Most people who’ve spent time around Mount Hood recognize names like Sam Barlow, Lige Coalman or Billy Welch—figures etched into the landscape through place names, summit stories, and historical accounts. Coalman alone is remembered for climbing Oregon’s highest peak 586 times and building the fire lookout cabin on the summit. Ranger and Laddie on Mount Hood are just as fondly remembered.
The Gueffroy-Varney tragedy on Mount Hood – On Saturday, March 26, 1938, members of the Mazama Mountain Climbing Club gathered at the Mazama Lodge in Government Camp for what would be their first organized winter ascent of Mount Hood.
On the morning of August 27, 1934, five University of Washington students set out to climb Mount Hood. Among them was Victor Von Normann, just twenty years old, an engineering student and the son of a well-known Seattle attorney. The group made good time up the Hogsback, a steep snow ridge leading to the summit. They were strong, eager, and in good spirits as they began their descent.
The 1949 B-26 crash on Mount Hood – On April 21, 1949, a U.S. Air Force B-26 bomber disappeared in the clouds over Oregon. The twin-engine attack bomber had departed Hamilton Field near San Francisco that morning, bound for Portland. The bomber never arrived.
On New Year’s Eve of 1926, Government Camp was bustling. The Battle Axe Inn’s windows glowed with warm light, packed with holiday visitors who had come to celebrate the turn of the year in the shadow of Mount Hood. Outside, the snow piled deep as a winter storm surrounded the mountain. Among those staying at the rustic inn were three young men from Portland whose names would soon be linked together in one of the largest mountain searches Oregon had ever seen
