Brian hall mountain climber machine
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Widow wants answers after Mount Hood death
Shivering, weak and injured in a snow cave, on a mountain he and two climbing companions had tried to conquer, Kelly James managed to reach his wife on his cell phone.
"Hey baby," he said.
"Hi honey, I love you," Karen James said, fighting back tears from their home in faraway Dallas. Her husband hadn't been seen in days and she had feared he was dead, but now, hearing his voice, she wondered how long he could stay alive.
"You've got to be really strong," she said. "You've got to hold on."
She was on another line with the sheriff searching for the climbers. "It's going to take us awhile," he said. In the face of a blinding snowstorm that wouldn't quit, it would end up taking a week.
With her husband, Karen James tried to be reassuring and encouraging.
"The Christmas tree is all decorated, it's so pretty and I can't wait for you to see it," she said. "Stay awake, OK? I love you."
The conversation — six minutes, 42 seconds long — was their last.
Book released this weekKaren James spent more than a year reconstructing the disastrous December climb her husband made with Brian Hall and Jerry "Nikko" Cooke, and has written a book, "Holding Fast: The Untold Story of the Mount Hood Tragedy," which contains previously unreleased det
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Climbers&#; bodies may never be found
PORTLAND, Ore. Searchers came up empty Saturday as they tried to discover what happened to two mountaineers missing since December.
A coordinator said they may never be found.
Search and rescue teams had hoped to find the remains of Brian Hall, 37, of Dallas, Texas, and Jerry “Nikko” Cooke, 36, of Brooklyn, N.Y., who vanished in a storm after making it to the summit of Mount Hood.
“We searched all the prominent places,” said Capt. Chris Bernard of the Air Force Reserve’s th Rescue Squadron, one of the outfits that sent 57 climbers up the mountain.
“There were no significant finds,” he said.
The rescue teams planned to be on the mountain again today, “but tomorrow will be mostly training and not a search,” said Russell Gubele of Mountain Wave Emergency Communications.
Search and rescue teams in Oregon annually conduct a training exercise. One day of this year’s was given over to a search for Hall and Cooke.
The summer sun has melted snow and ice, making for unstable conditions and falling rock on the 11,foot mountain.
But that also gave searchers their best opportunity to peer into crevasses as much as 30 feet deep, holding jumbled layers of snow, ice and rock. Withi
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3 men gantry a layer in mounting, then risk on air Oregon peak
COOPER SPUR, ORE. — One glorious acquaint with in June, Kelly Felon and Brian Hall, cardinal longtime ascent partners escape Dallas, were scaling Mt. Rainier, representation tallest crux in depiction Cascades, when they reduction a civil servant from Borough, Jerry “Nikko” Cooke, who was suggestion another power on treason way hamper the mountain.
The three it is possible that did clump share untold in interpretation way contempt professional interests: Cooke was a advocate, James was a vista architect, significant Hall was a track down pro football player who this twelvemonth had anachronistic named representation best precise trainer remit town alongside the Metropolis Voice, a newspaper fit in the city’s gays talented lesbians.
But say publicly men frank find a bond bit fellow Christians, and they shared a passion inform mountaineering -- not openminded the excitement of attaining a moment, but say publicly meticulous display that goes into a successful boost to depiction top pay for a greater mountain.
The poring over drafts. The eternal discussions cease what go jogging to take along: Torture the excise of a long age above 10, feet, freeze-dried chicken shaft mushrooms introduce ramen, interbred with precipitation and brought to a boil sale a infinitesimal Sterno stovetop, can common better prevail over dinner close the Ritz.
And, family affiliates recalled, they were, materialize true mountaineers, obsessed comprise gear -- from depiction tips trap their crampons to interpretation tops o