A Thanksgiving Search and Rescue

Stuffed with turkey and fixins, my husband and I are walking to our car after Thanksgiving dinner at his boss's house when my SAR beeper goes off. I call in, and the coordinator's message says that while on a hike in Oak Creek Canyon, a woman and her teenage son have gotten separated from two younger children. 

It was the two younger kids who returned to the motel and, when it eventually got dark, reported to the front desk that their mother and brother might be lost, without lights, food or water, or warm clothing. The temperature is already at or below freezing and will certainly fall as the night goes on. 

With Steve's blessing, I drop him off at home and head to The 105, which is what we call our SAR building. I now keep my search and rescue gear in the car.

My beeper has been quite active lately and always during the night, but all of the calls since my first mission on Mt. Humphreys have been 10-22'd. Most of those cancellations have happened while I was en route to The 105. I'd hear the beeper go off for a second time, and, after a quick glance at the code to confirm, I'd find a convenient place to turn around and head back home. Within 15 minutes, I was slipping back under the covers and yacking at my poor, sleeping husband for a while because now I was wide awake. 

One mission was called off just as the team was getting underway to the staging area, having spent the better part of an hour loading gear and ATVs. But at least I got another chance to watch the experienced folks hook up the trailers, load and secure equipment, and go through the whole business of getting things ready to go, often with my face close to their hands as they worked with straps, clips, pins, chains, and other gizmos and widgets. I've gotten used to the hurry-up-now-go-home scenario. Sometimes, situations just resolve themselves before we get there.

So far, though, tonight's mission is still a go. And it looks like quite a few other volunteers are up for some after-dinner activity. I count eight of us at The 105, and I hear at least two more are responding from the south, heading into Oak Creek Canyon from below. 

One way to get from here in Flagstaff at 7,000 feet to Sedona at about 4,200 feet is to drive the switchbacks down through Oak Creek Canyon. It's an approximately 45-minute (and very scenic) drive. Toward the bottom of the canyon, where it's noticeably warmer at that lower elevation, are a few resorts. One of these—Junipine—is where a family from Tennessee is staying over the long, holiday weekend, and, today, Mom and three of her kids decided to take an afternoon walk up the nearby A.B. Young Trail. This trail leads hikers up 30-some-odd switchbacks to a remote, wooded area called East Pocket at roughly the same elevation—and therefore, temperature—as Flagstaff. East Pocket is about an hour's drive from town, at the end of a dirt road.

As we now head down that very long, dirt road in SAR vehicles, we listen to radio traffic on the frequency we were told to use tonight and receive further information from Sergeant D. Another deputy has already hiked up the whole trail from the bottom, calling for the missing hikers, then searched at the top in both directions along the rim for about half an hour with no results. So we say that he has "cleared" the trail itself. 

The deputy is now heading back down to Junipine, and our volunteers at that end are beginning to search the canyon below. Perhaps Mom and son did hike down but, for some reason, didn't make it back to their motel. Between the upper and lower trailheads, however, there's no place to get off the trail; it's extremely steep and rugged if you step off the switchbacks. And from the top, there really is no alternative, non-technical route to get to the bottom of the canyon. So chances are good that our missing hikers are somewhere in the ponderosa pine forest in East Pocket.

We drive as far as we can toward the upper trailhead, stopping once along the way to wake a group of camping hunters to ask if they've seen or heard anything of interest. Nope. So we park near the fire tower about a mile from the A.B. Young Trail and begin searching for clues. 

One volunteer stays with the vehicles, running the flashing blue lights and, now and then, a siren, in hopes the hikers might see or hear us. One searcher climbs the fire tower, but no one is up there. Three of us—myself and two veteran SAR members—start down the path from the fire tower toward the trail, while a second group heads in another direction to cover more ground. There are lots of prints in the dirt, but we can't be sure any of them belong to our subjects, who we're told are wearing sneakers. We see plenty of sneaker prints but don't have a description of the subjects' treads.

We call and blow whistles as we slowly walk along and study the ground and surrounding darkness with our headlamps and flashlights. After each call or whistle, we stop for a long moment and listen. Actually, one of my companions did have to remind me to be silent, to give someone a chance to respond. I feel a little silly; I guess it's the adrenaline making me babble. So I listen extra hard as I hold my breath, hoping I'll be the one to hear a faint, far-off call. Alas, minutes later, we all hear a reply—repeated, enthusiastic replies—from two very relieved hikers.

The woman and her son are both shivering uncontrollably but are otherwise "code 4," meaning they're okay. I offer some extra clothing from my pack and a bottle of water. One of the other two volunteers with me does the same, while the third walks closer to the rim to get a better radio signal. I can't hear what he's saying, but I know he's reporting to Incident Command that we've found the hikers.

Turns out, they'd intentionally separated from the two younger children shortly after reaching the top of the trail earlier this afternoon. The kids wanted to return to Junipine, while their mom and older brother decided to wander around for a while. In doing so, however, they couldn't find their way back to the top of the trail. It soon got dark, which made matters worse, not to mention much colder. By the time we find them around midnight, they've been out here for ten hours instead of the two or three they'd expected.

It's a quiet ride back to Flagstaff, with the two exhausted hikers in the back of our vehicle. My SAR companions explain that it will be an hour's drive to town and then another 45 minutes back to Junipine. Thankfully, we're eventually informed by radio that our coordinator will meet us at the Sheriff's office and drive the hikers down to their motel, saving us tired searchers an hour and a half extra driving, round-trip.

Despite what I'm sure was an embarrassing lesson in preparedness that mother and son get from one of our most experienced volunteers once we reach the Sheriff's office, they seem sincerely grateful. I'm sure this will be a Thanksgiving they'll remember for a long time. I sure will.

My First Search and Rescue Mission

I'm sound asleep when my pager goes off. This is the first time I've heard the little gadget do its thing since it was given to me when I completed Basic SAR training, and I literally fall out of bed. Man, that's loud. At least, it seems loud when it's pitch dark and I'm in the middle of a dream. 

My heart is pounding. I get out of bed and fumble for the light, then dig through the pile of clothes and shoes to find the source of the beeping. In the pocket of my jeans, I locate the pager, now chirping intermittent reminders, as if to say, "Uh, sorry I woke you up, but... I have a mission for you." By this time, my husband is stirring. He shields his eyes from the bright light and groans.

"My beeper beeped!" I announce with an inappropriately big grin. Yay! Now I'm fully awake.

As my husband pulls the quilt over his head, I dig through my bag, looking for the paperwork that came with the beeper. The code is 200. I find the instructions and see that 200 means it's a search. 300 would be a rescue with a known location. 400 is for a body recovery, 500 a call-out for the mounted unit, 600 an evidence search, 700 a disaster response (hope I never see that code pop up), 888 stand by, 900 is for an administrative message, and 10-22 means, never mind, go back to bed—mission cancelled. 

I call the number to listen to our SAR coordinator's message (Sergeant "D" is a Sheriff's deputy and the one paid member of our team) and find out what's happening: two lost hikers on Mt. Humphreys, without food and water and not dressed for the conditions. They called 9-1-1 on their cellphone, which is far too often the only item in people's modern-day version of the wilderness survival kit. When it works in the wilderness, that is.

Following Sergeant D's message, I leave a reply: I will be responding to the Search & Rescue building. Then I trip over myself, trying to get dressed and collect my gear as quickly as possible. This will take some practice.

I drive across town, concentrating on not exceeding the speed limit... too much. We were told in training that we are not allowed to try to wiggle out of a speeding ticket by telling the police officer that we're a SAR volunteer on our way to a mission. That would be grounds for getting kicked off the team. 

It's frustrating to go so SLOW, but I finally get to "The 105" building, where the Sheriff's SAR vehicles and equipment are stored. Two other volunteers are already there, going about the business of loading gear and getting ready to head to the mountain. 

I feel a little at odds, so I look for the sign-in sheet, record my name, team member number, and the time I arrived, get myself a radio (which I don't really know how to use yet), a radio harness (how do you put this thing on?) and re-organize my backpack until the guys are ready to roll. It's just going to be the three of us, I guess, about to climb Mt. Humphreys, Arizona's highest peak at 12,633 feet. I've been up there several times but never at night.

By the time we get to the mountain, I've managed to put on the radio harness, contorting myself in the backseat before realizing that undoing the clips first helps quite a bit. I even figured out how to turn the radio on, though what to do after that will have to wait.

Being with SAR, we don't have to start out from the trailhead near the ski lodge. Instead, we open a locked gate to a service road—if you can call that undulating, rutted, and very rocky thing a road—and slowly make our way higher up the mountain at an increasingly steep grade, bottoming out a time or two. 

When we can go no further in the vehicle, we step out into noticeably colder air here at around 10,000 feet compared to back in town at 7,000 feet. Scanning the mountain, a dark mass against a star-filled sky, we see a small glow to the northwest, just below the saddle. We've been told the lost hikers were able to start a fire to keep warm. Well, that must be them! And up we go. (I'm way too excited about this, but it is my first mission.)

Thing is, we aren't walking up a trail. No, the guys want to take the more direct and much steeper route and head straight for the glow. We struggle our way up a grassy ski run (no snow yet), my calves burning and heart racing in the thinner air, then veer off onto a talus and brush-covered slope. With each step up and forward, I slide at least a half-step back, sending rocks tumbling toward my companions behind me. Taking short bursts of quick steps seems to work better than going slow but requires a lot of effort, so I keep pausing to catch my breath. And with each pause, I begin to slide again. 

At this angle, we can no longer see the fire glow above, so we start calling out into the quiet darkness and blowing our whistles. Eventually, we hear a faint reply in the distance. They're way up there.

At about 1am, I hear giggling nearby. Well, at least they're not crying. 

Another longer burst of quick steps and I'm gasping hello to a young couple, huddled around their campfire. Actually, the first thing I say is, "Hi, I have to pee." (I figure I'll keep things lighthearted, not to mention that it's true.)

My SAR companions arrive moments later, and once we're sure everyone is okay, I take a few horizontal steps into the darkness, brace my feet against a firmly-anchored bush, and get some well-earned relief. Being a female on a SAR mission has its drawbacks.

Anyhow, it turns out that the hikers—out-of-towners who'd started up the mountain at 2pm, not carrying any lights or warmer clothing, and not realizing how much more difficult it is to hike at altitude—had lost the trail in the dark on their way back from the summit. After wandering around for as much as an hour, looking for the trail, they'd decided to stay put and call for help. They're now more than a little embarrassed when we inform them they're only about ten feet away from the Humphreys Trail, which we intersect just above their current location.

We put out the fire (at least they'd had a lighter), burying it in the dirt so as not to waste any of our drinking water, which we have to share with the very thirsty couple, and then proceed down the trail. It would be too treacherous to go down the way we just came up and put not only us volunteers but the lost-and-now-found hikers at risk of injury. The trail is the longer but safer way to descend.

As the sun begins to rise over Flagstaff, we arrive at the ski lodge where we hand the rescue-ees over to the deputy. And now we have to hike back up about 1,000 vertical feet to retrieve our SAR vehicle.

Ten hours after signing in at The 105, I sign out and head home, where my husband is just waking up.