For decades, people flocking to Mount Hood could rest easy knowing a crew from one of the country’s most elite mountain rescue units would scramble to respond if adventure turned to disaster as it sometimes does on Oregon’s iconic peak.

But in a stunning shift, Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts plans to end his agency’s use of outside search-and-rescue groups like Portland Mountain Rescue and replace them with one of his own.

Longtime volunteers said the sheriff first told them of the change late last year. Roberts spelled out the plan in a memo to volunteers last week.

He has told volunteers that his office will stop asking for their help within the next six to 18 months, effectively putting them out of business.

Those volunteers hold sheriff-issued search-and-rescue cards that enable them to work missions in the county and around the state. A Sheriff’s Office spokesman said volunteers who do not plan to apply for the new unit must turn in their cards.

The sheriff’s group is expected to have about 100 volunteers. The independent organizations now have about 220 volunteers combined.

The controversial plan represents a significant change in how one of Oregon’s busiest counties for search-and-rescue callouts manages not just missions on the mountain but also hikers and mushroom pickers who lose their way in the woods, Alzheimer’s patients who wander off and children who go missing.

It is a blow for four volunteer-led search-and-rescue outfits in Clackamas County -- Portland Mountain Rescue, Mountain Wave Search and Rescue, Pacific Northwest Search and Rescue and North Oregon Regional Search and Rescue – whose members specialize in ground searches, emergency communications, searches with trained dogs and mountain rescues.

The groups train regularly, are on-call around the clock and are dispatched by the Sheriff’s Office when needed.

Portland Mountain Rescue volunteers hold trainings on Mount Hood in May and June, the peak climbing season, so they can respond quickly to any crisis. Their crews last year reached injured climbers within an hour in four out of five rescues during those two months, a board member said.

“Everybody is demoralized,” said Russell Gubele of Gresham, president of Mountain Wave.

His group has about 100 volunteers who work on communications, offer search dogs and work with drones, among other specialties. It formed in the aftermath of Mount Hood’s deadliest tragedy, the 1986 climbing deaths of two teachers and seven students from Oregon Episcopal School.

“Morale is terrible,” he said. “People don’t know what to do.”

Already, Gubele said, Mountain Wave has seen a drop-off in requests for help from the Sheriff’s Office. He said he expected to go out on a search earlier this month for a woman who went missing in Welches, but the call never came.

“They are just not using us,” he said.

Roberts declined to be interviewed for this story, but the Sheriff’s Office released the memo sent to volunteers.

Roberts said his decision came after months of consideration and research. He said he was motivated to reorganize in light of litigation over a climber’s death in 2017.

John Thornton Jenkins, 32, of Mukilteo, Washington, died after falling hundreds of feet down Mount Hood. His parents blamed the Sheriff’s Office and Clackamas County 911 for missteps that they said contributed to a more than four-hour wait before their son was rescued. Moments before the helicopter lowered a cable to lift a basket and hoist him aboard, Jenkins stopped breathing and died.

The county disputed that it failed to launch a prompt rescue and said rescuers at the scene told authorities that they thought they could get Jenkins out.

The county ultimately settled the lawsuit for $25,000. The settlement required the Sheriff’s Office to make a $5,000 donation to Portland Mountain Rescue. A volunteer with the unit was with Jenkins as he was loaded into the helicopter.

The agreement with Jenkins’ family also required the Sheriff’s Office to do more training and develop better communication procedures for the county’s emergency responders.

“I recognize that change can be difficult,” Roberts wrote to volunteers. “But it is also important that my office makes appropriate changes to address inefficiencies, mitigate risk, and ensure I am doing my very best for those we serve.”

Charley Shimanski, who lives outside Denver and is considered a leading authority on alpine rescues, said he’s baffled that a group as well regarded as Portland Mountain Rescue faces an existential threat.

The organization takes part in 15 to 20 missions a year and is known for nail-biting rescues under whiteout conditions on one of the most-climbed peaks in the world.

“Why would you dismantle one of the country’s strongest teams of rescue mountaineers, one of the country’s elite teams of rescue mountaineers, and replace it with an all new team -- and I guess I should add to that, particularly on a high-altitude mountain as dangerous as Mount Hood?” Shimanski said.

Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts told search and rescue organizations that he will stop calling them for help in the next six to 18 months. The shift away from using Portland Mountain Rescue has stunned the mountaineering community. “Why would you dismantle one of the country’s strongest teams of rescue mountaineers, one of the country’s elite teams of rescue mountaineers, and replace it with an all new team -- and I guess I should add to that, particularly on a high-altitude mountain as dangerous as Mount Hood?” said Charley Shimanski, who lives outside of Denver, Colorado, and is considered a leading authority on alpine rescues.Jim Ryan/Staff

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The number of Oregonians headed outdoors is on the rise. The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department estimates state parks see about 50 million visits annually, a jump of 10 million since 2010. The number of people camping continues to break records year after year.

It’s no surprise then that Mount Hood National Forest, a 1.1 million-acre gem an hour’s drive from Portland, has surged in popularity. The U.S. Forest Service estimates that 2.3 million people visited the forest in 2016 – 1 million more than visited in 2006. Those figures mirror an uptick nationally on Forest Service land.

But with adventure comes risk. Statewide, search-and-rescue had its busiest year ever last year with 1,310 missions, according to the Oregon Department of Emergency Management.

And Clackamas County consistently ranks among Oregon counties with the most missions, according to the state. Last year, Clackamas, Jackson, Lane, Deschutes and Douglas counties accounted for more than half of all search-and-rescue missions.

By law, the person responsible for search-and-rescue is the local sheriff. Some sheriffs, like Deschutes, operate their own volunteer units as Roberts proposes. Others tap independent organizations to provide volunteers as Clackamas County has done for decades.

Roberts said he based his decision on what he called in his memo a “comprehensive study” of search-and-rescue by retired Undersheriff Matt Ellington.

The Oregonian/OregonLive obtained the study in a public records request. The Sheriff’s Office said it paid Ellington $2,982.71 to produce a 12-page report that looked at two counties, Multnomah and Deschutes.

Ellington highlighted Deschutes County, calling it the “premier” search-and-rescue program in the state. Since the 1980s, the agency has used an all-volunteer team of about 140 people managed by the Sheriff’s Office, Ellington said.

Ellington proposed “options to consider” based on Deschutes County’s model, including tightening controls over search-and-rescue volunteers, creating a search-and-rescue academy, using sheriff’s cadets for search missions and forming a “robust volunteer group” attached to the Sheriff’s Office.

Ellington noted that starting such a unit would require “numerous personnel assigned to nothing but the SAR program,” as well as investing in training and expanding the number of vehicles assigned to the unit.

Going forward, Roberts said he will establish a nonprofit called Clackamas County Search & Rescue to raise money to support missions and provide training and equipment; currently, search-and-rescue organizations do their own training and provide their own equipment.

The Sheriff’s Office did not provide details when asked about the budget for the new unit, saying “it’s way too early to offer a definitive answer on the complete” search-and-rescue funding model. A Sheriff’s Office spokesman said Friday that discussions about funding have begun.

7 2017 helicopter rescue of fallen Mt. Hood climber

The plan, already underway, has left search-and-rescue groups lobbying Clackamas County commissioners and appealing to the sheriff to allow them to continue working in the county.

They argue that Roberts’ plan ignores their critical role in the region, their expertise and the dedication of the volunteers.

Jim Bernard, chair of the county Board of Commissioners, called Roberts’ plan “absurd.”

“These people are expert volunteers,” he said. “Who is going to do the search-and-rescue? Who is going to pay for that? The county isn’t. These people want to do this work. They are excited about doing the work. I don’t know where this is coming from.”

Bernard said his efforts to reach Roberts have been unsuccessful. The two have clashed publicly in recent weeks over the county’s budget shortfall.

“I have sent emails and he is not responding,” Bernard said.

Pacific Northwest Search and Rescue is the largest of the organizations with about 125 volunteers and a half-dozen specialty teams trained in skills such as rope rescue and high-angle rescues below treeline.

Last year, the organization responded to about 85 callouts, about half of them in Clackamas County, including helping track down lost mushroom and game hunters and packing out injured hikers.

They headed out to Bagby Hot Springs, Ramona Falls and other trails in Mount Hood National Forest. They also respond to places out of the county, such as in the Columbia River Gorge and the Coast Range.

“What the sheriff is doing is taking apart a system that works really well,” said Diana Worthen, president of the group. “What he is trying to do is dismantle that and start something from scratch. That will take years to develop the same level of service that exists today.”

She said volunteers feel dismissed and overlooked as the Sheriff’s Office has phased in Roberts’ plan. Some volunteers likely won’t apply for the new team, she said.

“Their approach has been very authoritarian,” she said. “Honestly, their treatment of us has been really poor.”

Worthen stressed that her organization remains deeply invested in search-and-rescue missions and wants to find a way to continue working with the Sheriff’s Office.

A Sheriff’s Office spokesman said the sheriff and his staff have met multiple times with search-and-rescue volunteers for the past six months to discuss the new approach.

“Our hope is that every dedicated and qualified search volunteer currently working in Clackamas County applies to join the unified team,” said Sgt. Marcus Mendoza, a Sheriff’s Office spokesman.

An Oregon Army National Guard helicopter arrives at Mount Hood on Sunday, May 7, 2017, for an attempted rescue of John Thorton Jenkins. Clackamas County is the base for four search-and-rescue groups. Here's a rundown of each group: Portland Mountain Rescue has 75 “field certified volunteers” and specializes in technical rescues on Mount Hood; Mountain Wave Search and Rescue has 100 volunteers and provides expertise in communications, as well as search dogs, drones and 4x4s; Pacific Northwest Search and Rescue has 125 volunteers and specializes in ground searches and has teams that do rope support, low- to high-angle work, operate drones and respond on mountain bikes, trail running and ATVs; North Oregon Regional Search and Rescue has about 20 volunteers and specializes in search dogs. (Tim Ozerkov / Portland Mountain Rescue)

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Mark Morford, a Portland Mountain Rescue board member, said his group welcomes some of the changes the Sheriff’s Office has made, such as assigning a full-time search-and-rescue coordinator and playing a greater role in training and oversight.

Portland Mountain Rescue has offered to make changes to address Roberts’ concerns about the screening process for volunteers and evaluating their competency, he said. It is open to involving the Sheriff’s Office in recruiting and try-outs, he said.

But so far, he said, talks have gone nowhere.

“We have said this over and over again: Help us understand what your objectives are,” said Morford, a retired attorney from Portland who has been with the organization for 12 years. “We can make all sorts of changes. Just tell us what you are trying to achieve and we will help you achieve it.”

He predicted it will take years for the Sheriff’s Office to replicate his group’s experience and skill.

“The esprit de corps, the mutual trust necessary for us to trust three of our other rescuers to lower us into a crevasse and get us back out with a patient in the middle of a blizzard at 10,000 feet -- you don’t just sign people up,” Morford said.

“That requires years of culture and working together under difficult conditions.”

Last year, he said his unit held 72 field and classroom trainings on topics including avalanche safety, crevasse rescues, high-altitude snow travel, patient care and technical rope and rigging. Two-thirds of the group’s volunteers are medical professionals or are certified wilderness first responders.

For years, Morford said, the Sheriff’s Office has relied on Portland Mountain Rescue’s volunteers to perform “the most dangerous, the most urgent, the most difficult and the highest profile missions in Oregon.”

Those often take them to the 11,239-foot Mount Hood, a technical and perilous ascent that beckons the expert and novice alike.

Mount Hood climbers encounter less red tape than those ascending other Cascades volcanoes such as Mount Adams or St. Helens, where climbers must pay permit fees beginning in the spring and carrying into the fall.

Hood climbers are supposed to self-register at Timberline’s Wy’East Day Lodge but pay nothing and don’t need a permit.

Nineteen people have died on the mountain since January 2011, according to a database maintained by The Oregonian/OregonLive. That includes hikers, climbers and skiers.

Mike Adams survived his fall on the mountain, with the help of Portland Mountain Rescue.

In May 2014, Adams tumbled 1,000 feet and slid into one of the mountain’s notorious vents, or fumaroles, that emit toxic gases.

By the time he landed, Adams said he’d broken bones in 17 places. He recalled absorbing the shocking realization that his life would likely end on the mountain.

But Portland Mountain Rescue happened to be training on the mountain that morning. A crew responded quickly, lowering a pair of volunteers into the fumarole, their mouths and noses covered to protect them from the gases.

“You’re going to be OK,” one of them told Adams as they prepared to hoist him up and load him into an Oregon Army National Guard helicopter.

Adams, now 65, went on to make a full recovery.

“I have never really talked about it much,” said Adams, a structural engineer who lives in Wilsonville.

“If they hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t be here,” he said.

Oregonian staff writer Jim Ryan contributed to this report.

-- Noelle Crombie; ncrombie@oregonian.com; 503-276-7184; @noellecrombie

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