Episcopal school, Western Oregon diocese remember victims of 1986 Mount Hood tragedy

[Episcopal News Service] An Episcopal school in Oregon is remembering the nine victims of one of the deadliest alpine disasters in U.S. history, as the school and the diocese mark 40 years since the tragic expedition on Mount Hood.

Seven students and two faculty members from the Oregon Episcopal School in Portland died in May 1986 during an outing for sophomores on Mount Hood, the state’s highest peak.  The hike had been planned as part of the school’s Basecamp outdoor education program. A total of 20 students, faculty members and adult chaperones had participated in the attempted climb, and for the 11 survivors, the tragedy left deep physical and mental scars.

Since then, the school has held annual observances of the tragedy. On May 8, the school invites the community to a requiem service at 7 p.m. Pacific hosted by Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Portland with support from the Episcopal Church in Western Oregon. It will be livestreamed.

“As an Episcopal school, gathering in community is core to our identity — especially in times when connection and support are most needed,” the Rev. Michael Spender, head of school, said in a written statement to Episcopal News Service. “This tradition is grounded in the affirmation that the care of divine love is present even in the midst of tragedy, that healing and wholeness is possible even after profound loss, and that the power of transformation and the hope of restoration is an enduring promise.”

The service will center on Gabriel Fauré’s “Requiem,” which also was incorporated into the school’s memorial observances immediately after the tragedy in 1986 and again in 2006 when the school marked 20 years since the disaster. The school also has selected Scripture readings that will be “offered as a prayer for the departed and an expression of quiet consolation,” according to the school’s invitation to the event.

Additional ceremonies are planned for May 13, which the school marks each year as Mount Hood Climb Observance Day.

“Forty years after the Mount Hood tragedy, we gather in prayer, remembrance and gratitude for the lives of those we lost and for the love that carried so many through unimaginable grief,” Western Oregon Bishop Diana Akiyama told ENS in a written statement. “This service is an opportunity to honor the nine members of the Oregon Episcopal School community who died, to hold survivors and families in prayer and to remember the extraordinary compassion that surrounded the school and the wider community in the days, months and years that followed.”

The school’s tradition of a sophomore climb up Mount Hood was nearly a decade old when the 20 members of the expedition set out on May 12, 1986, led by the Rev. Thomas Goman, the head of school at the time.

The day hike up the 11,125-foot volcanic mountain was intended “as a culminating experience focused on challenge, teamwork and personal growth,” but weather conditions deteriorated as the party ascended, according to the school’s online history of the tragedy.

“A severe storm overtook the group high on the mountain, forcing some members to seek emergency shelter in a snow cave. Rescue efforts extended over several days in extremely difficult conditions,” the online history says. Goman was among the nine who lost their lives. “Others survived, some with lasting injuries. The impact of that day continues to be felt by families, classmates, and the broader school community.”

A later investigation into the tragedy concluded that the students and other members of their party had been well trained for such a climb, but the decision to continue forward despite the threat of a worsening snowstorm likely contributed to the deadly outcome.

The seven student fatalities were Tasha Amy, Richard Haeder Jr., Alison Litzenberger, Susan McClave, Patrick McGinness, Erin O’Leary and Erik Sandvik. The two adults who died were Goman and Marion Horwell, dean of the upper school.

Many of the deaths occurred among those who had huddled in a makeshift snow cave to shelter from the intensifying storm, though two survivors were rescued from the cave, students Brinton Clark and Giles Thompson.

Thompson lost both lower legs in the disaster. Now 56 and living in Hawai‘i, he recently told the publication Lower Columbia Currents that it took him decades to overcome the tragedy on Mount Hood.

“I thought I was never going to be normal,” Thompson said. He was able to return to Oregon Episcopal School and graduate in 1988. Over the subsequent decades, he has struggled to reach a sense of peace with the tragedy, ultimately learning “to just be grateful that you’re alive.”

The school’s requiem service and Observance Day activities acknowledge that “this journey is different for every person,” Spender, the current head of school, said. “As we approach this significant remembrance, we do so as people of hope in the spirit of lament, learning and love.”

Akiyama said the diocese is grateful to gather with school and its community “for this act of shared remembrance.”

“The church’s role in moments like these is to accompany people in grief, to bear witness to sorrow and to proclaim the hope that is found even in the midst of loss,” she said.

– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.