunday morning and delivered blue skies to the mountain. Since the patient was stable and many rescuers were already on the scene, a helicopter extrication was not deemed necessary, despite the clear weather.	Reference map of scene Patient at the Lunch Counter Teams begin extrication process Lowering the litter on the snow
This is the second glissading-related injury on Portland area Cascade Range mountains in a one week period. Wearing crampons while glissading is an improper technique that leads to multiple injuries every climbing season. Please remove crampons and study the proper method of glissading before attempting this activity. Glissading is more than simply sliding down snow. Climbers can pick up a great deal of speed quickly and crash into rocks or other climbers. If wearing crampons while glissading, climbers can catch their crampons in the snow and cause compound and/or spiral fractures of bones like the tibia, fibula and ankle.