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Mount Hood solo hiker drowned while crossing swollen Sandy River

Mount Hood hiker drowned in Sandy River
The Oregonian
by Stuart Tomlinson
August 28, 2004
Sarah Bishop, the hiker whose body was found Thursday afternoon by searchers on the shore of the Sandy River, was caught in the swollen river and drowned, officials said Friday.

Bishop, 27, still wearing a 65-pound backpack, was apparently trying to cross the river when she either fell or was swept away, said Deputy Joel Manley, a spokesman for the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office.

"Even without the backpack, she would have been in trouble," Manley said. The state medical examiner determined she had drowned, Manley said.

According to the National Weather Service, the western flanks of Mount Hood received as much as 10 inches of rain between Saturday and 3 p.m. Wednesday.

Manley said hikers saw Bishop on Tuesday, the day she was planning to return from her four-day backpacking trip on the 42-mile Timberline Trail. She set out alone, well-equipped but without a cellular phone.

A search was launched early Thursday, and Bishop's body was found about 1-1/2 miles up the trail from her truck, which was parked at the Ramona Falls Trailhead, Manley said.

In a statement released by the state medical examiner Friday, Bishop's parents, Judy and Bruce Bishop of Southwest Portland, thanked volunteer searchers and search coordinator Sgt. Nick Watt of the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office for their efforts.

"We had high hopes that we would find her hiking down the trail in good health," the statement said. "Our beloved Sarah is now in God's hands. We will forever treasure our 27 years with her."
-- Stuart Tomlinson
Copyright (c) 2004 Oregonian Publishing Co

In my opinion - don't dishonor hikers memory
The Oregonian
By Paul Keller
September 12, 2004

Summary: It's ridiculous to say Sarah Bishop should've carried a cell phone
The memory of Sarah Bishop has been tarnished

The 27-year-old Northeast Portland backpacker drowned last month as she neared the end of her four-day backpacking trip on the 42-mile Timberline Trail.

The Portland news media, including The Oregonian ("Hiker's body found close to destination," Aug. 27; "Mount Hood hiker drowned in river, officials say," Aug. 28), implied that this young woman erred in not packing a cellular telephone on her trip around Mount Hood's rugged upper elevations.

The unmistakable inference is if she'd toted a wireless telephone on her solo sojourn, this terrible tragedy might not have happened.

But a cell phone had absolutely nothing to do with it.

For the integrity of her memory -- and for her family and loved ones who now mourn her loss -- we shouldn't trivialize the circumstances of Sarah's death. This experienced backpacker wasn't lost. Despite days of unforgiving torrential rain, she was on schedule to return to her truck, parked at the Ramona Falls Trailhead, about 1-1/2 miles from where she was found on the shore of the Sandy River.

If Sarah had wanted to contact the "outside world" -- or abandon her backpacking trip -- she had several opportunities. While circling Mount Hood, Sarah's rain-drenched boots even trudged a few feet behind Timberline Lodge's back door. Last time I looked, they have plenty of telephones up there.

She'd already been confronted by Timberline Trail's numerous bridgeless, steep and deep river and creek crossings -- made even more challenging by a new deluge of record-breaking rain. She knew more get-wet crossings and ominous rain-dark culprit clouds awaited her.

Hikers who choose not to include cellular phones on their personal retreats into the wild should not be disparaged. After all, that's really what wilderness is all about: leaving the technology behind.

For those backcountry users who bring along this portable technology, one vital warning. When abandoning the road and your car to enter the vast Mount Hood Wilderness, you're on your own wits and willpower. In the right situations, in the parts of the mountain with reception, hikers have called in help.

But you can't depend on cell phones to save you. Inside much of this spectacular and dramatic terrain -- resplendent with so many deep and careening canyons -- they simply don't work.

Up in that distant canyon where Sarah Bishop drowned, cell phones have absolutely zero coverage. Even if they did, no telephone could have helped any human being negotiate the scream of the upper Sandy River's rain-choked rapids that day.

With less than two miles left on her demanding up-and-down circumnavigation of Mount Hood, the plucky Portland backpacker's trail was once again intersected by the thundering challenge of a river.

Sarah apparently chose to cross it. Or, perhaps, she fell from the Sandy River bank's pathway her rescuers found ripped away by the more than 10 inches of recent rain. However she entered that wild water, with her 65-pound backpack strapped to her diminutive frame, Sarah drowned.

There's no question that for this intrepid young woman, choosing not to take a cellular telephone on her solitary journey into the intimacy of wilderness was the perfectly right -- not wrong -- choice. It had nothing to do with her well-planned and courageous decision to hike on her own terms -- despite the miserable weather -- around the entire mountain.

It had nothing to do with her ill-fated and calamitous final river encounter.

And to imply that it did is wrong.

Paul Keller of Rhododendron was a former U.S. Forest Service wilderness ranger in the Colorado Rockies. In 1990, he volunteered to be an Oregon state-certified "human tracker" through the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office to help in Mount Hood area search and rescue operations. He's currently a contract writer-editor with the U.S. Forest Service's Washington D.C. office.
Copyright (c) 2004 Oregonian Publishing Co.

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What can hikers and mountain climbers learn from this tragic death

The primary purpose of these TraditionalMountaineering experience reports (and the American Alpine Club's fifty eight Annual Report's of Accidents in North American Mountaineering) is to aid in the prevention of accidents.

Traditional mountaineering includes climbing Classes One through Six: hiking on the trail, exploring off the trail, mountain travel and Leave-no-Trace light-weight bivy and backpacking, technical travel over steep snow, rock and ice, technical glacier travel and a little technical rock climbing on the way to the summit. A fundamental component of mountaineering is risk and risk accompanies every mountain traveler, even on the trail. Mountaineers need never confront their fears of falling through space or need to use a rope or ice axe to experience risk.

Mountaineering is about the mitigation of the risk of injury or death through traditional practices and the practiced use of finely designed equipment.

TraditionalMountaineering is founded on the premise that "He who knows naught, knows not that he knows naught", that exploring the hills and summitting peaks have dangers that are hidden to the un-informed and that these inherent risks can be in part identified and mitigated by information, training, interesting gear and knowledge gained through the experiences of others. Who are your Mentors?

Let us Honor this young woman, Sarah Bishop, by helping others learn from her tragic death.

Paul Keller writes about a single factor of her death, the lack of a cell phone.

A Risk Analyst with a major Outdoor Education provider suggested to me that not carrying a cell phone does not make an individual irresponsible. Cell phones and cellular service are expensive. Cell phone coverage is not yet universal. Folks may chose not to have a cell phone because they want to relish the increased risk of being "off the grid". (Folks may chose to "free solo" a route to heighten the risk of their experience.) This is their right so long as they are not endangering others, the Search and Rescue volunteers, for instance. Could she have used the cell phone to re-assure loved ones or take an extra day at work? We are told there was no coverage by the river.

Sarah chose to travel alone. Hiking and climbing Solo is not irresponsible. However, Risk is mitigated in part, by traveling with others.

Sarah Bishop certainly chose not to follow traditional mountaineering risk management techniques when she tried to cross the swollen river with a 65 pound backpack (if that is actually what her backpack weighed). Backpacks today weigh 35 to 45 pounds. 65 pounds is a crushing unwieldy weight. Also, a traditional mountaineering technique calls for un-clipping the backpack waist belt and loosening the shoulder straps while crossing a strong river current.

Sarah chose not to camp in the rain near the trail-crossing at the side of the raging Sandy river. She was just a half hour from her vehicle. A traditional mountaineering technique calls for waiting until the high river flow subsides, perhaps overnight for snow melt in the Sierras, certainly until a summer storm runs off. Traditional mountaineering technique calls for waiting to cross a deep strong stream with others, arm in arm.

Please read more about the significant risk mitigation by carrying a common  digital cell phones in the backcountry. The digital cell phone is now in 2007 (and certainly in 2012) almost a required Essential. Oregon Statutes suggest backcountry adventures must carry an electronic device to contact 911 to give 911 simple geographic coordinates and a verbal discussion of location and conditions.
The responsible Oregon County Sheriff may find the rescued persons negligent if they do not have a means of electronic communication. Read More on Oregon Rescue Statutes.

Webmeister's note: We offer these observations to Mentor folks, so that they can learn from the experiences of others. We offer them to Honor the memory of Sarah Bishop. --Robert Speik

A suggested minimum standard news advisory for all backcountry travelers

"We would like to take this opportunity to ask our visitors to the backcountry of Oregon to be Prepared for the unexpected.  Each person should dress for the forecast weather and take minimum extra clothing protection from a drop in temperature and possible rain or snow storm or an unexpected cold wet night out, insulation from the wet ground or snow, high carbohydrate snacks, two quarts of water or Gatorade, a map and compass and optional inexpensive GPS and/or a SPOT-2 satellite communicator and the skills to use them, and a charged cell phone and an inexpensive walkie-talkie radio. Carry the relevant elements of the traditional personal "Ten Essential Systems" in a day pack sized for the season and the forecast weather.

Visitors are reminded to tell a Responsible Person where they are going, where they plan to park, when they will be back and to make sure that person understands that they are relied upon to call 911 at a certain time if the backcountry traveler has not returned. If you become lost or stranded, mark your location and stay still or move around your marked location to stay warm. Do not try to find your way until you are exhausted, or worse yet - wet. Wait for rescuers.

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