Bodies of climbers missing 21 years on Mt. Adams identified

Associated Press

YAKIMA — In 1980, late autumn snowstorms with hurricane-force winds claimed the lives of two Oregon men hiking on Mount Adams.

Twenty-one years later, drought gave the bodies back.

The remains of Gary Claeys, 28, of Wilsonville and Matt Larson, 25, of Portland were identified Wednesday, Yakima County Coroner Maurice Rice said.

"It’s been a long 21 years," said David Claeys of Parsippany, N.J., who has searched the south-central Washington mountain four times for his brother.

The bodies were discovered Saturday on the south face of the mountain at the head of the 9,000-foot-elevation Crescent Glacier, where a hiker with a dog found a rope and then chipped away enough ice to reveal a boot. A U.S. Forest Service ranger confirmed the find Monday.

On Tuesday, Central Washington Mountain Rescue, working with the Yakima County Sheriff’s Office, organized a team to retrieve the remains.

Rice said both men died of hypothermia.

"They were huddled together. There was no trauma, no signs of injuries," he said.

One man was covered with a blanket, another with a tarp.

Larson and Claeys, who worked as psychiatric aides at the now-closed Dammasch State Hospital in Oregon, disappeared Nov. 14, 1980, on the 12,276-foot mountain.

"We always wondered what happened. How did they die?" David Claeys said.

Rice said the bodies were essentially mummified, preserved by the ice. Claeys identified his brother, based on the man’s clothing, a watch, a ring and his hair.

David Claeys also had a photo of Larson, whose body was found with his wallet, including a driver’s license and credit cards.

Mark Bales, a mission coordinator for Central Washington Mountain Rescue, was part of the original search team and part of the recovery team this week.

"They were caught in a pretty horrendous storm," Bales said, with winds of 100 mph that dumped 4 to 5 feet of snow on the mountain.

But this year’s drought, the worst in 70 years, exposed expanses of Mount Adams that had been covered with snow for decades.

It appeared the men were trying to bivouac down the ridge from where their tent was found, Bales said. But the exact circumstances of their deaths will never be known, Rice said.

The men shouldn’t have been up there in the first place — Mount Adams was closed to climbers and hikers for fear nearby Mount St. Helens, which had erupted in May of that year, would blow again.

David Claeys dropped out of college and headed West to help look for his brother. Searchers initially found the men’s battered yellow tent, along with crampons, ski goggles and a heavy parka.

Claeys made the trip three other times and continued to stay in touch with a variety of agencies by telephone. He hoped, with the drought, this would be the year the bodies would be found. By September, though, he had just about written off this year.

Then the phone call came.

"It pretty much took me back to 21 years ago," he said.

Claeys said he plans one more trip to Mount Adams, next year, to scatter his brother’s ashes.

"It’s an appropriate place for them to be," Claeys said. "Certainly his spirit is still up there."