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After soaking in the panorama atop Mount McLoughlin for the first time, Pasha Jacobsen anticipated his nearly 4,000-foot descent and eyed what he thought was an easier way down than the boulder-strewn trail. “Looking down the side, it was all nice and gravely,” says Jacobsen, 48, of Talent. “I was going to go down the easier way and then cut left over to the trail, but I totally lost my reference point. In minutes I was off track about two miles. “It was real foolish,” he says. As has happened well over 100 times in the past 20 years, the shortcut turned into more than eight hours of being stranded in the cold before search-and-rescue crews could fetch the hiker and bring him to safety in the dead of night. Jacobsen was the first of two people rescued in a span of four days in October. Now Jackson County search-and-rescue leaders are proposing some changes along the moonscape portion of the trail to the peak that perhaps could cut those cumbersome and timely rescues in half or more by keeping more people on the trail. Sgt. Shawn Richards, who heads Jackson County’s SAR program, would like to use a series of lodgepole sticks to mark the wilderness trail so hikers such as Jacobsen can see where the trail is. By staggering eight or nine such lodgepoles, Richards believes hikers would be much more likely to stick to the ridgeline trail, saving hikers and SAR volunteers from night rescues. “It’s so someone can look out 100 yards, see the next pole and walk to it, both up and down the trail,” Richards says. “It would make a huge difference to hiker safety, and for us.” Richards knows that past attempts at marking this trail fell short over concerns about strict signage rules for wilderness areas. But Richards has a sympathetic ear from someone who can make that happen. Dave Palmer, the Cascade Ranger District ranger, says the Forest Service manager says he’s responsible for signing in his district, which includes Mount McLoughlin, which is inside the Sky Lakes Wilderness Area. Palmer thinks Richards’ poles idea fits well within the notion of safety signs in wilderness areas, and he’s willing to find a way to make that happen. “Definitely, I think that’s perfectly reasonable,” Palmer says. “Maybe we can work something out.” Richards thinks the poles would be a welcome safety addition for hikers, and it would be a boon for SAR teams that have to find the lost ones. Since 1998, there have been 118 SAR missions targeting 192 lost hikers on Mount McLoughlin. All were recovered alive, records show. Of those missions, about two-thirds were conducted by Jackson County SAR teams, with the remainder from Klamath County. Since Mount McLoughlin records were kept beginning in 2008, Jackson County SAR teams have logged 774 paid hours and 4,410 volunteer hours on mountain rescues, including 48 hours of volunteer time and 32 hours of paid time on seven rescues this year, records show. In the vast majority of the cases over the years, hikers have fallen prey to a false belief that perhaps the trail is not the best and fastest to get to where the trail re-enters the tree line. It’s the optical illusion at the top,” Richards says. People peer down the loose rock, called scree, and believe it’s an easier walk through than the rocky ridge and it’s somehow a shortcut. But it’s not. “They end up three drainages away from where the trail is,” Richards says. Recognizing this, some people have used spray paint to mark the trail on rocks. But that’s a federal crime because of the wilderness designation. That’s why Richards would like to use removable lodge poles, crafted from lodgepole pine indigenous to the area, for the trail markers. “That would be great,” Richards says. “Maybe it’ll keep us from coming up here more than once or twice a year.” Jacobsen admits his trek down the face of Mount McLoughlin was a texbook version of what not to do. “Foolishness and overconfidence are words I’d use,” he says. He was one of four Harry & David employees on an off-day ascent, and he reached the top about an hour before the others, he says. He opted to start down alone at about 3:30 p.m., choosing his “shortcut” much to the chagrin of his hiking mates. “We were hoping to meet him at the parking lot, but that didn’t happen,” says Brent Chachere, 58, of Medford. Jacobsen says the optical illusion overtook his bearings and he lost sight of the trail. He tried to backtrack and start over, but that failed, so he pressed on until he hit a massive boulder field. “Before the sun set, I realized I was lost and that I’d probably have to spend the night out there,” he says. He turned to his cellphone, which was down to 5 percent power after he took several pics from the summit, and dialed 9-1-1 but couldn’t get through. Jacobsen continued down until he found a small grove with grass. At 8:50 p.m., with just 2 percent of his phone battery left, he dialed 9-1-1. His phone beeped and burped and then someone answered. “That was a good thing,” Jacobsen says. “I knew they were going to come get me.” Four cold hours later, a SAR team found him in that grassy grove. “What a mountain,” he says. “It’s magnificent. And it’s a monster, too.” Jacobsen says he’s going to get back up on that magnificent monster again some day. And when he does, he’ll take the route more traveled back down. “I’m going to hug that trail,” Jacobsen says. “I’d be embarrassed if I got lost up there again.” Reach Mail Tribune reporter Mark Freeman at 541-776-4470 or [email protected] . Follow him on Twitter @MTwriterFreeman .