54 Candles Expedition

The Screaming

By Allen Sherpa

A group of men – most from the White Mountains of Arizona – launched an assault on Mount Hood, Oregon’s highest mountain, in the early morning hours of April 12, 2001. Allen Sherpa was one of the climbers. Here’s the story of the climb.

On the mountain, we faced Oregon’s storm of the year. The screaming of the wind never stopped. Little did I know, the screaming wasn’t over. Last week, I went for a haircut at the High Kountry Barber Shop in Show Low. While I was sitting in the chair, a pleasant and friendly woman holding a razor was taking care of business.

There was the usual casual conversation from time-to-time. Somehow, the discussion wended its way to the 54 Candles letters that have been appearing in this newspaper. She said she’d read every one of them and was really disappointed and annoyed they ended without resolution.

She flicked the razor blade on a leather strap as she asked me if I was from the White Mountains. I said I was and admitted I was familiar with the “Sherpa letters”. I gulped as she moved the razor toward my neck and casually asked my name. “Alan Sherpa” I almost whispered.

“What? You’re Alan Sherpa?” she screamed. “You left us hanging. You lead us along for months then went to the mountain and left us hanging.”

“M’m’mam”, I stuttered. “I’ll be happy to tell you the whole story, but I’m sure I could do a better job if you would stop waving that razor about.” Now here’s a woman’s named “Ick” who’s a body builder and weight lifter. She’s friendly, but she’s got a weapon and appears to know how to use it. After a bit of negotiation, she agreed to complete the haircut and not harm me as long as I agreed to go home and write the final chapter of the 54 Candles Expedition. So, here’s what happened.

We were to be a climbing party of twelve, the original ten and two professional mountaineers that were to be our guides. Within the last couple of weeks before the climb, two members of the group ended up with knee problems that were serious enough to keep them off the mountain. Two others had complications with their jobs that prevented them from coming. One simply didn’t have the courage and strength and succeeded at hiding. We ended up a party of seven, five of the original ten and the two guides.

We arrived in Oregon on Monday the 9^th to discover the mountain had been hit with a big snowstorm. Avalanche hazard was high.

Tuesday, we arrived at the Timberline Lodge as a new winter storm began hammering the mountain. By Wednesday, the storm had dropped eighteen inches of new snow at the lodge and winds were 35 to 40 miles per hour.

Although conditions were becoming brutal, a couple of the team members attempted an acclimatization climb part way up the Palmer Glacier. The snow was so deep that with each step, they would sink nearly to waist level. Climbing a mountain in such circumstances is tremendously demanding physically. Despite the challenges, the climbers returned to the lodge enthused and anxious to begin the ascent Thursday morning. Unfortunately, as the evening wore on, the weather worsened. It would take a weather window if there was to be even be an attempt on the mountain Thursday. The climbers were apprehensive as darkness set in.

No one slept well Wednesday night. With Thursday morning’s first light, a glimpse out the window revealed the much hoped for “window of opportunity”. Although winds were still blowing and light snow was continuing to fall, the blizzard had let up. Through an occasional break in the clouds, we could see small areas high up the mountain. She called us to challenge her. We were soon to learn her charm would be short lived.

We all met at seven that morning. The guides conducted last minute equipment inspections and soon we were off. The first mile or so was tough, but manageable. Progress was slow as we trudged through waist deep snow while carrying fifty pound packs on our backs. It was then that all the hard work and physical training would payoff.

It was also the time that those that hadn’t worked as hard would learn what it was like to suffer on a mountain. For some, it was misery. For others, it was worse. But, we all moved steadily up the mountain.

The intensity of our physical efforts made it easy to overlook the fact that the weather was fast worsening. Little did we know that within the next three hours, we would climb into the most severe blizzard to hit Mount Hood this year. We had no way of knowing that lives would be threatened and that escape from the mountain would be a more harrowing experience than we could have dreamed possible.

As the winds grew to a sustained 60 miles per hour and gusted to 80 and 90, temperatures plummeted. Wind chills were now between 30 and 50 degrees below zero. We were in true white-out conditions where fellow climbers disappeared into nothingness when they walked more than 30 feet away.

The question was “Could we survive the night in those conditions?” A couple of other questions remain today. “Who are the members of the 54 Candles Expedition?” and “Did I finally get my haircut without feeling the cutting edge of the razor?” But . . . I guess that’s another story . . . the final part of the story.