Crisis on Mount Hood
Stories from a Hundred Years of Mountain Rescue
Danger and duty collide on the alpine expanses of the Cascade Range in Christopher Van Tilburg’s inspiring memoir-cum-history book Crisis on Mount Hood.
Sourced from the archives of the Hood River Crag Rats, the US’s oldest mountain search and rescue team, the book recalls the history of the nonprofit and some of its most daring extrications. Seminal rescue missions like the 1924 rescue of E. C. Loveland, who fell while descending Mount Hood and was impaled by his ice ax but survived, spurred seasoned local mountaineers into action to formalize the Crag Rats. Van Tilburg, a physician and avid mountaineer whose daily life revolves around the outdoors, helped to usher in the Crag Rats’ modernization across twenty-five years. This involved embracing a flurry of technological and cultural evolutions that changed the landscape of the wildernesses he patrolled.
Van Tilburg mines the origins of peak-summiting across the world and the trajectory of safety equipment and regulations, volleying his focus between the nuts and bolts of outdoor common sense and the minutiae of his voluntary commitments as a regular rescue doctor and strategist. The storytelling is imbued with deep love for the ecological well-being of Mount Hood and beyond. Throughout, the book observes the melting of Mt. Hood’s glaciers and the problems this continues to cause. Caution is encouraged, couched in personal expertise; the book’s advice is modifiable to approach the challenges of all of the world’s great peaks and wildernesses. Even the monotony of Van Tilburg’s routine to remain prepared for last-second rescues is narrated with a sense of urgency. Despite the obvious grind such duties provoke, the unshakable camaraderie between the rescuers is made palpable through honest, riveting accounts of various crises.
Crisis on Mount Hood is both a survival guide and a chronicle of dedicated mountaineering heroes.
Reviewed by
Ryan Prado
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
