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Search suspended for climbers on Oregon mountain

21 Dec 2006 00:37:28 GMT
Source: Reuters

SEATTLE, Dec 20 (Reuters) - The search for two climbers missing for more than a week on Oregon's Mount Hood has been suspended because of bad weather and will not resume until it clears, a local police officer said on Wednesday.

Crews are waiting for better weather to resume their search for the two men but expert mountain climbers say odds are slim they would have survived this long. The body of a third man in their climbing party was discovered on Monday.

Deputy Sheriff Chris Guertin of the Hood River County Sheriff's Office declined to say if future efforts would be considered rescue missions or attempts to recover their bodies.

"I am not going to use the word 'recover' because we will still be looking for them, but not as actively. We are standing down to a degree," Guertin told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Guertin said searchers have yet to find clues that would lead them to the missing climbers. "We didn't have any clues or anything leading us to them, so we're waiting for our next opportunity.

"We no longer have four, five, six teams waiting to bust out there. There are a lot of safety concerns," Guertin said. "The efforts are suspended. They're still open but we won't have any true activity until we get a break in the weather."

Brian Hall and Jerry "Nikko" Cooke were reported missing more than a week ago. Searchers found a third member of their climbing party, Kelly James, dead on Monday in a snow cave.

Authorities believe the three men fashioned the cave to shelter from brutal storms. James suffered a dislocated shoulder so Hall and Cooke may have set out to find help only to have been buried in an avalanche or by blizzards or swept over ledges by 100-mph winds.

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Last updated:Thu Dec 21 00:39:09 2006