Survival Story
Harsh Lessons at 11,000 Feet

By VALERIE CLARK

Rising more than 11,000 feet in the heart of Oregon’s ancient, volcanic Cascade mountain range, the state’s tallest mountain peak is at once awe-inspiring and intimidating, and some who haven’t shown it the proper reverence through the years have paid the ultimate price. One person who has felt the wrath of Mt. Hood and lived to tell about it has since summited its towering peak, but he’ll never forget the day the mountain showed how dangerous it can truly be. Michael Leming, chief talent scout for Nike and a dedicated athlete, got into climbing as an extension from his other outdoor activities, which includes running marathons.

“There’s this whole spiritual side to climbing that makes it really special,” said Leming, who returned to his native Portland about 10 years ago after stints in Europe, Asia and South America. A chance meeting with some members of the Portland Mountain Rescue team in the Timberline Lodge parking lot piqued Leming’s interest in the organization, which he quickly became a part of. “It was a great way for me to get a lot of training from world-class climbers,” he said. “It was pretty selfish motivation, but the whole idea of giving back was cool too.”

An experienced veteran of dozens of trips to Mt. Hood’s summit, a climb on January 17 promised to be no different from any other mountain climb for Leming. “It was a perfect day, with great conditions,” Leming said, adding that there were some “weird temperature inversions” that weren’t a cause for concern at first, but would prove to foreshadow the events that would soon unfold. Leming was about 200 feet from the top of the mountain on what he thought was a routine route, when disaster struck. He compares the vertical portion of the climb to ascending a ladder, except that in this case, the ladder fell apart. “We weren’t roped off; I wasn’t too worried about it. I’d done it 100 times.

But this time, the building collapsed.” A block of ice broke apart, throwing chunks of ice and snow at him and the friends he was climbing with, and sending him down the mountain. With no time for fear, instinct took over. “It’s always slow motion,” he said. “There’s no fear, you’re just thinking of getting out of the situation. I just knew that I needed to stop.” After a 200-foot sliding fall, Leming’s crampon caught in the snow and stopped him, dislocating his ankle in the process.

The unstable mountain continued its punishment. “I was pummeled for three and a half hours and if I hadn’t hammered my ax and clipped in, I would have been taken out for sure,” he said. Not only did the ordeal injure his left ankle, but it also shredded ligaments in his right ankle, rendering him unable to move even a few feet and hindering his rescue. “The pain was pretty bad,” he said.

He would have to wait several hours for rescuers to reach him, strap him into a harness, and lower him to a flat spot on the mountain called the Devil’s Kitchen, where a helicopter could land safely to transport him off the mountain. “It was in kind of a difficult position. There was a constant bombardment of ice where he ended up after the fall,” explained Erik Broms, an eight-year veteran of Portland Mountain Rescue, and one of the first people to reach Leming that day.

His job was difficult, he said, because he was trying to help Leming while taking his own safety and that of the other rescuers into account. “I didn’t want to put myself in harm’s way and get hit by ice,” said Broms, who logged 300 hours of mission training and time last year with the all-volunteer Portland Mountain Rescue. “That’s not our job as rescuers.” Eventually Broms was able to get a rope to Leming, who was then safely maneuvered behind a large grouping of ice and rocks that sheltered him from the falling chunks of ice and snow.

Portland Mountain Rescue paramedic Troy Norman was able to examine him, and he was airlifted off the mountain about five hours after the initial fall. Leming’s journey was just beginning, as he would face weeks of physical rehabilitation. His ankles are still stiff and swell up occasionally, but he says he’s about 70 percent recovered now. In fact he summited Mt. Hood just 13 weeks after the accident. “I had to get back up as soon as possible,” he said, adding that he was a bit nervous about the climb. “You’re gun shy for awhile, absolutely. I have confidence in my ability, but you can’t control everything. The mountain was doing something that I wasn’t predicting.”

He said he has learned from the experience that you can’t take anything for granted on the mountain. “I should’ve been on a rope, and I would’ve been fine,” he said. “I’ve got to stop playing Russian roulette. There’s other things in this world that are more important.” “What happened was the result of a bad decision,” Broms said, adding that many people climbed Mt. Hood that day, but took a safer route by climbing up the Mazama Chute. “It was the safer route to go,” Broms said. He stressed that climbers who want to climb Mt. Hood should bring along the essential safety gear, go with someone who is experienced, and keep a close eye on the weather. About 40,000 people fill out permits to climb Mt. Hood each year, and since record keeping started in 1896 there have been over 130 fatalities on the mountain, according to an article by CBS News.



Survival Story
Lost in the Woods

by VALERIE CLARK
photo courtesy of Gary Till



"I’m sure the road is just up ahead,” Gary Till told himself, speeding through an icy September rain on a borrowed 4-wheeler. As he raced through the trees north of the Three Sisters wilderness, he struggled to maintain his composure, though he could feel the edges of raw, pulse-pounding panic begin to creep in around him.

Everything looked the same no matter which way he turned, and in the driving rainstorm, the experienced woodsman couldn’t rely on the sky to help him get his bearings. As hours passed and the late afternoon sun quickly set behind the darkening storm clouds, Till found he had no way to guide himself back to his campsite. The adrenaline rush of panic slowly turned to a calm resignation as he realized he would be spending a cold night in the woods.

Till, who lives in Newberg, made the drive to Central Oregon in late September 2007 for a weekend deer hunt with his extended family near the Three Creeks area south of Sisters. He had no idea that a quick ride about a quarter mile away from his campsite to dispose of a deer carcass would change his entire weekend – and the rest of his life. He left camp on a designated road, but it quickly faded into the woods.

On the way back from his errand, Till made a fateful wrong turn. “I decided to go back to camp a different way,” Till said. “I didn’t hit the road, and that’s where the whole fiasco started.” He later learned that the road he was searching for turned south just past the camp. “I missed it completely,” he said. He tried to search for familiar landmarks, even as the wind and rain howled through the trees, and he unknowingly wandered farther and farther away from his campsite. “Talk about an uneasy feeling,” he said. “There’s no way to describe it other than panic. It was raining sideways…a big storm was coming in. I didn’t have any bearings at all. The weather just took all that out from under me.”

A frequent camper and outdoorsman, Till never leaves home without a pack full of ‘goodies’ — a GPS unit, compass, water, food and materials to start a fire, but for his quick errand into the trees, he found himself woefully unprepared for the elements. “I didn’t have anything with me but a Leatherman tool,” Till said. After a couple hours spent seemingly riding around in circles, Till found that he was no closer to his campsite than when he’d started. “I just got more and more disoriented, and started to hear things. It was probably around 7 or 7:30pm, and I decided I was just going to stop,” he said. “I made the conscious decision to stay the night out there.” Till remembered advice from the Discovery Channel’s Survivorman show, where one man pits himself against the elements with only his wits to rely upon. “I told myself: ‘Don’t panic, just stay calm and sit still. Don’t do anything stupid,’” Till said.

He decided to stay in one place rather than make his situation even worse by wandering in the dark, and started searching out a spot to make camp. Sgt. Scott Shelton, commander of Deschutes County Search and Rescue, said Till definitely did the right thing by staying in one place through the night. “Finding a moving target is much harder than finding one that’s stationary,” he explained.

Till found a relatively dry place to hunker down, and prepared for a long night. “I found a nice big fir tree with some really heavy lower boughs and I just kind of crawled under there. I laid there for probably an hour,” he said. Sometime during the night, the rain finally gave way to the quietest snowfall Till had ever seen. Despite his situation, he found himself calmed by the stillness and beauty of nature at its best. “It was incredibly quiet, which was actually kind of nice. It was neat out there, all by myself and quiet.”

The silence gave him a chance to reflect on his thoughts, which always turned to his family. “I kept looking at my wedding ring and thinking of my wife and my newborn son, my friends and family. And I thought: ‘I have to get through this, I have to do what it takes to get through it,’” Till said. Meanwhile, the Deschutes County Search and Rescue team had mobilized and formed a search perimeter around the area where Till was believed to be. Shelton said the wintry weather made the case a critical one for the staff and volunteers.

“We knew we had an urgent response,” Shelton said. “There were some pretty nasty weather conditions going on.” Amazingly, Till could hear search parties calling his name, but he didn’t dare venture into the dark forest to find the source of the voices. “I basically heard that all night,” he said. Shelton explained that searchers use “sound sweeps,” calling out or using whistles or air horns to see if the subject is near enough to respond.

Though Till could hear them, his voice wasn’t loud enough in the wind and snow for them to hear him. The long night grew colder as the clouds parted, and Till knew there would be no rest for the weary. Each time he allowed himself to doze off even for a few seconds, his shivers quickly woke him back up. “I realized: I can’t sleep; I have to keep moving, or this isn’t going to be good,” he said. He found two logs that he fashioned into a crude stair stepper, and he made a 40-yard trail in some pine straw and walked around in circles.

“It kept my core warm,” Till explained. It also gave him a purpose and a focus that took his mind off of being scared out in the wilderness, with only his Gore-Tex rain gear to keep him warm as the temperatures plunged to about 20 degrees. “It wasn’t bitterly cold, but it was cold enough,” he said. He took breaks from the moonlight marathon of exercise for the tiniest drinks of water from dew or snow he found on pine needles, or to sit for brief spells in the wheel well of the 4-wheeler, which he kept idling all night.

“I would rev the engine just to make some noise,” he said. And so passed the longest night of Till’s life, spent in bursts of exercise, quiet moments of contemplation or just watching the moon creep across the sky. “It was an incredibly long evening,” he said. Somewhere around three in the morning, the 4-wheeler ran out of gas, but because he was its previous owner, Till knew that there was enough of an emergency reserve in the tank to fuel his ride to safety. Finally, dawn began to break on a beautiful Central Oregon autumn day and Till set out on his journey. “I just kept the sun to my back and rode west,” he said.

Ordinarily, he points out, he doesn’t believe in cross-country 4-wheeling, and stays on roads or trails. He hit a drainage creek and followed it until he came to a campsite that, as it turned out, was just two miles west of his family’s site. “I’m just hungry, tired and very thirsty. I’m like, ‘Do you guys have any water?’ They said, ‘You must be Gary. You’ve got some people looking for you,’” Till said. The helpful campers drove Till back to his campsite, and he was amazed by what he saw along the way. “I just started seeing rigs,” he said.

“Police, search and rescue, Deschutes County, snowmobiles, a media rig.” For a split second, he wondered what was going on, and then it struck him that all the attention was for him. “I was just in awe of what was happening,” he said.

DESCHUTES COUNTY SEARCH AND RESCUE He was greeted with bear hugs from his wife and other family members, and someone gave him a cup of hot chocolate that he describes as “the best thing ever.” And he was amazed and humbled at the scope of the Deschutes County Search and Rescue operation.

“They are a well-oiled machine. They undoubtedly would’ve found me. They do not screw around,” he said. Shelton said the organization’s trackers are second to none. “We have one of the best teams in the West right now,” he said. Deschutes County Search and Rescue is prepared for anything, with a dedicated team of volunteers always ready to help, a staff member on call 24/7, and equipment for any kind of rescue operation that might come up in Central Oregon, from snowy mountains to rushing rapids.

And Shelton stresses the importance of the ninety or so search and rescue volunteers who have made it through the county’s extensive application process and training academy. “They’re the neatest people in the world,” he said. “What they give to the community – it’s incredible and you can’t put a price tag on it. They’re amazing. The community is very fortunate to have them, and the sheriff’s office is extremely fortunate to have them.”

Till says the lessons he has taken away from the experience sound like clichés, but are valuable just the same. “Never take anything for granted,” Till said. “I took for granted what I thought would be a 10-minute trip, and ended up spending the night. You just never know.” He still camps out frequently, and always carries some kind of firestarter, a pocketknife and bottled water. He also recommends carrying a GPS unit or a whistle, or even renting a satellite phone for the most remote excursions. “Another cliché: Stay calm and don’t panic. Stay in one place until you can get your bearings,” he said. “Always keep things in perspective. Think out what’s happening; that really helped me out.” Shelton agreed. “If you don’t keep your head about you and keep your wits, you get in trouble,” he said. “Stay rational. We will find you.”

Crystal Peaks Youth Ranch
Home of Rescued Dreams

Story by Sondra Holtzman
Photo by Emily Green

Upon first glance, the land was barren, devoid of life. Framed by panoramic views of the Cascade mountain range, the entire upper half of the property, carved out of a western-facing hill, was mined for cinders that would coat high desert roads in winter. Nothing grew here on this unwanted, devastated piece of earth, guarded solely by scorpions and lizards. It was the only piece of property Kim and Troy Meeder could afford in 1992.

Determined to restore and rehabilitate the land, the couple asked neighboring ranches in the surrounding area for their waste – manure, stall shavings, moldy hay – anything organic that could be spread on the floor of the cinder pit. And for the next two years, they covered the ground by hand, shovel- by shovel-full. At the time, Troy Meeder was working as a landscape contractor and began bringing trees to the property that were either blocking someone’s view, had fallen from visual grace or were destined to be destroyed. “The pine trees you see around our house today were once in a forest fire that burned through eastern Bend,” Kim Meeder said.

“Troy was asked to take the trees to the dump, but after scratching their bark discovered they were still green inside, still very much alive. So we planted these crispy, black little briquettes around our home and before long, they began to thrive. Like us, all they needed was a chance. Few days go by when I’m not entirely grateful that I wasn’t thrown away when I was blackened by the fires of this life, when someone gave me a chance.” In 1995, while volunteering at a breeding ranch not far from their property, Kim observed a horse whose face was beaten so badly a vet had to be called in to repair the extensive damage. Another filly was so emaciated, it had lost one-third of its body weight.

Profoundly impacted by the atrocities that occurred there, she thought, “Someday, this needs to change. Someone needs to step up and do something.” It was on this day she realized, sometimes “someone” is us, and sometimes “someday” is today. These were the first two horses to come home to what is now known as Crystal Peaks Youth Ranch. From those humble origins in 1995, the Meeders combined more than 40 years of youth work experience to create a beacon of hope for children and horses that have known abuse and neglect.

“When we purchased the property, we had no grandiose vision of what would happen next,” Kim Meeder said. “We just knew if someone didn’t intervene for those horses they wouldn’t survive. So we brought them home to a rock pile and unbeknownst to us, we could never have been aware of the chain reaction that was about to take place - how our broken property filled with broken trees and horses would become the perfect fit to heal the hearts of broken children.” Soon, the couple began seeing children they didn’t even know arrive at the ranch, having heard it was a haven for rescued and abused horses. Anxious to help, they cleaned out paddocks, brushed the animals down and planted flowers and trees around the ranch. “We began to see that in their efforts to make the horses better, the kids started getting better,” Kim shares.

“They weren’t coming for what they could get because the horses weren’t strong enough to carry a rider. They were coming for what they could give, and it was in the giving that they themselves were made whole.” In her first book, Hope Rising, Meeder shares a story of witnessing a selectively mute young girl who hadn’t communicated with any adult speak freely to a destitute horse. Today, this same young woman who chose to remain silent for years went on to work in an orphanage in Peru -teaching English. Kim Meeder reflects on the true beginnings of the ranch when she tragically lost her parents at a very young age.

“I look back as an adult and realize out of that tragedy and because of God’s love I began to heal,” she says. “I couldn’t have known on the day I was galloping away with tears flying back that the healing I would know through the love of a little horse and the mercy of God would become the figurehead of this ranch today. Troy and I want to pass on what has been extended to us – this is a place where anyone who needs help, love, healing, security, laughter and peace is welcome, and it is offered freely.”

As a kid growing up, Troy Meeder remembers working on his uncle’s ranch in California, mending fences and hanging out with horses. “I always felt content and at peace there,” he reflects. “Those simple values of faith, family, hard work and sharing a meal at the table together had an enormous impact on my life. Here at the ranch, we have a Barn Fellowship every other week. It’s a time where families gather with staff and friends to share a provided meal, sing a few songs and hear a simple word of encouragement from the Bible. The heart and soul of this time is about bringing families together. One mom told me what a blessing it was for her to not have to cook, knowing she could come here and feed her family. Faith is the glue that holds this place together.

" The fellowship is our gift back to the community and the reason the ranch exists.” For the past 14 years, the ranch has never charged a dime for the services it has extended to over 40,000 visitors (many were repeat families who came year after year), even despite some early years when there was $12 in the checkbook and $9,000 in bills. The foundation program of Crystal Peaks Youth Ranch is unique in that it pairs one child, one horse and one leader for each session. No child is ever left behind or lost in a crowd. Kim says, “Our ‘one-on-one’ learning environment is dedicated to restoring the heart, soul, mind and strength of our kids. Each child is unique and separate, coming to the ranch for his or her own special needs. Those individual needs are identified by the staff and a tailored course of action toward healing is created and faithfully accomplished for every child, free of charge.”

Each day, “angels in horsehair” become trusted friends and family to every child who comes, greeting them with a gentle spirit and a willingness to make dreams come true. For the majority of these “Equine Counselors,” the ranch has become a safe haven and retreat from a lifetime of abuse, neglect and hunger. Emerging from a life of incredible hardship, they become the healing instrument in a child’s life. After publishing Hope Rising, the Meeders received an overwhelming response from people all over the world who wanted to know how to create a Crystal Peaks Youth Ranch within their own community. After a great deal of planning on how to share their mission, the couple decided to open the ranch for two weeks a year, with two separate clinics four days in length, charging the bare minimum for their services.

Troy Meeder says, “Kim and I share what we have learned and hopefully keep them from falling into the same pitfalls we’ve experienced over the years,” says Troy Meeder. “We teach people how to create a non-profit business, but more importantly, emphasize the values and vision we hold dear. We’re going into our fifth year and close to 1,000 people have taken these clinics to date.”

The mission of Crystal Peaks has spread like wildfire. Meeder knows of 101 ranches that are up and running all over the world, from the United States to England, Costa Rica, Australia, Tanzania, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa. He says, “It’s almost like a field of dreams – if you build it, they will come. People are looking for something safe, peaceful and quiet; a place set apart from the frantic pace of daily life. They’re tired of being on the grid all the time and want to return to what is really important – family relationships, breathing in fresh air and being in the presence of a horse. We’re fortunate to be caretakers of these majestic creatures – they have chosen to allow us into their lives.”

Enter a six-year-old young Arab named Hero, who is well-known to many in the Northwest. Not long after arriving at Camp Tamarack in Sisters, the horse sustained a small injury on his leg that kept him out of the riding program. For unknown reasons, the wrangler in charge of the horse made the decision to take him out into the woods and euthanize him. After shooting the animal through the left eye, to the man’s great surprise, the small horse survived. The man reloaded with a hollow-point bullet and shot the horse again, three inches behind the left eye.

This shot broke the horse’s lower jaw and presumably knocked him unconscious. Believing that he succeeded, the man left him for dead. After wandering alone for several weeks, this amazing gelding, still wearing his halter and lead and covered with blood, finally stumbled into a hunter’s camp. The men called the Deschutes County Search and Rescue and a woman from the staff walked him out of the woods at midnight in the dead of winter.

The Meeders were immediately contacted concerning a new home for the wounded horse. Their answer was a resounding “Yes.” Thousands of dollars and countless surgeries later, Dr. Wayne Schmotzer of Bend Equine was pleased to see “Hero” finally come home . . . to the ranch of rescued dreams. After nearly 14 years of equine rescue, Kim Meeder thought she had seen it all.

“It was hard to believe, looking at him for the first time, that he had survived for an undetermined amount of time with a horrifically infected leg wound, a broken jaw, a destroyed eye and lethal blood loss, all with two exploded bullets scattered throughout his head,” she said. “If this wasn’t bad enough, he was also left to wander in a dense, high-altitude forest while dragging a lead rope. Any one of these things should have destroyed him, yet here he was, standing before me, blinking inquisitively at my presence with his one remaining eye. I was overcome with the thought that it was a complete miracle he was standing at all.”

It’s true - sometimes just believing in someone is enough for them to start believing in themselves. Today, Hero is completely healed of his former wounds and is drawing visitors from across the United States. Kim explains, “He is such a delight to be around. He seems to let everyone know that if he can make it, they can too. He has taught all of us so much about forgiveness and choosing joy, no matter what your circumstances might be.” After welcoming Hero home to Crystal Peaks last November, a small child eloquently expressed the true spirit of this ranch of rescued dreams, saying, “He knows that I love him. I told him that I don’t mind his scars on the outside – it’s the inside that I love.” Information: 541/330-0123 and www.crystalpeaksyouthranch.org

 

 

Fall 2009 issue

Harsh Lessons at 11,000 Feet

Climbing Mt. Hood

The Life of a Guide

Caldera Springs

Wining Around Town

Hop, Skip and a Jump

Event Calendar

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



























































































































































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