The blizzard bore down with merciless fury, the wind’s howl devouring the students’ desperate shouts as they fought the relentless cold. With numb, trembling fingers, they frantically dig at the frozen earth, carving out a makeshift shelter. Inside the hollowed-out cave, they pressed together, their breaths shallow, as the last traces of warmth and hope slipped away.
Outside, the snow piled higher, sealing them inside, burying them alive. Only four of them would ever make it out of that cave. It's midnight on Sunday, May 11th, 1986- Mother's Day.
Fifteen students from the Oregon Episcopal School are going over their mountain climbing gear as they prepare for a rite of passage. Every year the school runs a program called Basecamp. Inspired by Outward Bound, the program pushes students beyond their comfort zones and into the untamed wilderness.
The aim is to help instill confidence, leadership, and team working abilities in the soon-to-be high school graduates, and has been very successful. The students are all tenth graders, and are facing a daunting challenge. They will spend 12 grueling hours hiking up to the summit of Mount Hood, almost 11,250 feet (3,429 meters) above sea level.
The kids have been taught all the basics of snow climbing and basic survival and first aid skills. Laden with climbing gear, helmets, and ice axes, the group boards onto an old yellow school bus and heads out for Timberline Lodge, where they would begin their journey. Leading the group is Thomas Goman, a 42 year old chaplain who's earned the affectionate nickname of “Ferder” Tom.
The nickname is an abbreviation of Father and Doctor, as Goman is both an ordained priest and Ph. D. Also supervising the group is Marion Horwell, dean of residents and student affairs.
She has no experience climbing but is enthusiastic- if the kids can do it so can she. Dee Zduniak, an Outward bound instructor and Ralph Summers, a professional mountain guide, meet the group at the lodge to begin their hike up. The only parent attending is Sharon Spray, who is accompanying her daughter Hilary.
Excitement fills the air as the 20 students step into the unknown- unaware that, in a matter of hours, nine of them won’t make it back. The group leaves Timberline at 3 am- the property previously served as the haunted hotel from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. The bad omen is lost on the group, who head up the mountain in weather that is calm and comfortably just above freezing.
It’s late but excitement has fueled the kids with energy, who all hope to be at the summit by noon and enjoy breathtaking views from the top. At 6,000 feet (1,828 meters), the snow comes just over the top of their boots- an easy climb by any metric. Along their route and on the sides of the mountain are fumaroles, steam vents powered by the heat of trapped magma deep inside Mt.
Hood. They bellow out blasts of frosty steam that covers the mountain in an eerie, otherworldly glow as the thin fog catches the light of the moon. It's a beautiful sight as the group travels along the south side of the mountain.
But it hides its deadliest threats- icy crevasses camouflaged by fragile layers of snow, the threat of avalanches, and, most notorious of all, Mt. Hood’s dangerously unpredictable weather. The mountain has killed more than130 people since records began, and weather is to blame for most of those fatalities.
Mt. Hood has a habit of turning from a serene winterscape to a snow-driven icy hell. Goman is well aware of news reports warning of pending bad weather, but has chosen to make the ascent anyway.
He believes the group can make the climb and be on their way down before the worst of it hits. A 19 year old former student of his, Joel Schalit, expresses reservations about Goman's judgment. He's known the “ferder” for years and thinks of him as a father, but now, he has seen a pattern of increasingly risky behavior from him.
He had once watched ‘ferder’ injure himself by repeatedly trying to convince his class a dangerous rappel off a steep mountain face was safe. But Schalit's misgivings are brushed aside. The weather is good, and the predicted bad weather isn't supposed to arrive until the afternoon.
By that time they'll be well off the mountain. As the sun starts to rise, the wind has picked up slightly, obscuring visibility of the very top of the mountain. A few of the group members are starting to express doubts about continuing, but Goman pressures the students to continue the climb.
Sharon Spray however, has serious concerns, compounded by the fact that her daughter, Hilary, is now experiencing bad stomach ache. Not willing to risk it, she decides to turn around and head down, much to Goman's dismay. The move will end up saving her and her daughter's lives.
At 7,000 feet (2,133 meters), the group reaches Silcox Hut- a warming station built to give climbers a brief respite before continuing upwards. Here, student Lorca Smetana starts complaining of bad cramps. She doesn't want to disappoint Goman and the group though.
She asks him if he needs her to stay, in which case she'll tough it out. Goman takes pity on her though and agrees that she should climb back down. Student Courtney Boatsman will accompany her on the climb down.
The weather is still mild, but as the group climbs further up the mountain, another two students feel unwell and turn around. Dee Zduniak, the Outward Bound instructor and one of the most experienced survivalists left in the group is forced to turn around at around 11:30 am when she is struck with mild snow blindness. This dangerous condition is caused by the sun reflecting off the bright, white snow.
She decides she needs to make it down the mountain before her vision is too badly impaired. The group is now near the summit, but suddenly out of nowhere, the weather turns. The winds pick up, sending a flurry of snow flying, and the sky overhead darkens with clouds.
However, they are near the summit and despite objections by Summers, the wilderness guide, Goman pushes on. He doesn't want to rob the children of the chance to conquer this mountain. But his decision is reckless, and will result in death.
At just over 11,000 feet (3,352 meters), the winds are now roaring, nearly toppling some of the smaller students. Summers has trekked ahead of the group to see if there's a clear path to the peak, but comes back reporting that conditions are only getting worse. He argues with Goman, who still wants to press ahead.
At last, Goman relents. The argument has eaten up precious time the group should have been using to descend. It's too late now.
A massive storm blowing in from the Pacific Ocean has descended upon the mountain. The driving snow blasts into the group, filling in the tracks that they were hoping to follow back down to make their descent easier. Making matters worse is the fact that most of the group is made up of 15 year old children.
Mentally tough, the kids are still physically struggling in the snow. Now the wind chill has dropped temperatures well below freezing, and it's starting to take a toll on the kids. The first victim is 15 year old Patrick McGinness.
He's described by classmates as a sweet kid who was kind to everybody. He's a lean runner, excelling in track and field, but with little insulating body fat. Despite the heavy winter coat, he starts shivering uncontrollably.
Thanks to vertigo caused by the conditions, his steps become erratic. It threatens to tumble him down the mountain and be blown away by the howling wind. Goman and Summers try to encourage Patrick, but by 3:30 pm his speech starts to slur.
He's starting to become extremely exhausted and yearns to lay down and go to sleep- classic signs of hypothermia. The group is nearly at 10,000 feet (3,048). From the warmth of Timberline Lodge, they should have been easy to spot on a clear day.
But now, the storm has reduced visibility to just twenty feet though, as wind and snow swallow the mountain whole, Patrick is in bad shape, he can't continue. The group is forced to try to raise his body temperature even in the midst of the blizzard. The kids show a remarkable amount of courage by choosing to stop their descent in an attempt to save his life.
Ultimately though, it'll only end up costing even more lives. They place Patrick in a sleeping bag, and then Susan McClave, an experienced climber, takes off her jacket and boots to climb inside and cuddle him. She hopes that her body heat will be enough to warm Patrick back up- but her heroic sacrifice will end up claiming her life as well.
Summers, meanwhile, is struggling to light a field stove in the intense conditions. Once lit, he boils some water and dissolves two lemon drop candies into it. He gives the warm, sugary drink to Patrick and forces him to drink it, helping to warm and revive him slightly.
The sugar and carbs also help re-energize him. On a normal day, this might have been enough to save his life- but this is no ordinary storm, and the entire process eats up a precious hour of travel time. The group sets off again, McClave now also feeling the icy chill of hypothermia.
Reviving Patrick by sharing her body heat has dropped her own internal temperature, and the weather will not relent enough to raise it again. The snow is blinding now and completely disorienting. The white of the snow and the white of the sky are all but indistinguishable from each other, making navigation extremely difficult.
Goman knows that there is a canyon up ahead, but it will be too dangerous to descend because of the driving wind and snow. But as he shoots a compass bearing, he overcorrects by a full twenty degrees. It's likely that hypothermia has taken its toll on Goman by now, numbing his mind and affecting his cognitive skills.
Whatever the reason, Goman's course puts the group on a nearly sideways heading along the side of the mountain, rather than on a downward trajectory towards safety. The group is walking towards their death. Summers, who is leading the group, suddenly spots a crack in the snow up ahead.
He feels a dreadful fear settle in the pit of his stomach- he knows these cracks well. They are formed at the gaping mouths of icy crevasses, and signal drops that can be as deep as 100 feet (30 meters) or more. He realizes with growing horror that the group must have wandered into the White River Glacier, a dangerous climb on a clear day- an impossible one in these conditions.
Summers knows all too well that in these conditions snow can accumulate into bridges that cover the crevasses. However, these snowy bridges will instantly collapse when you step on them, sending a climber plummeting to their death. He realizes that the group has been led directly into the middle of a mine field.
“Step where I step only! ” Summers screams at the group as he edges his way forward. He feels snow give way at his toes and he looks down at a yawning, icy crack.
This confirms his worst fears. They are in the middle of the glacier. Moving ahead is too dangerous even with his experience, and if any of the children stray so much as an inch off his tracks it could lead to their death.
There's only one option- dig in and wait out the storm. Summers relays his instructions to the group, and several members take out icy, metal shovels and begin to dig into the snow. The work is hard, made harder by the fact that by now most of the group is suffering from hypothermia.
Some of the kids clearly have frostbite on their hands and faces. They dig furiously, but the driving snow fills in almost as much snow as they dig out, and they are steadily weakening. The mountain is winning the race for life.
A small snow cave is starting to take shape, but Summers can see on the faces of some of the kids that it might already be too late. The sun has now dipped below the horizon, and along with the storm comes the deathly chill of night. After an hour of digging, Summers and Goman manage to dig out a cave measuring roughly six by eight feet and four feet high (1.
8 meters x 2. 4 meters x 1. 2).
Two by two the students begin to shuffle inside, wedging themselves into the cramped space. It quickly becomes apparent that the cave won't hold more than six of them- which leaves seven of the group stuck outside. The group is forced to set up a rotation, with two of them regularly switching out with two from outside.
The inside of the cave is horribly claustrophobic though, and while the snow does work as an insulator, making it warmer than the outside, this has an unexpected side effect. A pool of ice-cold melt water from the cave's walls is starting to accumulate in the middle, drenching whoever is forced to lay there. Making matters worse, the falling snow constantly threatens to plug up the snow cave, forcing the group to constantly dig it away.
Sometime in the middle of the night, the howling wind tears away the sleeping bag the kids are using to close the entrance and the single remaining shovel that hasn't already been lost to the snow. Now the cave is under threat of being sealed permanently, and the kids only have their hands and an ice axe to try to clear away the ever-falling snow. It's the group's best chance at survival though, even if it meant over half the group was forced to huddle outside and slowly freeze.
What Summers doesn't know however is that the group isn't on the glacier itself- rather they are at the very edge. He could've continued to lead the group down, skirting the edge of the glacier, getting to a lower and safer elevation where the wind and snow was calmer. This tragic error will cost lives.
By the time that the sun rises on the first day lost on the mountain, the situation is grim. Goman appears to be fully in the grip of hypothermia. His cognitive abilities are severely degraded to the point that he was discovered screaming into the darkness during the night.
Summers tries to warm Goman up and asks him to count to ten, but Goman can't. Summers realizes that if any of them are going to survive, he has to get down off that mountain. As the most fit and experienced member of the group, it feels like betrayal to leave them behind, but he's the only one with a real chance of finding help.
Molly Schula, an experienced climber, volunteers to go with him- the rest of the group is too exhausted or cold. The two start their own dangerous climb down, disappearing into the raging blizzard. Just a few hours later, the two spot the shovel that the group back at the cave needs so desperately.
They are torn however, because the trek back would eat up too much time. In the end, they decide to ignore it and continue climbing down. Getting back to the Lodge is the best hope the kids have left.
What they don't know is that they're traveling completely in the wrong direction- though luck is on their side. At 10 am that morning, the two stumble into Mount Hood Meadows, a ski resort 2 miles (3. 2 km) east of Timberline Lodge.
They are completely disoriented though, and are no help in guiding rescuers to the location of the kids. The escalating rescue effort has mobilized volunteers from across the region, as well as elite US Air Force Pararescue personnel- experts in life-saving missions under some of the world’s most extreme and unforgiving conditions. But for now, search efforts are completely off track, and the group back at the ice cave is completely alone.
Here records become spotty, as nobody who survived was in a mental condition to properly remember the horrors that they endured. The group continued alternating between those inside and outside the cave- until the snow finally made exit nearly impossible. At some point in the second night, Alison Litzenberger pushed her way out of the cave and into the blizzard.
By now the entrance was nearly completely sealed shut with several feet of snow. Two kids followed her- and were unable to return to the inside. After a day of snow fall, four feet of snow had buried the cave with eight people inside of it.
Three children were trapped outside and would die in the cold. Their deaths however would end up saving the lives of some of those left in the cave. The next day, rescuers spotted their bodies and were able to pinpoint the approximate location of the cave from how they lay.
Rescuers would pull two surviving children from the cave, the rest having died from hypothermia. Both of these kids would suffer amputation of their legs however due to severe frostbite. Now go check out I Was Trapped Underwater For Three Days, or click this other video instead!
