Many of the glaciers and snowfields on Mount Hood are named after explorers and mountaineers, including Newton Clark, Elijah “Lige” Coalman, Henry Coe, Thomas Eliot, Rodney Glisan and Joel Palmer.
Coalman is the most recognizable name, at the top of any list of Mount Hood legends. He built a fire lookout cabin on the summit and climbed Oregon’s highest peak a record 586 times.
A name never mentioned in the same breath but arguably deserving is Ranger, perhaps slighted because he had four legs and fur, or he was simply forgotten.
This canine alpinist is said to have climbed Mount Hood more than 500 times in 10 years, nearly as many as Coalman but accomplished in a third of the time.
“This is a story nobody knows about,” said Ned Thanhouser, who collaborated with Jeff Miller on a short film about Ranger. “Nobody’s heard of him.”
Thomas knew more about the Australian shepherd mix than most as the former archivist for the Mazamas, a mountaineering organization based in Portland. He considers Ranger’s story among the top five in Mount Hood history.
“Ranger’s right up there,” Thomas said. “Lots of dogs have climbed Mount Hood, but not very many consistently climbed Mount Hood their entire life.”
With Thomas’ knowledge and archives access, and Thanhouser’s technical know-how, they were the perfect duo to write and produce an 8-minute documentary film about the dog’s untold climbing career.
The documentary was accepted by five film festivals, most recently the 2024 New York Dog Film Festival. Thanhouser and his wife flew back for the screening, proud the film had received some national recognition.
A legend is born under a hotel porch
Ranger was born in 1927 under the porch of the Government Camp hotel. Some tales suggest his mother was abandoned there, while others suggest she was enticed to stay.
Details about the latter scenario are in the book “Mount Hood: Adventures of the Wy’East Climbers.” The author, Ric Conrad, explains how a group of Native Americans had several dogs with them as they passed through town after picking huckleberries. One of the dogs remained behind after being offered a soup bone by the hotel cook.
Within a week or so, the dog had four puppies. The couple who owned the hotel kept two males, naming them Ranger and Laddie.
An entire chapter of the book, highlighting the glory days of an elite group of climbers, is dedicated to canine alpinists. Conrad writes about several dogs who were known to have ascended the slopes during the 1930s, referred to as the Golden Age of climbing on Mount Hood, but Ranger dominates the narrative.
The allure of a mountain peak at 11,000-some feet
Majestic Mount Hood, 120 miles northeast of Salem, is a beacon on clear days for area residents. It is an active volcano with 12 glaciers and snowfields, six ski areas, and miles of hiking trails winding around the base below the snow line.
The mountain attracts an estimated 10,000 climbers every year, and various sources cite it as the second-most-climbed glaciated peak in the world behind Mount Fuji, a claim difficult to prove because climbing registration is voluntary.
The elevation is just as difficult to pinpoint. A Google search finds a range from 11,239 feet (Mount Hood Information Center) to 11,249 feet (Visit Oregon). The U.S. Geological Survey refers to it as 11,245 feet on some web pages and 11,240 feet on others.
Historical photographs taken during Ranger’s heyday show a sign above the door of the fire lookout cabin with the elevation posted as 11,225 feet.
Proof of frequent visits preserved in Mazama archives
Photos in the Mazama Library & Historical Collections prove Ranger was a frequent summit visitor.
One image shows him in a group photo with 14 other climbers in front of the lookout. Another shows him relaxing in the snow near the lookout door with a pack and ice axe behind him. Others captured at lower elevations show Ranger in majestic poses befitting an intrepid mountaineer.
What the black-and-white images do not reveal are the color of his coat — his face, chest and forelegs are light, while his back is darker — or that he was born with slightly deformed front paws.
An anecdote shared in the book about the Wy’East Climbers tells how the hotel owner’s wife massaged them as a puppy and, by 6 months old, Ranger demonstrated no disadvantage in speed and endurance compared to his brother.
Summit ribbon awarded after first ascent to the top
Ranger’s first recorded climb was in 1928, with varying accounts on whether it happened in the spring or summer. He made friends with a Mazama climbing party and followed them up the mountain.
Someone pinned the group’s coveted satin summit ribbon to Ranger’s collar, which he wore back down to Government Camp. The Mazama monthly bulletin reported the story.
According to mountain lore, the hotel proudly displayed the ribbon until the structure burned down a few years later. The documentary includes a summit ribbon from the historical archives, like the one Ranger would have received.
Ranger’s brother climbed, too, though never with quite the same gusto. Ranger had a reputation for barking and howling his approval at the first sight of an ice axe as climbers began to their unload equipment.
“He always sings when he knows there is a chance to go climbing,” Smoke Blanchard said in the book about the Wy’East Climbers.
Laddie’s career was cut short when he was run over by a car in 1932, while Ranger went on to become the greatest climbing dog of Mount Hood.
Not unusual to make more than one ascent in a day
More proof of Ranger’s passion can be found in the summit registers, varying in size from small pocket datebooks to leather-bound journals and single sheets of paper with names and dates. The Mazama collection takes up 28 linear feet of archival shelving and encompasses most mountain peaks in the Pacific Northwest from the 1880s to the 1980s.
Some entries include observation data such as climate, geology, glaciology, flora, fauna, and anything else that might have caught the eye of the climbers.
The first project Thomas worked on after becoming the archivist was organizing the summit registers, and he saw Ranger’s name countless times.
“Of course, a dog couldn’t sign the register, but people would comment over and over and over, ‘Ranger was with me,’ or with the list of members of the party, Ranger would be in there,” Thomas said.
On May 3, 1931, for example, Ranger, Laddie and another dog, Wolf, are listed with five Wy’East Climbers from Portland. The register shows the group arrived at the summit at 6:15 a.m.
“We can’t find 500-plus entries (for Ranger),” Thomas said, “but there are certainly 5 to 10 or more per year.”
The registers would not likely tell the whole story because Ranger was known to make more than one ascent in a single day. He often headed out before dawn with the first climbing party, accompanied them to the summit, and descended until encountering another party. He would then turn around and join that group back up to the summit.
Heroic actions in the face of winter storms
Ranger was known to climb alongside novices and experts alike, according to Conrad’s research for his book. One climber making his first ascent noted Ranger seemed to take pride in being at the head of the party, always focused.
“He settled into an even pace, only dropping back from time to time to check on each of us,” the climber said. “He didn’t waste any energy chasing chipmunks as many dogs do.”
Mount Hood is notorious for rapidly changing weather and fast-moving winter storms, fooling even experts. More than 130 people are known to have died climbing the mountain. Countless others have needed rescue.
Ranger is credited more than once with saving the lives of his human counterparts, leading them out of inclement weather and storms. It happened twice in 1930, once in May and once in September, according to the book about the Wy’East Climbers, who later helped form the Mount Hood Ski Patrol for search and rescue operations.
On Oct. 4, 1931, Ranger was climbing with a party that found itself trapped on the summit by a driving snowstorm. The front-page headline in the next day’s Capital Journal read: “Dog rescues six on Mount Hood.”
“Ranger, a dog that knows the trails and crevasses of Mount Hood, saved six persons from spending a night in a piercing cold blizzard on the peak Sunday,” the report said, describing how climbers used a 400-foot rope from the lookout cabin to lower themselves down the first steep ascent, with Ranger leading them down the rest of the way.
One last climb to the summit
Like any climber, Ranger began to slow as he aged. In dog years, retirement came faster than for humans. He made his last climb to the summit on New Year’s Day 1938.
He would continue to climb part way up the mountain with a group and meet returning climbers, but his greetings eventually scaled back to the edge of town in Government Camp.
Ranger died July 1, 1940, but he would make one final trip to the top of Mount Hood with help from his Wy’East friends and fellow climbers.
A photo used in the documentary shows Ole Lien climbing the mountain with Ranger’s body wrapped in cloth and strapped to a board on his back. Lien carried the dog to the base of the Old Chute, just below the summit.
Ralph Calkin, Ida Darr, Jim Harlow, Ed Meyer and Paul Parker made the memorial climb, too. They dug a grave with their ice axes and built a large cairn to mark the burial site. The July 7 burial was recorded in the summit register.
Six years later, in the fall of 1946, Calkin and Harlow paid further tribute to Ranger by installing a bronze plaque with his name on one of the rocks.
“Everybody who sees this is in tears at the end,” Thanhouser said of the documentary. “The love the climbers had for this animal is amazing.”
Today, 84 years after Ranger died, there is no sign of his burial site. The stack of rocks and bronze plaque disappeared through decades of harsh weather and changes in the mountain face.
Capi Lynn is a senior reporter for the Statesman Journal. Send comments, questions and tips to her at clynn@statesmanjournal.com, and follow her work on X @CapiLynn and Facebook @CapiLynnSJ.
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