A search is underway for three climbers reported missing on Mount Hood.

KGW

Mount Hood.

Hood River County Sheriff Joe Wampler said three men in their 30's left from the Cooper Spur Ski Area parking lot on Thursday with the intention of taking a climbing route over the mountain and then down to Timberline Lodge.

The climbers were supposed to meet some friends at Timberline on Friday but never showed up.

Wampler said the friends called Hood River County Dispatch on Sunday after there was no sign of the trio all day Saturday and Sunday.

Apparently the three men left a note in their vehicle parked at Cooper Spur saying they planned to climb an advanced route up the North side of the mountain down to Timberline on the Southside of the mountain.

The note also said if the men got in trouble they would come back to Cooper Spur, according to Wampler.

But a cell phone call on Sunday afternoon offered new clues for searchers.

Wampler said one of the men was reportedly stuck in a snow cave above Elliot Glacier on the NE side of the mountain. The other two men apparently left the man on Saturday in an attempt to get help. There has been no sign of those two men.

Hood River County dispatch received a call from the family of the man in the snow cave. Wampler said the stuck man was able to call his family on a cell phone. Family members said they had a very brief conversation with the man before they lost the cell phone connection.

The Sheriff's department has not been able to make contact with the man on his cell phone.

Steve Rollins with Portland Mountain Rescue assembeld a team to go up the mountain and try and find all three men.

Rollins said conditions on the mountain were too harsh to try and attempt a night rescue so the team camped out at Timberline Sunday night and then headed up the mountain around 5:00 a.m. Monday morning.

(kgw.com reporter Teresa Bell also contributed to this article.)