Up And Down The Mountain .. And Up And Down ... And Up And Down

"What did he say?" I asked the paramedic sitting next to me, loud enough to be heard above the UTV's noisy engine. With that racket and my helmet on, I couldn't hear what a teammate perched on top of the litter on the back of the Polaris Ranger had just shouted.

**The Polaris Ranger UTV is the red machine pictured here. And we were headed up this mountain (although, there was no snow):



"Oh," the young lady from the Guardian crew replied, "He's just talkin' trash."

Must not like my driving, I figured. I had come rather close to that last big drop, I guess. But, really, there wasn't much room on the other side, either.

In the end, though, I didn't lose anybody off the machine, which is always a plus. I'd never driven the thing up that high on the mountain, so I was a little nervous on the first run, sitting forward on the seat, gripping the steering wheel with my sweating, gloved hands. But by the third time up and down to the spot called "Midway" on a grass and rock-covered ski slope at the Arizona Snowbowl, I had the drive down quite well. By then, I knew just where to point the vehicle to lessen the bumping and grinding (of rocks on metal below) and the possibility of tipping over.

What I was doing was shuttling SAR members, Guardian medics and equipment, including a break-apart litter, webbing and rope, to the highest point we could get to by all-terrain vehicle, so they (and eventually I) could hike, steeply, off-trail to the saddle and possibly beyond. The patient was determined to be above treeline, though the initial information had placed him close to the bottom. Big difference there.

He had strained or sprained (not broken, I don't believe) his ankle. Apparently, he'd done some hobbling, but there was no way he was going to make it from the ridge about 4 miles down to the lodge on the Humphreys Trail. So we were headed up to carry him down in the litter. It would certainly take hours.

But then the helicopter was in the air. To my surprise, the pilot was able to set down at the saddle after the landing zone was cleared of hikers by ... someone ... and the patient was brought aboard. In a way, that was a relief to us, the ground crew, but at the same time, there's risk to a helicopter rescue. But those in charge know what they're doing and weighed the pros and cons to both the rescuers on the ground and those in the air and made the decision to go with the helicopter.

Search & Rescue volunteers and paramedics on the ground continued carrying out our assignment until we were told to do otherwise. You just don't know if things will change and we'll be needed after all, until the patient is aboard the helicopter and on the way to the "LZ" near the waiting ambulance. Once that was accomplished, though, our incident commander got on the radio and told the paramedic I'd shuttled to Midway, already on her way up to the saddle with a few of my teammates, to return to the drop-off point for pickup and me to turn around to get her. I was already close to the bottom where I'd been going to shuttle more personnel.

So back up I went, picked up the paramedic and had her back down at the lower LZ JUST as the patient was being carried from the helicopter to the waiting ambulance the paramedic had come from. That meant the ambulance didn't have to wait for her. What timing! (I'm good.)

Then I went BACK up the mountain again to retrieve my teammates, who'd been told to hold their position a bit longer, I guess. (It was hard to hear the radio traffic over that UTV noise and through the helmet, and I had no one to translate for me while I was driving alone.)

"Watch that big drop on the right," my SAR-mate advised on the way back down. He was the one I didn't hear on the first trip up. I considered giving him a few (more) gray hairs but decided to give him a break. :)

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About My Blog

Practice, Practice, Practice!

It's like learning a foreign language. At first, it's work, even a struggle. And if you don't keep reviewing over and over again, you can pretty much lose most everything you've gained within days. Then, eventually, you realize you don't have to work at it so much anymore--that you just get it and things make sense. And before you know it, you're fluent. That's basically what I hope will happen with these technical rescue skills I'm trying to master.

Master. Ha! That's difficult to imagine right now. But I'm trying as hard as I can to get the hang of these skills and to commit them to memory, both in my mind and my body. I want my legs and arms and hands and whatever other parts might be involved to execute the knots and the moves and set up the systems like it's all second-nature. But that's going to take time. And quite a lot of it.

I went away for two weeks recently on that trip to Colorado, and, when I got back and started to think about Rock Rescue Academy again, I was amazed to find how much I'd already forgotten. I was pretty ticked at myself, actually. And frustrated.

Then I went to a practice session one evening, where we learned something new--the "hot changeover" from ascending to rappelling, and I was even more frazzled. At least with my first attempt. I was on the rope, sweating and swearing (quietly) for about half an hour, hanging about ten feet off the ground in the SAR building, trying to get things figured out. At one point, a teammate even climbed up a ladder to give me some assistance.

After a break, though, practicing with the Rescue 8 rappel device and the release mechanism on the ascenders while on the ground, then lengthening my self-belaying Prusik which was way too short the first time, I went up for another try. And that time went much better AND much faster. But a teammate talked me through the whole process, so I'll have to practice, practice, practice that too if I'm ever to do it completely on my own ... while hanging off a cliff. Which will probably be soon, during our next official practice.

In the meantime, I've been getting together with new tech team members and an experienced member at the SAR building to go over things we've learned. This last time, I figured I'd take photos of the set-ups, which would hopefully help me remember how everything goes.

Here are some of those pictures:

This first one is a rescue rack loaded and tied off, ready for lowering.



Here we're doing a "hot changeover" from a lowering system to a raising system, which is done while the "load" (ie. the attendant, patient and equipment) are on the rope, mid-face. The green webbing with a Prusik is temporarily holding the weight of the load as we attach pulleys and other equipment for a raise with a 3-to-1 mechanical advantage. (Ooh, don't I sound like I know what I'm talking about?)



Next is a tandem Prusik belay with a load-releasing hitch (green rope). The tandem Prusik belay consists of a long Prusik (blue) and a short Prusik (red) attached to the belay line (the yellow rope).



And this is a Meunter hitch, used with the load-releasing set-up. This hitch comes into play if the force of the load is transferred onto the belay line and the Prusiks (in the tandem Prusik belay) become locked. This might happen in a fall or if the belayer doesn't move quickly enough and keep up with the main line, maintaining slack on the belay. Without the load-releasing hitch, well, you'd basically be screwed or have to come up with some other way (which there probably is, I just don't know ... or don't know if I know it yet) to get those Prusiks unlocked. Under force, they're said to "melt" on the rope.



Anyhow, those are the sorts of photos I took, to help me go through the steps of setting up anchors, lowering and raising systems and belays in my head, as I lie awake at night, wondering if--or, rather, when--I'll get the hang of all this. That is, if my teammates have the patience to put up with me long enough.

Hikers, Party Of Eight

At noon on Monday, my phone rang. It was our team Captain, calling to say thank you for my help on the mission early that same morning and to tell me I did a good job. He said, "Eight is a big group to bring out, and you [meaning, the three of us who responded] went right in there and got the job done. The family was very appreciative."

Well, that sure was nice to hear. The part-time coordinator in charge of the mission also had let us know how much he appreciated our help. All in all, it was an easy mission with a good outcome, so I really hadn't expected the extra thank yous. Regardless if anyone says it, though, I know what we do as volunteers is definitely not taken for granted by the Sheriff's Department, and I'm as glad as ever to be part of the team.

Anyhow, on Sunday afternoon I had returned from a 4-day trip to La Quinta, California, where I'd gone for a Jazzercise event. (No, we don't wear leg-warmers.) I'd worked out for three hours on Friday and six on Saturday, and all that exercise, the 110-degree heat, and the six-hour drive home had me feeling pretty beat. So I was really tired when my pager went off just after midnight on Monday, after only 2 hours of sleep.

But I was fully awake when I got to the SAR building, where I met up with a teammate and waited for a third, who had been hand-called. The two of us who'd initially responded to the page would have been comfortable going up the West Fork Trail alone--we were both familiar with it and knew it was pretty easy hiking for the first few miles--but our Captain wanted a third person to go along. As he explained, with three, if one had to stay behind with the subjects in case of a medical issue perhaps (one of the kids was asthmatic) or an injury, the other two could hike out together to get help. Radio communication from the canyon would likely not be possible and a cell phone wouldn't work, so it made sense that three of us go in.

The situation involved a family group, including five juveniles--the youngest being 11--who'd set out to thru-hike West Fork, which is about 14 miles long. The route includes wading and some unavoidable swimming. They'd started out with twelve people (contrary to the newspaper report, which states there'd been 10), two of whom had turned back about two miles in and two faster hikers who'd gone ahead as agreed and hiked out by around six pm. But the eight others didn't appear at the lower trailhead before dark, where their rides were waiting. The mother of three of the kids agonized about calling SAR, she said, but finally made the decision to do so.

As my two teammates and I were en route to the staging area at the lower end of West Fork, a helicopter spotted a campfire in the canyon, about two miles from our starting location, which is before you have to begin to wade then swim. With the coordinates of the light source programmed into my GPS, the three of us headed up the trail in the dark, crossing the creek (West Fork) no less than five times, calling the names of a few of the subjects and sniffing the air for any hint of campfire smoke.

As we hiked, I ran through possible scenarios in my head. Many missions have not gone as I'd expected, either one way or the other--better or worse--so I wondered if this one would be as straight-forward as I'd been thinking on the drive to the staging area. Could the child with asthma have had a serious problem? Was one of them hurt? Had they gotten separated?

There was no response to our frequent calls or whistle blows. Not until we got within yards of the coordinates, when I finally heard a shout. Within moments, I saw several people--adults and kids--standing on a rise on the opposite side of the creek. As we made our way over to them, I called, "Are you all together? Are all of you okay?" And they answered that, yes, they were all okay and accounted for. So I guess this was going to be as straight-forward as I'd first guessed.

After the three of us SAR members offered extra clothing, drinks and snacks, accepted by only a couple of the kids, we turned around and slowly hiked back out with me in the lead, one in the middle and the other taking up the rear.

Turns out, the group had simply taken longer than expected, having been slower than expected apparently because of the younger kids. They'd also gotten "a bit lost" at one point, they said. Then they just ran out of time and stopped till daybreak. They'd seen the helicopter fly over and figured it wasn't a coincidence, so they knew someone would probably come along. Just before we'd found them, just after first light when we'd been able to turn our headlamps off, the group had put out their campfire and gotten ready to hike the rest of the way out. They said they'd had water filters with them and space blankets for everyone, so they were all in pretty decent shape other than one scraped leg and a couple of chilly kids, whose clothing hadn't completely dried.

Once we'd deposited the eight of them back at the trailhead with their waiting family members and friends, we headed back to the SAR building. Not long after, I was in Jazzercise class and, later Monday evening, at tech team practice where I really started to feel the lack of sleep. My brain was sluggish and I was having trouble getting the hang of what we were being taught (how to change from ascending to rappelling while on the rope). So when I got home at 10pm, I decided to turn my pager off for the night. I wouldn't be of much help to the team or anyone else until I'd gotten some good sleep.

You can read the Arizona Daily Sun article, Search Team Aids Overdue Hikers, Stranded Climbers, about this and other recent SAR team calls, including some reader comments that follow.

The SAR I Missed While On Vacation

Not that I'm sorry we went! Heck no. We had a great time hiking and taking a scenic train ride in Colorado (all of which you can read about here ... and here ... and here, if you want), but I'm always curious to know what goes on with the Search & Rescue team while I'm away. Yes, I'm a nosy girl.

So, when I got back to Flagstaff late Saturday night, June 20th, I couldn't resist calling the SAR line and listening to the last recorded message. It was from Friday evening around 8pm--a call-out regarding an overdue, juvenile mountain biker. But I didn't read anything in the newspaper about such a search in the days that followed and haven't heard anything from my teammates, so I'm wondering if that situation resolved itself.

I did, however, see a couple of other SAR-related news stories in previous issues of the Arizona Daily Sun, including Body Recovered From Oak Creek Canyon (which I'm assuming some of our tech team members were involved with) and Searching Dangerous Depths, the latter about the special new (and expensive!) camera the Sheriff's Department recently acquired that can be lowered into deep, confined spaces. In this case, it was used to continue the search for German physicist Reinhard Kirchner, who disappeared in the Hell Hole Bend area of the Little Colorado river back in April, 2007. But nothing but rattlesnakes were found in the particular sink hole that was searched last week.

I know I also missed some Rock Rescue Academy training while I was away, but I don't know exactly what or how much. Kindly, one of my experienced teammates emailed me and offered to get together with me next week sometime to do some rope work, so that should help refresh my memory of what I've already learned and maybe even catch up a little. He tells me the next tech training will be on July 25th, so I'll have a little time to practice before then ... which is right before I go away again for two weeks and three weekends, when Steve and I will be canoe-camping in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota and doing some hiking in the North Country too.

Found

Now that this is in the news, I can tell you that the remains of a man our team and others searched for for ten days in January and again in March of this year, have been located.

I'm referring to the case of Mark Russell Irby, who disappeared from his home in rural Forest Lakes, Arizona, during what was supposed to be a short ATV ride on "The Loop" around the subdivision--something he often did--before he and his wife would return to their home in the city later that morning.

Mr. Irby, last seen wearing a denim shirt, jeans and plastic "Croc" shoes, was not dressed for an extended ride in those winter conditions, and there was no less than 3 feet of snow in the area at the time.

The initial search involved 1,800 hours of manpower on foot and 20 hours by air. No tracks or clues were found.

I wrote about the ongoing, extensive search in January:

1/4/09: 48 Hours And Counting

1/11/09: Where Is Mark?

And again in March, when his ATV was located about 10 miles from his home:

3/17/09: Three Ongoing Searches

And these are some of the latest news reports from the past few days:

From the Arizona Daily Sun: Body Of Missing ATV Rider From Valley Found

From ABC15.com: Body of man missing for months found in Northern Arizona

Here are a series of news releases about this search, from the day after Mr. Irby went missing through the day his remains were located along the shore of Chevelon Canyon Lake: From Project Jason, Assistance for Families of the Missing

I'm waiting to see if more information is released to the public about this case. If I see anything new, I'll post it here. In the meantime, I'm thinking back on the whole thing--what I know of it, anyway--and saying to myself, "I just don't get it." How did he get so far from home?

I feel really sad for Mr. Irby and for his family and friends. I met some of them during the search and really wanted this to, somehow, have a positive outcome. But I'm glad that at least no one has to wonder "Where is Mark?" anymore.

Eleven Hours Of Sleep And I'm Back On Track

That's what it took to make me feel human again. I've been running on fumes lately.

First it was the 3am page on Saturday morning. I'd been asleep, to some degree at least, for three hours. When the pager went off, I was jolted awake but just lay there, pondering what to do. At 8am, I was supposed to meet some of my teammates for the next phase of the Rock Rescue Academy, so maybe I'd skip this call. But, of course, I had to phone in to see what was going on: four overdue hikers, who'd left at 4pm to walk a moderate, three-mile trail. I'd say they were overdue!

And I was still laying there in the dark when the pager went off a second time about ten minutes later. I checked the code, thinking perhaps it was a 10-22 (a cancellation), but no, it was another try. Must not be getting much of a response, I figured. And sure enough, when I called the SAR number again, I heard the identical message, and, this time, left a message of my own. After testing my voice, which doesn't always work well when I'm awakened suddenly in the middle of the night, I think I mumbled something like, "This is Deb Lauman. I'm not sure what to do because of tech practice later today, but I'm responding." And as I was getting dressed for the mission, the pager went off a third time. I called in and heard a modified message from our Coordinator, stating that this mission "superceded" the technical rescue training.

About an hour and a half later, six of us were en route to the Blue Ridge area when the four hikers were located by a deputy. So we made our U-turn and headed back, taking it easy so as to avoid a collision with an elk. They were everywhere in early morning hours--hundreds of them, grazing on the huge meadow that is Lower Lake Mary (unless it happens to have water in it, which is rather rare). They were also grazing along the road, standing in the road and running across it. I double-checked my seatbelt and, from the back seat, kept my eyes peeled for large mammals.

So Rock Rescue Academy (tech training) was back on. By the time I got home, I had just over two hours until I'd have to return to the SAR building. I figured it would be less painful to go with no sleep than try to take a short nap, so I walked my dog then played around on the computer until it was time to go. Soon, I was loading my gear into a SAR vehicle for the ride to the area where we'd be practicing.

At 5:30pm, I was home again after eight hours of training. During the field session, we had put together what we'd learned about lowering, raising, and belaying into a working system, each of us rotating between stations, including command, main line, belay, edge, safety and attendant, with the attendant being the one who went over the edge. We practiced both "cold changeovers," when a lowering system is changed to a raising system while the attendant is securely on the ground below, and "hot changeovers," where the attendant is mid-face and must be raised back up. These skills took a good bit of concentration on my part, especially being so sleepy, and, needless to say, I was pretty well spent by the time training was over.

So that was Saturday. On Sunday, we had another call-out, this one for a rescue on Mt. Humphreys. So back to the SAR building I went and then up a mountain, helping carry the wheel for the litter up an off-trail route. But we accidentally went a bit out of our way when we headed too far east and missed the intersection with the Humphreys Trail.

After correcting for our mistake and just as we were getting close to the patient's location at somewhere around 11,000 feet, we saw that the short-haul attempt was successful. Which was a very good thing. Given the subject's location on a steep, boulder-covered slope at the site of an old plane crash, and with the number of people we had between SAR personnel and Guardian medics, it would have been a very long and difficult litter-carry. So we all breathed a sigh of relief as we watched the helicopter fly off with the patient and our short-haul certified Coordinator at the end of a long rope. Following a brief break, we turned around to bushwhack our way back down.

When the mission was over, my day wasn't. Not until about 11pm, when I finally crawled into bed, pulled the blankets over my head and didn't budge until my dog insisted on going outside at 10:00 the next morning.

Our New SAR Building

We've finally moved! And that's a good thing in a number of ways.

For me, personally, I now have no more than a 10-minute drive (less if it's in the middle of the night and there's no traffic) from home to the building. That's not the case for some team members who live on the far east side of town, but I think the new location is better for more of us than not.

Also, we now have a lot more space, which will make moving things around and getting ready to head out for a mission much easier. And I'll be interested to see if our response time gets better. For one thing, the new building is right behind the Sheriff's office and the rest of the Law Enforcement complex, so we'll no longer have the equipment and SAR vehicles at one end of town and our coordinators at the other. There's also much more room for doing some practicing, like we did a few nights ago for the Rock Rescue Academy.

There's still much needed for the new building, not to mention the funds to pay for it, like a bay door (or is it two?), some interior block walls, plumbing and a bathroom, the completion of the offices and meeting room, etc. But at least we're now able to occupy the facility.

And here are a few photos:





If you look at the photos in my last entry, taken in our old SAR building (aka "the 105" or "SAR garage") while my teammates and I were practicing ascending, you can get a sense of the difference.