By RAELYNN RICARTE
News staff writer
September 6, 2007

Hood River County Sheriff Joe Wampler believes that one of Mount Hood’s mysteries has been solved in the quest to find two missing climbers.

Searchers have come across a rusty ice axe with a broken wrist strap at the 9,500 foot elevation. Wampler said the piece of equipment was likely used by Todd Engelhardt, 37, in 2005. The Seattle, Wash., man fell to his death in the same location.

“I think we know now that he tried to arrest his fall with the axe but the strap didn’t hold,” said Wampler.

Engelhardt’s remains were later recovered — unlike those of the two men that searchers are now seeking. Jerry “Nikko” Cooke, 36, who lived in New York, and Brian Hall, 37, of Texas, disappeared during a winter storm last December.

“We have been finding all kinds of old rope and abandoned equipment — but no sign of our climbers,” said Wampler.

The body of Cooke and Hall’s friend, Kelly James, 48, also of Texas, was found inside a snow cave at the 11,000-foot elevation. An autopsy report determined that he died from hypothermia.

On Saturday, Hood River’s Crag Rats and other members of the Oregon Mountain Rescue Council will look once again for the remains of Cooke and Hall. They will be scouting crevasses along the upper reaches of the Eliot and Newton-Clark glaciers. Wampler said Hall and Cooke were wearing brightly colored jackets during the climb, which could help searchers locate their bodies.

On Dec. 10, James made a last call home via a cell phone and said that he had been injured and left in a snow cave while his partners went for help. The cell phones of the other men were never turned on and they were not seen again.

Wampler believes it is possible that Cooke and Hall had already fallen to their deaths — or been blown off the mountain — by the time that James made that final call. The sheriff has worked with searchers to trace the last footsteps taken by the two men.

He said it appears they spent the night of Dec. 8 in the snow cave on the east slope with James, then descended below the cave about 500 feet into an area known as the Black Spider.

“It looks like they reached a vertical cliff and then sat down and contemplated about what to do before turning around,” said Wampler.

He said the footprints of the two men are shown heading back toward Cooper Spur on the northeastern flank of Mount Hood. They had taken that route up and, according to notes left behind, had planned to follow it down in the event of an emergency. The tracks of Cooke and Hall then vanish on a section of the mountain that was exposed to the elements.

According to Wampler, if the men fell 2,400 feet their remains could be on either glacier. He said those locations are dangerous to search even without snow because of loose rock and deep fissures.

Kirk Worrall, a Crag Rat from Parkdale, is coordinating the Sept. 8 search. He said the snow has receded enough to access crevasses in the rugged terrain.

He said the search has been timed to take place while OMRC is conducting its annual exercise on Mount Hood.

According to Worrall, about 75-men and women will be available to comb the north and eastern slopes of the mountain. Their base camp will be at Cloud Cap and Deputy Chris Guertin will serve as incident commander.

“This is our best opportunity because the door is probably slamming shut with the first snowfall,” said Worrall.

“We’re going to give it our best shot. This probably is going to be the optimum effort.”

He said on Sunday the search teams will debrief at Cloud Cap about their high-elevation experiences.

Wampler, who is a pilot, will be standing by to drop any equipment from his plane that searchers might need.

On Friday, in a separate operation, the 304th Air Rescue and Recovery Squadron will put pararescuemen, also known as the PJs, on the ground.

Wampler said there will be no helicopters involved in the second search this summer. In July, a cache of gear belonging to Cooke, Hall and James was found stashed inside the Tilly Jane warming hut. Searchers deduced from that find that the trio had intended to travel “light and fast” because weather conditions looked ideal. However, a storm came in that same day and dumped 15 feet of snow on the mountain within the next six days.

Wampler has also remained hopeful this summer that the remains of two other missing men would be found.

Kenneth Budlong, 45, a Nike executive, vanished in white-out conditions while climbing on the northwest side of the mountain in September 1995. Raoly Orsi, 24, on a horticulture exchange from Hungary, disappeared while on a day hike in 2001 above the Tilly Jane campground.

“We didn’t find any sign of these four men in the open – and that’s what we were hoping for,” said Wampler.

He is reluctant to rule out other searches for Cooke and Hall after this weekend. But the sheriff is also weighing the cost of the operations — about $6,500 this summer and almost $30,000 in December, and the risk to the climbers that he sends out.