On mountain rescues, beer and the media

The Outdoorspro, a highly trained Oregon ski patroller, has been doing some excellent coverage on the three missing mountaineers at Mt. hood this past week and it, of course, reminded me of the time my own brother required rescue from a mountain while snowboarding.

I was sitting home in Oak View about six years ago when one of my brother's buddies showed up at my door looking quite concerned. He didn't have my phone number but knew where I lived and didn't know how to get ahold of anyone on behalf of my brother. You see, my brother had gone snowboarding with some of his buddies. One of said buddies tweaked his leg or something early in the day and decided to go down the mountain and wait for my brother and his other friend at a bar. Well, said bar-going buddy soon found himself quite drunk and went to the truck to pass out. He awoke hours later to find my brother and his friend had not yet returned and it was after dark. So he went to the bar to find them. Of course, these guys didn't have cell phones so said injured friend, upon not finding the boys at the bar, decided to sit and drink some more while waiting for them, thinking they must be elsewhere. A few drinks later he found some clarity and realized that they should've met up by then, or at least put their gear in the truck, and decided to alert authorities to the fact that the two guys were missing.

So this drunk friend tells the police he's had about nine beers while waiting for his friends who never returned from the mountain. The police write it down as the two snowboarders each had nine beers then went boarding.

In the meantime, my brother and his friend, new to the ski area, were caught in a white out at the top of a run. They met another guy who held a season pass and told them to follow him because he knew the area - right down the back of the mountain into no man's land in a white out. The three of them were lost and disoriented and it got dark so they built a snowcave under a tree, smoked some of the good stuff, and shivered the night away as they were dressed only for a day's outing. A big storm hit that night so it was pretty fun for them. The following morning they found a clearing in the woods and stayed in the open hoping someone would spot them. Eventually a rescue helicopter came and they were picked up.

Of course, this all made the local news and I have a strange last name so many people questioned me about my drunk snowboarding brother. In fact, here's the only snippet I could find about the incident on Google today:

Three Drunk Snowboards Lost at Mountain High
Three drunk snowboarders. Three drunk snowboarders. See how they flounder. See how they flounder. They all went riding at Mountain High, after 9 beers they took off to fly, out of bounds they did nearly die. Three drunk snowboarders. Roy Paul Brown, 38; John Catlan, 31; and Glib Gal's Brother, 30, were found 12 hours after they went snowboarding in an out-of-bounds area at Mountain High West.

Yeah, looks like libel to me too. If only my brother and his friends had a reputation to damage...

This is an example of how the media can distort things and make a sensationalized story out of a reasonable mishap, kind of like the Bill O'Reilly clip you can find at Outdoorspro.

As for my brother, it was later discovered that the boys had not had any beers prior to snowboarding and that the resort had failed to maintain its fencing in the area they went out of bounds at and the guy with the season pass was, in fact, stupid.