At 3:00am on May 12, 1986, students of the Oregon Episcopal School (a private high school in Portland, Oregon), set out to climb Mount Hood as part of an annual event for sophomores. Six climbers turned back early on that day. Although the rest reached the 10,000 foot elevation mark by 3:00pm, they were turned back from climbing further by a terrible blizzard. At this point, they dug a snow cave. The next day, a guide and one of the students climbed back down the mountain to summon help while the other eleven stayed behind in the cave. Due to the snow storm, rescuers had difficulty locating the snow cave, but did find three of the students, dead from hypothermia, on May 14th. Finally, on May 15th, rescuers located the snow cave but found only two students alive. So out of the eleven students and teachers left in the snow cave on May 13th, all perished but two. Although this annual climbing activity had sent students climbing Mount Hood for the last 36 years, the program was canceled the next year for re-evaluation. Reasons for the tragedy included continuation of the climb even though severe storms were predicted, and the lack of preparedness. As a result of the rescuers fruitless attempts to find the snow cave, all climbers on Mount Hood are now required to carry a mountain locator device and to sign on and off the mountain.