ROCK CLIMBING NEWS ITEM

Called Off Rescue Operation for Missing Climbers

THURSDAY, 21 DECEMBER 2006

After nine days of rescue to find the two missing climbers who was lost in the 11, 239 foot peak Mount Hood, rescue teams gave up and abandoned the rescue effort.

The result of Kelly James's autopsy, whose body was found at the cave in Mounthood suggested that he had been dead for several days when he was found Sunday and that he died because of hypothermia. James was one of the three climbers who summited Mount Hood and planned a two day climbed to the peak and back down.

Volunteers continued scouring the mountains for signs of James' climbing partners, Hall, a 37-year-old personal trainer from Dallas, and Cooke, a 36-year-old lawyer from New York City. But climbing gear found on the peak suggested the two may have been swept to their deaths over a precipice or buried in an avalanche.

"We've done everything we can at this point", said Hood River County Sheriff Joe Wampler, choking back tears after returning from one last, fruitless flyover of the 11,239-foot peak.

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