Associated Press
 
January 21, 2009
 
GOVERNMENT CAMP, Ore. -- A climber has died on Mount Hood after she was hit by large chunks of falling ice and she fell about 400 feet down the mountain.
 
Clackamas County sheriff's detective Jim Strovink identified her as 31-year-old Brooke Colvin of Portland. The accident occurred Wednesday morning at about 10,000 feet.
 
Strovink said her husband, 32-year-old Thad Stavn, saw her hit by falling ice and thrown down the mountain. Strovink said the woman died instantly. Rescuers were trying to recover the body.
 
Stavn was able to get back down to Timberline Lodge from the area of the accident, known as the Pearly Gates.
 
Strovink said warm weather has made climbing conditions on the 11,239-foot Mount Hood treacherous by making snow unstable and loosening boulder-size chunks of ice.