Historic Hood River
Rats on Hood
4-3-2026
Notes
This grouping of Crag Rats at the summit of Mt. Hood is from the Arne Udelius album. His caption states:
6/30/40. On top. Junior Coffey, Bob Sheppard, Frank (?) Matya, Warren Harding, Geo. Sheppard + me.
This would have been one of the final American Legion climbs of Mt. Hood. World War II was soon to intervene, sending some of the Crag Rats to Europe where they used their mountaineering skills as part of the 10th Mountain Division. As Bill Pattison described to me, when they came back they realized how risky these mass climbs were and thought better of it. But in the 15+/- years of the climb, there were no major reported incidents.
We saw most of these men together at the summit of Mt. Adams in this image.
Buck Parker
But the climbs were revived after the war and went on until at least the very early 1950s. I was too young to go on one but remember seeing them from the annual American Legion camping outing at Tilly Jane. (It’s possible that the climbs were not on quite the scale that they were before the war.)
Arthur Babitz
Thanks Buck, we’ll have to check the HR News archive to see some more details on the post-war climbs.
Jeffrey Bryant
One year my mother, Liz Cole, was a Legion Climb Princess. She climbed Mt. Hood with the Alpinees on a Legion Climb around 1951.
Cecelia Parker Goodnight
My main memory of camping at Tilly Jane before the Legion climb the next morning was the evening of entertainment in the outdoor theater. At the close of the evening’s program members of the Alpinees who had climbed earlier produced a wonderful fireworks display. This was where I first head the yodeling Fraunfelder family who had come to Hood River sometime around 1950.
Alison Dibble
Thank you to the Crag Rats!
Two other people in the photo are not named or acknowledged at all but their presence is an important part of the scene. They hiked up there; how else would they arrive? Were they part of the Crag Rats hiking party? We assume that at least they were not the subject of a rescue.