"Rescue teams searching for three missing men to battle storm, high winds."

Don't know if anyone here has been following this. These guys are in trouble. I've spent two nights on Hood in weather like this, one planned and one not. It's difficult to understand the effects of sustained high winds unless one has experienced them.

Prior to the trip to Aconcagua, I organized a trip up to the 10,000 foot level of the south side of Hood in a storm as none of us had been in the weather likely to be encountered in the Andes. The wind was steady at 45 - 50 mph, with gusts which would knock one down if they hadn't dropped to their knees. The only level spot had clearly been abandoned. Skis were stuck vertically in the snow/ice, sleeping bags frozen into the ice on top of what was left of a tent. Anything loose instantly headed east into the void with nary a fare-thee-well.

We put up two tents, which were literally flattened by the wind until properly guyed. The wind "worried" at the stakes if put in vertically, pulling out 24 inch snow stakes 5 minutes after they were inserted. Each tent, very good 4-season affairs, broke a pole, and I slept sitting up against the weak area, not knowing if I'd have a tent or tarp in the morning. And didn't much care, we were OK. As a result, I took two sets of poles for my tent to Aconcagua, and used both of them at the same time.

The experience with the wind was a revelation. It is merciless, incessant, patient and stubborn. It worries at anything loose, working and working at any weakness until something breaks or gives. After a while I found myself regarding it as a malevalent being, impersonal yet needing my personal confrontation. After a while I just felt I was in a seige, or contest, and having done all I could the next step was to see what it had.

In a true survival situation we would have been better off in snow caves. Warmer, out of the wind, quiet. But we were there to experience the weather in tents. And in a true emergency we only had to walk 4,000 vertical feet down to Timberline Lodge, headed south by compass bearing and NOT following the fall line.

We could have stayed where we were for a long, long time except for a lack of water. We had two stoves and fuel, and therefore water as long as we could shelter the stove from the wind. Would have gotten hungry, but in my experience one doesn't experience hunger when not acclimatized to altitude and in those conditions as one does at dinner time at home. Hunger can be something of a luxury until one is really starving.

The other time I was alone and had a bivy sack. Whiteout conditions, water froze, dicey time until I got my stove working. Dug into the snow for the night, and was fine. The "snow" under those conditions is more like a dust of ice crystals which get into everything as they stack up. Not the gentle flakes which we all know and love.

My heart goes out to those poor folk on Hood. They did it right, took a reasonable chance, and were simply overwhelmed by events. One wonders, though, if they hadn't travelled so far, if they were locals, if they wouldn't have waited until the weather was going to be less hostile. Or if they wouldn't have chosen a more reasonable route. The one they are on for the ascent is very, very difficult even in good weather.

Arf