Hiking season comes to an end on Mount McLoughlin

Searchers from Jackson and Klamath counties were called out about two dozen times this summer to assist hikers on Southern Oregon's biggest mountain.

"It's been a trying year for us and Klamath County," said Jackson County sheriff's Lt. Pat Rowland, who supervises search and rescue operations.

Searches can be expensive, time-consuming and dangerous, and Jackson County officials would like to see better markers on the trail to prevent people from getting lost.

Unfortunately, the trail lies within the U.S. Forest Service's Sky Lakes Wilderness, where federal law requires signs and other evidence of human activity be kept to a minimum.

Forest Service officials recognize the problem, said spokeswoman Patty Burel. They plan to meet with Jackson and Klamath county officials to figure out how to provide more information about the trail without dramatically altering the natural environment that wilderness designation is intended to protect.

"We're all looking for the same thing," Burel said. "Nobody wants to see anybody get lost up there."

Rowland said there was just one call for help in 2008, but calls for assistance soared this summer after Forest Service personnel removed rocks that had been conspicuously marked to indicate the path.

"Evidently last year hikers painted white arrows on the rocks," Rowland said.

The painted rocks were incompatible with the federal wilderness law, which was drafted to protect areas where people could have a sense of the natural environment without human presence.

"Some people go up there to have a pristine experience," Burel said.

The trail is easy enough to follow as long as it's a footpath through the woods, but the final ascent traverses more than a mile of boulder-strewn rock and ash where footprints vanish. The way to the summit is obvious, even if the path is not.

"Nobody gets lost going up," Rowland said.

Coming down, it's a different story.

Many people become disoriented, forgetting how far they walked across the side of the mountain as they climbed, or they look for a quicker way down.

"They don't recall how they came up," Rowland said.

Easy access to the trail on Forest Service roads lures people to Mount McLoughlin who might not otherwise think of themselves as mountain climbers. And the mountain has a reputation as a "walk-up" nearly everyone in Southern Oregon knows somebody who has reached the summit. There's a widely held notion that the route to the summit isn't as challenging as it really is a 10- to 11-mile round-trip, all-day hike that starts a mile above sea level (think thin air) and gains nearly 4,000 feet.

"A lot of people look at it and see a beautiful scenic mountain," Burel said, "and they say to themselves, 'I'm going up there.' They don't necessarily look into what they're getting into."

The problem isn't new. Hikers have gotten lost or stranded on the mountain for decades. Some are out of shape or run out of water; others start too late in the day and run out of daylight without a map or a flashlight. Many don't know how to use a compass to help them find their way across barren ground.

Burel says what's different these days is that people have cell phones and they're willing to use them to call for help when they lose their way. Although they're lost on Forest Service land, Jackson or Klamath county foots the bill to find them because Oregon law assigns county sheriffs responsibility for search and rescue. Most of the searchers are volunteers, but paid staff typically accompany them as supervisors. When a helicopter is required for a medical emergency, the bill can run as high as $1,400 per hour, Rowland said.

Burel said the Forest Service puts brochures at the trailhead describing the climb, "but some people grab a bunch of them and take them for fire starters," so they may not always be available.

Rowland said he hopes the counties and the Forest Service can resolve the problem.

"We've got a lot of novices up there," he said. "Thank God nothing's happened to them."

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Information from: Mail Tribune, http://www.mailtribune.com/