Being a Backer -- A Search Near Wapatki

View of the San Francisco Peaks from Wapatki National Monument

The first call-out happened not long after I'd gone to bed. It was sleeting, and the roads were icy. Earlier that evening, I'd been reading online about lots of accidents in the area, and I knew my car was not adequate for driving in those conditions. So I decided to stay home. That's never an easy decision for me.

At 5:45 the next morning, another call-out came through for a second operational period. The missing person hadn't been located during the hasty search overnight. Knowing I really didn't want to miss another call, my boyfriend kindly offered to drive me to the SAR building in his truck. Good thing, because the roads were still very icy.

As I was getting ready for this winter weather mission, my phone rang again. It was our K9 handler, Cindy, asking if I'd be her backer as I've done a number of times now. I didn't hesitate. I really enjoy working with Cindy and her dogs. We'd meet at the SAR building and head out to the search area as quickly as possible--before the rest of the team--to get a head start, to let the dogs search before there were others in the area.

When I'm backing the K9 team, I'm responsible for navigation and radio communication, while I help Cindy keep an eye on the dogs (she often uses all three of her search dogs at the same time) and doing my own searching. I also help Cindy decide the best way to search our assigned area. Sometimes, the Incident Commander asks us what we think the best area and search strategy would be, so we put our heads together and hash out the ideas, taking into account wind direction (related to the dogs' ability to scent a subject), terrain, and what we know about the missing person's actions and the point last seen (PLS).

In this case, we were searching for a missing woodcutter. He'd disappeared around 4:30pm the day before, walking away from his two companions during very cold and windy conditions. It had gotten even colder with precipitation overnight. The other two men, who hadn't seen their friend's direction of travel when he wandered away, stayed in the area for a while, searching, then left and called for assistance.

So we knew basically where to begin--the general area along a Forest Service road on BLM land, just outside of Wapatki National Monument--but not a specific point. No footprints had been found by trackers during the hasty search overnight, so still no direction of travel had been determined. The area is mostly cinder-covered with lots of pinon pine and juniper (much more than what's shown in the photo above). Cindy and I noted that our own footprints were very clear in the cinders, so we knew that the subject's would be as well.

Cindy tested the wind direction with her little bottle of baby powder. She does this frequently as we search with the dogs, since wind direction can change quickly. We also discussed where to search and what to use as boundaries in this mostly very open area. (We noted power lines both on the map and in the field, along with two-track roads we could use. We would also use random GPS coordinates to create the area for our grid search.) At this point, given what we knew, we agreed that walking tight grids would be best ... in case the subject were unresponsive (ie. due to hypothermia or worse).

As we were getting our packs together and putting the harnesses with GPSes on the dogs, word came in over the radio that the missing subject had JUST called a family member on his cell phone, saying he was very cold and trying to walk towards Wapatki Road. He was alive! Unfortunately, the phone call was dropped and no further contact had been made. Cell service was very sketchy out there, and I had none at all.

Wapatki Road surrounds the area in a big loop. So the subject could have been walking in any direction towards this "catch feature." And we still had no idea where he was, so his distance from the road could potentially have been a very long way. But now that we knew he was alive AND moving, Cindy and I agreed to make our grid passes with the dogs much wider.

Based on wind direction and given the area the DPS helicopter had been flying over as we'd been en route and getting ready, we decided on the area we'd search. We got moving at a pretty good clip, the dogs running and weaving, working excitedly. Cindy and I called and whistled for the subject as we watched the dogs for any sign they were working scent.

I glanced at my GPS now and then, to make sure we were making fairly parallel grids, letting Cindy know if she should angle a bit more to the left or right. I stayed a bit behind her and several paces to her side, keeping downwind of the dogs so my scent wouldn't interfere. I also let Cindy know when it was time to turn around for the next pass.

After about two hours of searching in long, wide grids and yelling and whistling, I called in to base. We'd not heard any radio traffic for a long while. Had any additional contact been made with the subject? Were the other searchers in the area yet?

As a matter of fact, the reply was: "The subject has been located. You can return to base."

It was a lengthy walk from our current location back to our vehicle, and I now noticed how tiring walking on cinders was. (I don't notice fatigue as much when I'm actually searching.) The dogs, though, were still full of energy and still searching for human scent on the way back. To them, it's all a fun game.

When we met back up with IC, we learned that the subject had been found along a Forest Service road (not paved Wapatki Road) a good distance away from the area we'd been searching and in a direction the dogs could not have detected his scent on the wind. Still, we felt we'd done the best we could and made a good strategy decision based on what we'd known--which wasn't much--when we'd begun searching. We were glad we'd had a chance to work together again.

Recent SAR Activity

I haven't posted in awhile, but that's not for lack of SAR activity. Although it's been slower than last year at this time when it comes to call-outs, there have been missions lately. It's just that, unfortunately for a writer-type like me, there have been a couple of recent missions I've participated in that I'm not able to write about due to their ongoing and, you might say, legally sensitive nature.


BUT ... I can tell you about a few other missions, none of which I've been able to respond to myself. Two of those calls happened Wednesday, as I sat here with a nasty head cold and sore throat. Woe is me. So, my teammates filled me in....

A Bitter Cold Search on the North Rim

This search occurred a few days before Christmas. The call out, which came at 3am, was about a track hoe driver who didn't return from moving his machine from one area to another near the North Rim of Grand Canyon. Searchers towed the team's snowcat and four snowmobiles a few hours from Flagstaff to Jacob Lake and then another 20 miles toward the Grand Canyon on Highway 67. They stopped at a side road the missing subject was reportedly on and sent in the 'cat with the snowmobiles on standby. In about a mile, the 'cat found the track hoe with the driver inside - cold but otherwise in good shape. He had gotten low on fuel and stopped after midnight.

SAR volunteers were then told two of the subject's fellow employees had taken a Jeep to go look for him, so when the DPS helicopter arrived on scene, our Coordinator directed the aircraft to look for their vehicle. The crew spotted the unoccupied vehicle and one subject a few miles away, walking toward the track hoe, so SAR volunteers in the snowcat went back in and picked him up. Turns out, he was the only one in the Jeep. It was bitterly cold out there - below zero with the wind chill - so searchers were glad to wrap things up.

A Joint Search for a Missing Hiker in Yavapai County

At 6am on the morning of Wednesday, December 28th, our technical/mountain rescue team was called to assist the Yavapai County team with a search for an overdue 21-year-old hiker, last seen on Tuesday at around noon in steep, rugged terrain near the Village of Oak Creek.

That hiker was Mahdi Harrizi, visiting the area with his family from New York. Mahdi's mother called for help at about 4pm on Tuesday, after her son called her on his cell phone, saying he was stranded on a ledge near Castle Rock. According to reports, Mahdi had taken a trail from behind the resort where they were staying. At the time his mother made the call to authorities, she had been able to see him up at the top of the mountain.

Searchers from Yavapai County arrived on scene soon after, just as the sun was setting, but Sheriff's Deputies were unable to get a GPS coordinate on Mahdi's cell phone because of the remote location. Ground searchers and a Department of Public Safety helicopter crew looked for Mahdi through the night and then called Coconino County SAR for assistance.

From what I heard, just after the DPS helicopter dropped off more technical rescue SAR members at the top of the mountain at about 11:15am on Wednesday and were flying off, the crew spotted Mahdi's body between a sheer cliff and some shrubs. Sheriff’s officials stated that Harrizi apparently fell about 150 feet, and he may have fallen shortly after his conversation with his mother.

Here are a couple of photos submitted by one of my teammates who was at the top of the mountain....

c. 2011 All Rights Reserved

c. 2011 All Rights Reserved

Read: Hiker Killed in 150-Foot Fall

From One Mission to Another

At 4pm on the 28th, we received another call-out. This was another mission down in Sedona, for a stranded climber. Additional technical rescue team members as well as General SAR were asked to respond, to assist the other tech team members already en route from the day's first mission to the next.

I don't yet have any details about what happened, but I'll fill in you once I do.

And now that I'm just about over this creeping crud I've had for several days, I've got my SAR gear ready to respond if ... well, when ... we get another call.

******
Looking for other Search and Rescue blogs to read?  I've put together a pretty long list of them here. And please let me know if I've missed any others.

Coconino County Sheriff's SAR Celebrates It's New Home with a Grand Opening

On Saturday, December 10th, a gathering of Search and Rescue volunteers, Sheriff's Office personnel, folks from the Department of Public Safety, Guardian Medical Transport, local fire departments, the Park Service and Forest Service, Sheriff's Posse volunteers, members of the County Board of Supervisors, friends and family and members of the public, celebrated the Grand Opening of the new Coconino County Sheriff's Search and Rescue facility, which is located behind the Law Enforcement complex in Flagstaff.

This new building houses all of our team's Search and Rescue equipment, including our technical rescue gear, snow & ice and medical equipment, a fleet of snowmobiles and ATVs, a snow cat and other Search and Rescue vehicles, communications equipment, water rescue equipment and more. The facility now also brings our meetings, trainings and coordination under that same roof. This means more efficiency and even faster response times, since the team will no longer be operating between this new building and the main law enforcement building across the parking lot.

According to yesterday's article in the Arizona Daily Sun, construction on the new Search and Rescue facility began back in 2004, when the pavement was first poured. But that construction stalled soon afterward when financing dried up, and the actual structure wasn't completed until 2008. At that time, our team was able to move the equipment from its long-standing location on the east side of town at the County yard, making our response to call-outs more convenient.

From that point until just a few days ago, however, we'd been operating out of a shell of a building, with our Coordinator and map-printing capabilities over in the Sheriff's Office, which meant that preparing to deploy for a mission was what you might call a  fragmented operation. Not so any longer, thanks to additional funding of this project by the County Board of Supervisors enabling the completion of the administrative side of the building. There's still work to be done, including the installation of a sixth bay door, a mezzanine, a climbing wall for training, and the paving of the exterior parking area, but that will happen over time.

On Saturday, SAR members were on hand to answer questions about our equipment--including a new Humvee from the Arizona National Guard--and our training program. Lunch was followed by comments from Sheriff Bill Pribil, members of the Board of Supervisors, State Representative Paul Gosar, and our team Captain, Andrew Moore, and then a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Here are some photos from the event....

The new sign

Our snow cat, some quads, and our new Hummer in the back

A gift from the National Guard

The huge bay where we store team equipment and vehicles.

Technical rescue and snow & ice equipment (and a rescue dummy)

The new communications room

The new meeting and training room with flat screen monitors

The kitchen, for events and to feed volunteers during big incidents

Our team captain cuts the ribbon as the Sheriff and many others look on

A Passing Motorist Brings A Search to a Close

The man we were looking for had been missing for three days, having failed to show up at a prearranged rendezvous time after another of his many camping and "walkabout" trips in this area he knew well. I know I wasn't alone in my assumption that he wasn't "just" lost.

Hypothermia was a possibility, though. It had rained some in the past couple of days, and the subject apparently wasn't well prepared for the cold, wet weather. Injury was, of course, another possible scenario as was a potential miscommunication with the family member who'd gone back to get him on Saturday. Based on information we were given in our briefing prior to starting the search, we had reason to believe this may have been the case--that he had decided to stay out there longer but failed to contact his ride about his change of plans. Given the weather, though, and the fact that he wasn't properly equipped, our SAR Coordinator decided to call out the team to look for him sooner than later.

The subject had also made prior statements about taking his own life, so that too was on our minds.

We had been divided into teams of two, in this case one experienced member with one new member as the split was pretty much down the middle. It was good to see so many new SAR teammates from the latest academy come out for the search.

We were all in or on vehicles--SUVs, trucks, quads and the UTV--slowly driving unpaved roads and two-tracks, looking for the missing man's campsite and any other clues that might be associated with him, not to mention the man himself. We'd been told he preferred to stick to walking roads as opposed to traveling cross-country, so that's what we were starting with. As always, we were scanning the landscape and looking for any sign of tracks or clues, hoping to get a direction of travel. The team did find a number of things--the campsite, prints, a jacket--which turned out to be related to our subject.

But the search lasted only a couple of hours from the time we reached the area and deployed.  A 9-1-1 call from a motorist on westbound I-40 about 21 miles east of Flagstaff, several miles from where we'd begun our search at the man's last known location, reported seeing what she thought was a body hanging from a billboard. It was difficult to see from the highway, so I'm thinking the person who spotted the lower portion of the man's body behind the billboard was an observant passenger.

Soon, Sheriff's deputies and SAR personnel confirmed the body as that of 39-year-old Stephen Dale Sterling, bringing our search to an end. (See the story in the Arizona Daily Sun.)

Searching For Justin

With my left set of fingertips gripping a tiny, sharp ridge of (hopefully) embedded volcanic rock above me, my left foot perched on a small piece of (hopefully) embedded rock below, and my free hand and foot groping for something solid, I tentatively glanced down over my left shoulder. I decided there was no way I could safely go back the way I'd just come up, and I was doubtful about moving on. The steep wall of the canyon was covered in loose cinder, and I couldn't know for sure if the pieces of rock I wasn't quite able to reach were loose or solidly attached. Judge incorrectly or make a wrong move, and I was going for a fast ride down that cinder slide and over that ledge down there. That's what I was envisioning, anyway.

Crap. Not the kind of pickle I like to find myself in. And my two more confident teammates knew it. Every other word of mine was a bad one at that point.

So, you see, we'd completed our assignment, having been inserted into the Little Colorado River gorge by helicopter several hours earlier, exiting the DPS aircraft as the rotors continued to spin and kick up sand. We'd searched the far side of the river, which was flowing pretty well at the time, overlapping the point where another team had been inserted further upstream. We then forded the river at a wide, shallow (and slippery) area, and searched the opposite bank back the way we'd come. We'd been careful to look at piles of river debris from past flooding and kept an eye on the mud and shallow parts of the river for anything unusual that might be sticking out. We'd searched the shores, including small caves and crevices and vegetation that could potentially catch and hide human remains.

We were looking for any sign of 40-year-old Justin Brian Hall, an avid outdoorsman, former Appalachian Trail thru-hiker, and climber, who'd disappeared from a friend's home, where he'd been house-sitting in the very rural area near Sheba Crater and the border of the Navajo Reservation more than a month earlier. This was a continuation of the ongoing search, which had already extensively covered a one-mile radius around the house and well beyond, following up on tips and suggestions from locals and family and friends. Nothing at all had turned up that would indicate a destination or direction of travel.

This is the house where Justin had been staying....

Now searching about 10 miles (as the crow flies) from Justin's last known location, where his vehicle and belongings remained, ground teams were covering several miles along the Little Colorado River. A K9 team, with myself as one of the backers, had already searched the area just below and partway up Grand Falls at an earlier date, but it was being searched again on this day. We were looking for not only human remains but possibly a couple of items believed to be in Justin's possession at the house but yet unaccounted for, as well as any type of clue or sign that could potentially be linked to him. We found nothing.

Here are a couple of photos from our earlier search at Grand Falls with the dogs....

This is us searching partway up the falls, on a ledge.

Today, by the time our field team of three returned to the place we'd been dropped off at the bottom of the canyon several miles downstream from Grand Falls, the DPS crew had been reassigned and left the area. So our options were to climb out on our own or ... yeah, that was about it. We could do that either somewhere near where we were, or turn around and hike all the way back to Grand Falls, where we knew there was a trail to the rim. Or perhaps find a good place to climb out along the way.

We chose to find a route near where we were, but, looking up, it was difficult to tell how it would go. For the most part, the climb turned out to be steep (obviously) and the rocks and sparse vegetation were sharp, but it was otherwise okay ... except for a couple of spots like the one I described above, where I was temporarily frozen. And stopping one's momentum in sketchy spots doesn't exactly help matters. I could feel myself slipping every second I stayed in place.

Thankfully, my teammates stationed themselves in spots below and above me that gave me just enough confidence to move from those precarious locations.  After anchoring himself as best he could, one of my companions offered me an outstretched wrist to reach for in case I needed it (which thankfully I didn't). My feet slipped as I practically threw myself across to the closest stable spot.

Eventually, the climb turned into a heart-pounding, steep scramble up a volcanic scree slope, but the scary stuff was over. Here's Keith at the top of the cinder slope....

Once at the top, we began walking towards base as we waited for someone to reach us by vehicle for a ride back.

********

Since that day about two weeks or so ago, the team hasn't been called upon again to search for Justin, who is still missing and very much missed by his family, many of whom are back east.

And here are two photos of Grand Falls, the top one taken on the day I just described. It was running quite a bit more than it had been about 10 days earlier, when I'd gone there to search with the K9 team. The lower photo was taken during spring runoff a few years ago. When Justin Hall went missing in mid-September, the Little Colorado was flowing at a much higher level than it was in the upper photo but not as much as the lower....

To see a photo of Justin Brian Hall, see the Coconino County Sheriff's press release.

A Facebook page has been set up as well. See: Missing Justin HALL

Back in 30 Minutes Turns Into Back in 18 Hours

She left her boyfriend's house at 9:30 in the morning, saying she was going for a short walk to "the Point" and would be back in half an hour. ("The Point" referred to a known location not far from the house.) At about 7:00 that night, our team was called to go look for her. A witness's likely sighting of the subject at about that time gave SAR a place to begin the search, up on Anderson Mesa near the Observatory.

This was one of those cases in which the missing person wasn't necessarily lost and might not want to be found. But we couldn't be sure of that, of course, and there was always the possibility, even if that were the case, she may have gotten injured or otherwise into trouble out there. So the search began, first with the K9 team sweeping the area and other searchers driving Forest Service roads and two-tracks. After the dogs had a chance to search the perimeter of the "point last seen" without others on foot contaminating the area, two of us set out on the Arizona Trail.

My search partner and I hiked more than 8 miles that night, tracking, calling the subject's name, scanning the moonlit surroundings with our headlamps. But all we heard in response to our calls were the elk bugling (which sometimes sounded like talking, sometimes crying and sometimes all sorts of other things) and all we saw in the beams of our headlamps were the glowing eyes of critters and the white stripes on four skunk tails, two of which went up in alarm. We're even quite sure that one set of moving eyes was a mountain lion. After a while, moonlit stumps began to look like human forms.

There wasn't much traffic over the radio that night other than an occasional status (or welfare) check by incident command with a "Code 4" (or "we're okay") response and a current location from the field team being called. Other than the vocal elk and the infrequent, distant sound of a vehicle passing on Lake Mary Rd., it was a quiet night.

Tired from more than eight miles of walking on rocky trail and even rockier Forest Service Roads, my partner and I walked back into base at about 1:30a.m., where we found the K9 team and other searchers. Negative contact all around. We were dismissed from duty, and home we went, expecting another call-out for fresh searchers to come by 4am.

But that call never came.  We later learned that the missing woman had shown up back at her boyfriend's house at 3:30am.

Oh well. It was pretty cool being out there at night ... even IF we were being stalked by a mountain lion. I doubt I'd ever wake up, comfortable in my bed in the middle of the night, and say, "Hey, I think I'll go for a moonlight hike on Anderson Mesa." So this search for someone who apparently wasn't in distress at least got me some exercise and a neat outdoor experience. Just glad it didn't get me sprayed by a skunk.

And in other Coconino County SAR news....

The team has been busy with other recent missions, including a body recovery at Midgley Bridge in Oak Creek Canyon near Sedona. In this case, the victim was a 30-year-old California woman whose body was discovered by two hikers. I believe this is the fourth recovery at Midgley Bridge this year.

The team also spent a couple of days out near Sheba Crater, searching for a man missing for more than a month. Justin Brian Hall, 40, was last seen on Sept. 7th at a home on Leupp Road near milepost 442, just west of the Navajo Reservation. He was housesitting for a friend at the time, and his vehicles and belongings were found at that home. Hall is said to be an experienced outdoorsman, an avid hiker and a rock-climbing enthusiast.

While this search was underway, other members of the team participated in an evidence search near Seligman.

Search & Rescue volunteers also assisted with parking and traffic control at the funeral of Flagstaff Police Chief Brent Cooper who died unexpectedly on Sunday morning, October 9th, while jogging with his loyal dog, Winston, on Purple Sage Rd. near Fort Tuthill. Winston remained with the Chief until he was found that afternoon. Chief Cooper served with the department for 33-years.

And, most recently, five members of the technical rescue team assisted a stranded hiker above "the Waterfall" on Mt. Elden. 

Missing at The Wave

I'm leaning over the steering wheel, fighting the sleepies, while my teammate snoozes in the passenger seat. (Looks like he's going to have a stiff neck when he wakes up.) But no, I'm not scribbling with one hand while driving with the other; I'm composing a blog post in my head to help me stay awake.

Let's see, I haven't slept in (calculating...) about 30 hours, and we've still got a few hours left to go before we get back to Flagstaff. I probably should pull over somewhere and do a wake-up jig.

Anyway, last night -- or was it the day before? No, it was last night. So I had just finished watching a movie -- can't even remember which one right now -- and crawled into bed when the text message came in: "Missing hiker at The Wave, near the Utah border. Respond to the SAR building to depart at 1am."

A minute or so later, the voice mail came through. By then, I'd decided to go, so I called in and left my "Number 6-2-0, Deb Lauman responding" message. Turned out that just two other team members responded to the call-out, one of whom is not really a hiker anymore. But he did come along to accompany our Coordinator in his vehicle and help him drive and assist with Incident Command. No one else responded after the second and third call-outs.

So northward the four of us went in our two vehicles, with Dennis and me in the pick-up full of tech gear, just in case. (We take technical rescue equipment and the Stokes litter on all missions.) It was still dark when we turned onto House Rock Valley Rd. and bumped our way along to the trailhead for The Wave and Buckskin Gulch (the world's longest slot canyon). I'd been there before, a couple of years ago. Dennis had been there several years before that.

Okay, I admit it; I did nod off a bit on the ride up, since I was the passenger.

Anyhow ... the missing hiker we were looking for was a 70-year-old man -- a geologist who must have been in heaven in this natural wonder of an area when he told his three companions he was going from The Wave over to the nearby Wave II formation and would be back in 15 minutes. Four hours later, apparently, his friends decided to go look for him. That was yesterday afternoon.

So, here's a picture of the Wave II. Pretty cool, huh?

We were given a description of what the man was wearing (which turned out to be incorrect, actually), and, as the sun was beginning to peek over the horizon, the two of us searchers started off down the wash for the three-mile hike to The Wave and the subject's "last known point" (LKP).

We were searching and calling along the way, of course, and we detoured a bit to a slot canyon, where we actually made voice contact with a man we couldn't see.

"Hello!" we called.
"Hello?" he answered. He sounded cautious.
"Are you [insert subject's name]?" Dennis asked.
No response.
"We're with Search and Rescue," I then called down into the canyon. "We're looking for [subject]."
No response.
"Are you the lost person we're looking for?"
"We're just hiking," came the man's reply from the canyon.

And that was it. He didn't answer us again. Hmm. Might have been someone (or two people maybe, because he had said "we") out there without the required permit. Maybe that's why he'd been reluctant to talk to us.

And onward Dennis and I went, climbing up and over and around rock formations and trudging across sand. It had quickly gone from very chilly to very hot, and I made a big dent in my water supply early on.

When we got close to The Wave, at the base of the sand dune we'd have to climb to get up there, we decided to first search a slot canyon to the west of The Wave and below the Wave II. We figured that the likelihood of the missing hiker actually being at either formation was slim, given that there were already other people at those locations who'd have run into him. (We'd seen them along the route and talked to a few of them.) We also wondered if perhaps the subject had fallen into the canyon we were about to search, since there certainly are fall hazards. So we turned west and entered the narrow canyon to search from below.

Here's a glimpse of that canyon. The Wave II was way up above, to the left...

In the meantime, a fixed-wing aircraft, flown by the Kane County, UT, SAR Coordinator was searching high overhead. And then a DPS helicopter arrived to fly lower than the plane. We heard the rotors nearby as we made our way further into the canyon.

Eventually, Dennis and I got cliffed-out in the canyon and it was too sketchy to go up and around to the side in order to continue on. So we decided to go back out to that sand dune below The Wave, ascend and head over to the Wave II, and then try to get back down into the slot canyon from above, bypassing the obstacle we'd run into. Dennis had done that before, years ago, and he recalled that there was a way to do it safely.

But we didn't quite get that far. After trudging up the sandy incline and across the slickrock "shelf," then down to where we could see our re-entry into the slot canyon, we heard through the static on our radios that the subject had been located by the helicopter crew, and they'd soon be landing to pick him up.

Turns out, the missing hiker was up, not down -- that somehow he'd scrambled to the top of the mesa above The Wave and was perhaps stuck up there. I really don't know exactly how he ended up where he did, when the Wave II is so easy to find when coming from The Wave. (Must have gone walk-about to explore some more and then gotten himself misplaced.) In any case, he was in good shape -- in part thanks to water pockets he'd been able to drink from -- and good spirits, as were his three friends when hot and tired Dennis and I arrived back at base.

And now I'm really looking forward to a hot shower. The soft bed will have to wait awhile, though, because as tired as I am, I can never seem to sleep in the middle of the day. I'll just be glad to get out of this truck.
 

Welcoming New Team Members and Saying Goodbye to Another

The Search & Rescue Academy is underway, with 18 new members taking classes in skills such as Personal Safety, Map and Compass, GPS navigation, ATV operation, and Tracking, with a mock search to be held at the end of the two-month training.  Once students have completed the Academy, including two  Incident Command System tests, they'll be added to the call-out list and be eligible to respond to missions.

Sadly, as we welcome new members to the Coconino County Sheriff's Search and Rescue team, we're also mourning the loss of another -- a four-legged team member named Nitro. Nitro, whose nickname was Peedles, was the oldest and most experienced of handler Cindy McArthur's four SAR dogs, and he did his job enthusiastically and with energy till the day before he suddenly succumbed to previously undetected liver cancer earlier this month. Nitro was ten years old.

A NASAR-certified search dog cross-trained in area search (for live subjects) and HRD (Human Remains Detection), Nitro had three live finds and three HR finds on missions during his career and countless other successful finds during trainings as much as three times per week.

Among his mission finds were an autistic teen, an 83 year-old man with dementia who'd been missing more than 40 hours, the verified location of the scent of human remains in a closet three years after the body had been removed, which led to the killer's arrest, and the location of 8 human bones buried in a pack rat nest. Earlier this year, Nitro located two lost hikers in the San Francisco Peaks and also found a smear of blood on a pair of pants inside a locked trunk, later determined to be human blood through the use of Luminal by the Coconino Sheriff's Office CSI Team. 

Nitro received the Search & Rescue Dog of the Year award in 2005 from the Association of Pet Dog Trainers and, in the same year, the Kingman Police Department Excellence Award for assistance in a homicide case (which he shared with Radar, another of Cindy's search dogs). Nitro also received the Good Gun Foundation Award for Search Dog Unit in 2007.

As Cindy said, "[Nitro] was the best SAR dog any handler could dream for, and I will miss him dearly.  Our SAR unit has lost one of it's most dedicated members."

Having worked with Nitro as Cindy's backer and also as a lost subject for her dogs, I too will miss sweet, loyal Nitro.

******

The Search and Rescue community recently lost another member of its family -- DPS helicopter pilot, Matthew Uhl, who was killed in a car accident on September 20th when the vehicle he was driving was struck head-on by a Ford Explorer moving at a high rate of speed as the driver may have been attempting to pass other vehicles. Matthew Uhl was deceased on scene.

Uhl, a DPS Pilot since 2006, operated the Bell 407 Ranger Air Rescue and was assigned to the DPS Central Air Rescue Unit in Phoenix. At the time of his death, he was en route to cover a shift in Kingman as part of the DPS Western Air Rescue.

On February 20, 2010, Matt Uhl and DPS Officer/Paramedic Eric Tarr rescued 3-year-old Victoria Bensch who had been missing for nearly 15 hours after she wandered away from her Cordes Lakes home.

Uhl was also the pilot who flew the short-haul rescue of the severely injured canyoneer in Insomnia Canyon on August 13th that our team participated in. He will be sorely missed.

See DPS Pilot Killed in Head-On Accident

Body Recovery Call at Bear Canyon Lake

Just catching up on some SAR missions from the past few weeks, including a call for the technical rescue team at about 7:30 on a Sunday morning, for a body recovery -- two, unfortunately -- at Bear Canyon Lake in the Forest Lakes area.  I wasn't able to respond to that call, but a teammate of mine filled me in the next day. This is what he said....

"Six Tech Team members showed up, and because there was rain in the forecast we loaded all the gear in the back of the Suburban instead of the pickup to ensure the rope stayed dry. We were told that an ATV had gone over a cliff, but as with most rescues the initial information is often unreliable, so we weren't sure how this one would unfold.

We finally turned toward Bear Canyon Lake on a what was initially a decent dirt road, but it deteriorated quickly.  When we arrived at the scene we found a group of Forest Service and fire hot shot personnel and the Medical Examiner vehicle.

Below us was an approximately 15-foot deep ravine, with a wrecked ATV and the bodies of two young men in their early 20s lying near it. It's always tragic to see young lives ended much too soon, and I could only imagine the pain the families were feeling.

We realized we could walk to the scene from the edges of the ravine, so with the help of the hot shots we  transported them up to the road. The Forest Service folks told us this was the 6th fatal ATV accident this year in the Forest Lakes area.

With our mission complete, we headed back on the dirt road, where  the suburban suddenly stopped running. We ended up having to load all the gear into the pickup and left the disabled suburban with [our Coordinator and one team member], who waited for the tow truck. When we arrived back at the building we were all stiff -- not from the mission but from the 5-1/2 hour drive.

For us the mission was complete. For the families of the victims, the agony of their loss was just beginning."

A Training Hike & Abandoned Camp in West Fork Canyon -- and other SAR news

There are certain places within the county that our team is called to time and time again, and, over time, patterns begin to emerge. People tend to get into pickles often in the same places and under similar circumstances. So it's a good idea for those in Search and Rescue to familiarize themselves with these popular "people-in-pickles" spots, so when we're called upon to go find the lost and assist the injured, we know what we're getting into and where we're going.

I'd never hiked into West Fork Canyon from the top, so this training hike was a good opportunity for me to check it out. Four of us, led by assistant SAR Coordinator, Dave, who's very familiar with the area from many years of exploring by foot and flying over it as a helicopter medic, would hike and boulder in at least 2.5 miles to the junction of West Fork Canyon and Casner Cabin Draw, which is a place where hikers often go astray when thru-hiking West Fork from below. Many of those hikers don't carry maps and end up going up Casner Cabin Draw instead of West Fork. In Casner Cabin Draw, they come to a choke stone and can go no further. Then they're confused, tired, and darkness overtakes them in the rugged canyon. Eventually, they're reported overdue by a friend or family member when they fail to show up by the expected time (and often then some), and SAR is called.

In addition to familiarizing ourselves with the canyon, we had another job to do on this training mission: we'd be investigating an abandoned campsite that had been spotted first by air during an earlier mission and then briefly checked by two SAR volunteers who'd later hiked in that same night to locate five overdue hikers (with no connection to that campsite).

It was a warm morning, but I resisted the urge to zip off the bottom halves of my convertible pants because I knew the canyon would be thick with vegetation and there would be plenty of blowdowns to crawl under and over. And I was right. Had I been wearing just the shorts, I would have gotten even more scratched up.

The going was slow, not only because of the absence of trail, the countless opportunities to sprain or break an ankle, and the heat, but also because the canyon is so beautiful. We kept stopping to look around and appreciate how pretty it is.

As we hiked further, the canyon narrowed and the walls went higher. Wildflowers were blooming, hummingbirds were buzzing, and one pretty snake (non-poisonous) slithered past us after we disturbed its snooze in the shade of a rock. We saw bear scat but no bear. Dave told us about hiking this canyon with his dad, when he was a boy. He also told us how he and a friend carried out (without a litter, so literally carried) another friend who became seriously ill on their hike.

As we went, we'd periodically pause to guess where on our topographic maps we were. We'd all look around at the terrain and compare it to the contours on the map and point out our guesses to Dave, who'd guess as well. Then I'd map the coordinates from my GPS and see who'd come closest. It was a good exercise and a fun challenge. It was also fun to get it right!


After maneuvering our way through a section of large boulders, we came to the junction of the two canyons, also the location of the abandoned campsite. To me, it looked as if a party of perhaps as many as three people had decided, hey, let's try this backpacking thing, gone to Walmart and bought tents, sleeping pads and other not-so-pricy gear, some of which was more suited for car-camping than backpacking, and set off on their first overnight hike. Then, after struggling through that rugged canyon with all that STUFF on their backs, including some new clothes and new shoes, decided the next morning that all that shlepping wasn't as fun as they'd expected. So they took only the bare minimum for the hike out and left the rest. They'd left yucky garbage, deoderant and cologne behind, too.

We packed out their trash, usable and not.

At that point, we considered whether or not to add about 2.5 more miles to our already 5-mile round-trip hike to go up Casner Cabin Draw to the choke stone. But the thunder was rumbling loudly by then, and it was already later than we'd anticipated, so we decided to head back.

It was a great day and a useful reconnaissance mission. The next time we get a call for overdue hikers in West Fork, I'll know more than just the first few easy miles from the bottom.

And in other Coconino County Search and Rescue news....

Here's a really good article with photos about that recent (VERY) technical rescue in Insomnia Canyon, a tributary of West Fork: Climber Miraculously Survives 140-Foot Fall

And I received a mission report from my teammate, who responded to the call for a litter evacuation of an injured hiker on the Humphreys Trail. He wrote:

"I left at 6:30 am this morning to get a backpacking permit at the Grand Canyon, then proceeded to do a 5 mile day hike on the Hermit trail. About 30 minutes after I got back, there was the callout for the Humphreys litter carry. I responded directly to Snow Bowl [with another team member], and we both were transported by the Snow Bowl UTV to the trailhead. By this time, [a second callout was made]. We arrived at the patient, and eight rescuers including a young hiker who volunteered to help, and Flag Fire and Guardian personnel 200 yards beyond the sign-in box. [The patient] was already packaged in their litter and was in obvious pain with an injured arm and ankle due to a fall. I called [our coordinator], who had not yet arrived on scene, and let him know we had it covered, and we slowly brought [the patient] down, stopping to administer Morphine 3 times. We loaded her on the back of the Snowbowl UTV and steadied the litter as it drove down slowly. When we got back to the parking lot, there were more than 6 SAR members waiting.  Fortunately it was a short rescue, because I was pretty worn out."

An Out-of-County Search -- Coconino SAR Assists in Apache County

It was late on the night of our monthly general SAR meeting when our Coordinator announced that Apache County was requesting our assistance with the search for a missing hiker. They were asking us to respond to their Incident Command the next morning for a two-day stay.

I looked across the room at Cindy, our K9 handler, with the "ya wanna?" question on my face. We'd talked about this search a few days earlier, when she'd gotten a call about it -- a little advance notice that Apache County would probably be asking for her to bring her dogs, all four of which are NASAR-certified and cross-trained in area search (for live subjects) and human remains detection.

I needed to make sure I had someone to watch my own (non-SAR) dog, and I'd had other things I was planning to do in the next couple of days, but I was willing to go if she was. I'd go along as Cindy's backer.

So, we decided to do it. The two of us, four rather large dogs (at least, they seem large when they're all in the same vehicle), and a bunch of gear piled into Cindy's SUV the next morning and headed southeast. This was an area Cindy knew well from her childhood, but I'd only passed through a couple of times.

******

Helping with a SAR mission in a different county is an interesting experience. It's difficult, if not altogether impossible, to leave behind the expectations of how a search will be carried out based on your experience with your own team and the norms you're used to. (Coconino County is fortunate, by the way, to have a full-time Search and Rescue Coordinator. Most counties do not.) As a searcher, though, you report to whoever is in charge, you give your two cents -- your ideas and suggestions -- if asked for, you get your assignment, and you carry out that assignment to the best of your ability. And that's what Cindy and I and four hard-working Golden Retrievers did.

It was a stormy day, and our assignment took us up to 11,400 feet on the open summit of Mt. Baldy, Arizona's second highest peak, and  into the thick trees on the extremely steep slopes surrounding the ridge. I felt the adrenaline rush through my veins each time the thunder seemed to be coming back our way. The rain fell steadily, and we and the dogs were soon soaked and stayed that way for the duration. It was cold up there.

Cindy and her four search dogs near the summit of Mt. Baldy

Searching for scent along the treeline on the Mt. Baldy ridge

Searching the ridge after the thunderstorm moved off

We were searching for Frank Carl Patane, 60, from Tucson. Mr. Patane had disappeared on August 11th, after signing the Mt. Baldy trailhead register at 7:30 that morning. His vehicle was found at the trailhead a couple of days later by a deputy, when the hotel staff where Mr. Patane had been staying reported that he hadn't returned after saying he was going to hike that mountain.

Family members described Frank Patane as an avid day hiker who was inexperienced as a camper. He'd had surgery for a detached left retina a month before this solo hike. They were concerned that his eyesight may have become an issue.

On the day Mr. Patane signed the register, a severe storm hit the area at roughly 11:30am, an hour after another party signed that same trail register. They'd turned back due to the weather, having seen no sign of the man we were searching for. The search continued intensely for 17 days, with multiple counties responding -- ground-pounders, K9 teams, ATV teams, and mounted units. No clues were found.

The "chow truck," feeding volunteers from many counties during the search

Basic information on the missing person on the side of the Command Trailer

Incident Command / Base Camp

On our second day assisting with the search, Cindy and I were joined by another teammate from Coconino County. We grid-searched a large meadow with a narrow, muddy creek running through it, as well as a wooded area and some unoccupied buildings (one of which was heavily guarded by wasps) as thunder continued to rumble.

We search again the next day

Cindy and the dogs and another backer (I couldn't go) returned to Apache County a second time the following weekend. They searched for two days during the final "big push" to locate Mr. Patane. Last I heard -- and I've found nothing online to indicate otherwise -- no clues have yet to be found.

Here's another news article about the search, with a photos of Frank Carl Patane: Authorities Continue Search for Missing Hiker; More K9 Search Teams Join the Effort