A family of six, including two young children, spent Tuesday night in the Mount Hood National Forest after sending out a call for help, the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office said. They were rescued Wednesday morning.
The family started at the Salmon River Trailhead and hiked about eight miles, reaching 3,500 feet in elevation, when, shortly after sunset, one of the family members sent an SOS message to emergency dispatchers with their precise location, the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
“It appears they were lost and unable to find their way back in the heavy snow, as well as experiencing the effects of fatigue and exposure due to the weather conditions,” sheriff’s office spokesperson Brian McCall said in an email.
Because of the amount of snow, fallen trees and steep terrain, a search-and-rescue team couldn’t reach them until 6 a.m. Wednesday. They were “cold, wet and dehydrated, but otherwise OK,” the sheriff’s office said. The office hasn’t released the family members’ names.
Getting them off the mountain proved difficult, though. A helicopter couldn’t land because of weather conditions, so the family had to wait several hours for a snowcat, a type of vehicle with tracks designed for snow. They made it back to U.S. 26 around 7:30 p.m. — 24 hours after the initial SOS message.
