From the Arizona Daily Sun:
Searchers Find Possible Remains of Missing Hiker
My heart goes out to Tom's family and friends, but I'm so glad he was found. His parents' perseverance was... well, what can I say? Rest in peace, Tom.
These are my stories as a volunteer member of the Sheriff's Search and Rescue team in Coconino County, Arizona. I'll share what it's like to go from a beginner with a lot to learn to an experienced and, hopefully, valuable member of the team, as well as the missions, training, and other activities along the way.
Showing posts with label Missing Person. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Missing Person. Show all posts
Closure
From the Arizona Daily Sun:
Searchers Find Possible Remains of Missing Hiker
My heart goes out to Tom's family and friends, but I'm so glad he was found. His parents' perseverance was... well, what can I say? Rest in peace, Tom.
An All-Night Search in Ashfork
I was tired. When the call came from SAR, I was sitting in a Lay-Z-Boy being very lazy. It was around 9 p.m., and I was ready for bed. I listened to the short message about the mission, looked at the text that came through seconds later, and put the phone back down. "Not this time," I told Jeremy.
But then, two minutes later, Cindy, our K9 handler, called me directly. Our coordinator was requesting the dogs, and would I be her backer, she asked. *sigh* Okay, for Cindy I would go. So, I met her at the SAR building about 20 minutes later and loaded my gear into her vehicle to the tune of three excited golden retrievers. They'd already hiked several miles earlier that day, but they were still rearing to go. The two of us two-legged creatures, though? Not so much.
We got our brief briefing—a 70-year-old gentleman with what sounded like a moderate level of dementia (possibly Alzheimer's) had now been missing nearly 24 hours after driving someone else's vehicle to the very rural area where he lives, then left the vehicle in the trees near a dirt road and walked away. This was not the first time he'd gotten lost while trying to go home.
Cindy and I left the SAR building ahead of our teammates as they got some additional gear ready. We were supposed to rendezvous with two deputies who were at the location where the abandoned vehicle had been found. That was now the initial planning point (IPP). From there, we'd begin our search with the dogs, and the other volunteers would soon follow.
When we found our way to the waiting deputies through a network of dusty roads and jackrabbits (actually managed not to hit any as they streaked across the murky beams of our headlights), we consulted with them (the deputies that is, not the rabbits) about what had and had not been found and determined the area we thought was the highest probability. Then it was time to let the excited dogs out to do their thing: search.
"Your assignment," Cindy half-whispered to the three wet noses that turned her way, "should you choose to accept it... is..." After the usual dramatic pause, she shouted, "Go find!" Three fuzzy golden tails shot off into the dark as we followed much more slowly. We would walk the grid, and the dogs would range around us as we moved.
As the backer, it was my job to handle radio communications, navigate the grid within our search area given the information from Cindy about wind direction and her instructions about how she wanted to work the dogs, and keep us all on track. "Go a little more left," I would say, then, "Turn a bit more to the right," as I stayed behind and to the side of Cindy, trying to make a pretty little grid pattern on my GPS while still looking around.
In the light of my headlamp, obscured by the dust we were kicking up as we walked across bone-dry ground, I tried to manage the topo map and my GPS without walking into a pinion, juniper, or ponderosa pine or tripping on rocks, dips, and forest debris. Needless to say, on more than a few occasions I had to say to Cindy, "I need to stop to get this figured out. I can't walk and try to read a map and GPS at the same time." Yeah, I was moving and searching and calling the subject's name, but I was cranky, too.
I was also still frustrated because it had taken a while for me to get myself oriented that night, out there in the fairly flat and, aside from one major drainage, often featureless, forested terrain. Even when I had my map oriented to the way I was facing, the mental picture was alluding me. And the frustration only confused me more.
After talking to myself, though—aloud for anyone to hear—and working it out ("okay, this is that road," I said, pointing toward my feet and then to the map, "and this is that road... so, okay, we're right here, and we want to go that way...") the mental picture finally appeared and cleared. So on my mark, we were ready to go.
And then Cindy gave the dogs their little "your assignment" shpeel. (See, I still have things all messed up.)
Anyhow, this whole K9 handler/backer thing is so much about communication, and though we sometimes get cranky—one or both of us—Cindy and I really have learned how to talk things out, to problem-solve and reason and get back on track when we get a bit off. We've also worked through temporary miscommunications and misunderstandings without getting all unglued. The more we work together, the better we become as a team. I like that!
Well, long story just a little shorter, we did lots of walking throughout the night and into the next morning. We also did lots of calling out for the subject. The dogs worked their tails off. And we saw, to our pleasure, that one of Cindy's dogs, who'd originally been trained as a tracking/trailing dog and later switched over to air-scenting, reverted to tracking/trailing when the opportunity—human scent on the ground—presented itself. Sure enough, we found footprints. Good dog!
But we weren't the ones who actually found the subject. It was a friend of his who found him, safe and asleep in the corner of a room in his own home, just after Cindy and I were released to return to Flagstaff later that morning. The man we'd been looking for for nearly 12 hours had apparently found his house sometime during the night, after the friend, who was supposed to stay in case the man showed up, had left to return to his own home.
Well, all was well enough that ended well. The man was okay and, for now at least, home safe.
A couple of hours later, after insisting to Jeremy that I can't sleep during the day, I was fast asleep on the living room floor.
But then, two minutes later, Cindy, our K9 handler, called me directly. Our coordinator was requesting the dogs, and would I be her backer, she asked. *sigh* Okay, for Cindy I would go. So, I met her at the SAR building about 20 minutes later and loaded my gear into her vehicle to the tune of three excited golden retrievers. They'd already hiked several miles earlier that day, but they were still rearing to go. The two of us two-legged creatures, though? Not so much.
We got our brief briefing—a 70-year-old gentleman with what sounded like a moderate level of dementia (possibly Alzheimer's) had now been missing nearly 24 hours after driving someone else's vehicle to the very rural area where he lives, then left the vehicle in the trees near a dirt road and walked away. This was not the first time he'd gotten lost while trying to go home.
Cindy and I left the SAR building ahead of our teammates as they got some additional gear ready. We were supposed to rendezvous with two deputies who were at the location where the abandoned vehicle had been found. That was now the initial planning point (IPP). From there, we'd begin our search with the dogs, and the other volunteers would soon follow.
When we found our way to the waiting deputies through a network of dusty roads and jackrabbits (actually managed not to hit any as they streaked across the murky beams of our headlights), we consulted with them (the deputies that is, not the rabbits) about what had and had not been found and determined the area we thought was the highest probability. Then it was time to let the excited dogs out to do their thing: search.
"Your assignment," Cindy half-whispered to the three wet noses that turned her way, "should you choose to accept it... is..." After the usual dramatic pause, she shouted, "Go find!" Three fuzzy golden tails shot off into the dark as we followed much more slowly. We would walk the grid, and the dogs would range around us as we moved.
As the backer, it was my job to handle radio communications, navigate the grid within our search area given the information from Cindy about wind direction and her instructions about how she wanted to work the dogs, and keep us all on track. "Go a little more left," I would say, then, "Turn a bit more to the right," as I stayed behind and to the side of Cindy, trying to make a pretty little grid pattern on my GPS while still looking around.
In the light of my headlamp, obscured by the dust we were kicking up as we walked across bone-dry ground, I tried to manage the topo map and my GPS without walking into a pinion, juniper, or ponderosa pine or tripping on rocks, dips, and forest debris. Needless to say, on more than a few occasions I had to say to Cindy, "I need to stop to get this figured out. I can't walk and try to read a map and GPS at the same time." Yeah, I was moving and searching and calling the subject's name, but I was cranky, too.
I was also still frustrated because it had taken a while for me to get myself oriented that night, out there in the fairly flat and, aside from one major drainage, often featureless, forested terrain. Even when I had my map oriented to the way I was facing, the mental picture was alluding me. And the frustration only confused me more.
After talking to myself, though—aloud for anyone to hear—and working it out ("okay, this is that road," I said, pointing toward my feet and then to the map, "and this is that road... so, okay, we're right here, and we want to go that way...") the mental picture finally appeared and cleared. So on my mark, we were ready to go.
And then Cindy gave the dogs their little "your assignment" shpeel. (See, I still have things all messed up.)
Anyhow, this whole K9 handler/backer thing is so much about communication, and though we sometimes get cranky—one or both of us—Cindy and I really have learned how to talk things out, to problem-solve and reason and get back on track when we get a bit off. We've also worked through temporary miscommunications and misunderstandings without getting all unglued. The more we work together, the better we become as a team. I like that!
Well, long story just a little shorter, we did lots of walking throughout the night and into the next morning. We also did lots of calling out for the subject. The dogs worked their tails off. And we saw, to our pleasure, that one of Cindy's dogs, who'd originally been trained as a tracking/trailing dog and later switched over to air-scenting, reverted to tracking/trailing when the opportunity—human scent on the ground—presented itself. Sure enough, we found footprints. Good dog!
But we weren't the ones who actually found the subject. It was a friend of his who found him, safe and asleep in the corner of a room in his own home, just after Cindy and I were released to return to Flagstaff later that morning. The man we'd been looking for for nearly 12 hours had apparently found his house sometime during the night, after the friend, who was supposed to stay in case the man showed up, had left to return to his own home.
Well, all was well enough that ended well. The man was okay and, for now at least, home safe.
A couple of hours later, after insisting to Jeremy that I can't sleep during the day, I was fast asleep on the living room floor.
A Remote Canyon Search
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This was my third day on what had been, so far, a week-long search for an overdue and very experienced canyon hiker. Today was his 66th birthday, and I was hoping to wish him a happy one... or that someone else would, at least.
Was he out here somewhere in this vast, rugged, incredibly beautiful landscape of colorful rock layers, cactus and cliffs? If anyone could survive out here, he could. But for how long? Or was he long gone maybe, alive and well outside of the area? Lots of scenarios had passed through my mind and in the minds of other searchers over the past week.
My teammate broke through my thoughts and the silence.
"You can search the inner part," he said. "I'll go out near the edge." He knows I'm not fond of edges when I'm not on a rope.
We both hoisted our packs, heavy with water, and began walking slowly among the cactus and desert brush, studying the ground and stopping frequently to look around for anything that didn't look "usual"—an out-of-place color that might catch our eye, bird activity. Any kind of sign that another person had passed through the area. We were also listening and looking carefully for rattlesnakes. Both "pinks" and "greens," the latter being the very deadly Mohave rattlesnake, had been seen (and heard) during this search.
These were some of the most difficult tracking conditions I'd encountered during my years in SAR, not just the rocky and coarse, sandy substrate but the fact that wild horses and other critters had tramped all over the place, including here, along the bottom of the canyon where I'd searched two days earlier, and on the Esplanade where I'd searched two days before that. Add the age of some of the tracks we had encountered, and I really had to go slow, look around at the same spots from different angles, and get down on hands and knees at times. My teammate and I occasionally consulted with one another: "Is that a footprint or a hoof print?" Sometimes, in some conditions, it's hard to tell.
We searched our canyon island from end to end, looking carefully at the "pinch-points" to the north and south where someone would have to have walked in order to get around the side canyons, the heads of which left little room to negotiate the drop-offs.
No signs of human prints or other evidence.
We took a break in the shade of a large overhang, careful to check there too before sitting down, in case someone else had also taken respite in that cool, cozy nook. But again, nothing.
We watched a single, circling vulture, but the bird soon moved on and circled somewhere else.
And we found nothing more before the helicopter came back for another sandblasting, to pick us up and fly us back to Incident Command, where we converged with other field teams. No one reported any new sign on this particular day.
But as far as I heard at the last general SAR meeting, there is more searching to be done, to follow up on sign found by a Park Service employee who was helping with the mission. I'd seen him when he started off at the head of Mohawk Canyon, prepared to be out for as long as six days. He was one of several canyon experts who's assisted the Sheriff's Office and our team with this search.
Want to read more about this mission and who we're searching for? See...
Hiker on Hualapai Reservation Missing
Missing Hiker a Canyon Expert
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| A bird's-eye view from the helicopter |
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| On the Esplanade on my second day as part of this search |
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| My teammate, Steve, searches on the Esplanade. |
SAR While I Was Away
While I know our SAR coordinator and assistant coordinators have been plenty hard at work, in part with calls that ended up being resolved by deputies and means other than us volunteers, it has been rather slow when it comes to call-outs. Not that that's a bad thing, of course! But there have been some call-outs lately, all of which occurred while I was either in a SAR-related class (Incident Command System 300) or while I was away for eight blissful days at Yosemite National Park.
First, there was the call for another body recovery below Midgley Bridge in Sedona. I say "another" because, sadly, we tend to have several of these calls each year. All but one that I know of since I've been on the team have been suicides, while one near (but not under) the bridge was an accidental fall. In this latest case, it was a 60-year-old woman who had died. See Woman's Body Found Below Midgley Bridge in the Arizona Daily Sun. Several of my teammates responded to this call.
Then there was a technical rescue call for a young man who'd fallen into the Little Colorado River Gorge and broken his leg. After a long wait due to the remoteness of the area and some misinformation from the reporting party about the victim's location, the injured man was eventually short-hauled by helicopter to the rim and then flown to the hospital.
As I was on my way back from the Yosemite trip, a SAR call came through about a missing mule-rider in the Schultz Pass area of the San Francisco Peaks who may also have been injured. The call was for both general (ground) and mounted SAR. I later found out that the missing party showed up at home on his own.
After returning home myself, I happened upon a news story stating that search and rescue volunteers and deputies had been sent to look for a self-reporting lost hiker on Mount Elden, who told the 9-1-1 dispatcher that he'd hurt his ankle and thought he was being stalked by wild animals. Since I never received a call-out message, I'm assuming that certain volunteers who live near Mt. Elden were called directly to make the initial response. Read Drunken Hiker Asks for Rescue to find out how that mission was resolved.
And that's about all the SAR volunteer activity I know of, other than some team trainings, while I was away. In about a week, I'll be tied up again, this time in a five-day Inland Search Management class. Having completed the ICS-300 class last month and some other prerequisites, I've now been added to the ops list and will be called out if operations leaders are needed to prepare for a mission. So, this next class will teach me more about SAR operations and help me contribute. I'm excited!
Have I mentioned lately that I love SAR?
First, there was the call for another body recovery below Midgley Bridge in Sedona. I say "another" because, sadly, we tend to have several of these calls each year. All but one that I know of since I've been on the team have been suicides, while one near (but not under) the bridge was an accidental fall. In this latest case, it was a 60-year-old woman who had died. See Woman's Body Found Below Midgley Bridge in the Arizona Daily Sun. Several of my teammates responded to this call.
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| Little Colorado River Gorge |
As I was on my way back from the Yosemite trip, a SAR call came through about a missing mule-rider in the Schultz Pass area of the San Francisco Peaks who may also have been injured. The call was for both general (ground) and mounted SAR. I later found out that the missing party showed up at home on his own.
After returning home myself, I happened upon a news story stating that search and rescue volunteers and deputies had been sent to look for a self-reporting lost hiker on Mount Elden, who told the 9-1-1 dispatcher that he'd hurt his ankle and thought he was being stalked by wild animals. Since I never received a call-out message, I'm assuming that certain volunteers who live near Mt. Elden were called directly to make the initial response. Read Drunken Hiker Asks for Rescue to find out how that mission was resolved.
And that's about all the SAR volunteer activity I know of, other than some team trainings, while I was away. In about a week, I'll be tied up again, this time in a five-day Inland Search Management class. Having completed the ICS-300 class last month and some other prerequisites, I've now been added to the ops list and will be called out if operations leaders are needed to prepare for a mission. So, this next class will teach me more about SAR operations and help me contribute. I'm excited!
Have I mentioned lately that I love SAR?
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 3 a.m., 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 6 a.m. 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 4 p.m. on Tuesday, after her son called her from his cellphone, 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 for help, 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 throughout 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 11:15 a.m. 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's a photo from one of my teammates who was at the top of the mountain....
According to reports, Mahdi had taken a trail from behind the resort where they were staying. At the time his mother made the call for help, 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 throughout 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 11:15 a.m. 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's a photo from one of my teammates who was at the top of the mountain....
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From One Mission to Another
At 4 p.m. 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.
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. 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 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.
Hypothermia was a possibility. 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 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 want 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 Justin's 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 me 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 not only for human remains but possibly a couple of items believed to be in Justin's possession at the house but yet were 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....
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| This is us searching partway up the falls, on a ledge. |
Today, by the time our field team of three returned to where 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, which 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 toward base as we waited for someone to reach us by vehicle for a ride back.
********
Since that day about two weeks 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 first 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 next 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 top photo but not as much as the lower...
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, 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 (PLS) without others on foot contaminating the area, two of us set out on the Arizona Trail.
My search partner and I hiked more than eight 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 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 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 ("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 those miles of hiking on rocky trail and even rockier Forest Service Roads, my partner and I walked back into base at about 1:30 a.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 4 a.m.
But that call never came. We later learned that the missing woman had shown up back at her boyfriend's house at 3:30 a.m.
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 and 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, 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.
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, 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 (PLS) without others on foot contaminating the area, two of us set out on the Arizona Trail.
My search partner and I hiked more than eight 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 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 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 ("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 those miles of hiking on rocky trail and even rockier Forest Service Roads, my partner and I walked back into base at about 1:30 a.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 4 a.m.
But that call never came. We later learned that the missing woman had shown up back at her boyfriend's house at 3:30 a.m.
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 and 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, 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
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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 1 a.m."
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 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, to 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 pickup 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 then.
Anyhow... the missing hiker we were looking for was a 70-year-old man, a geologist who must have been thrilled to be exploring this natural wonder 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, his friends had 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).
Searching and calling along the way, we detoured a bit to a slot canyon, where we 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 below.
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 Wave II. We figured 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, Utah, SAR coordinator was searching from high overhead. 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 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 get quite 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 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 coming from The Wave. (Must have gone walk-about to explore some more and 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.
An Out-of-County Search: Coco SAR Assists Apache County
It was late on the night of our monthly general SAR meeting when our coordinator announced that Apache County was requesting our team's 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 go without 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 SAR coordinator. Most counties do not.) As a searcher, though, you report to whomever is in charge. If asked for, you give your two cents—your ideas and suggestions—and you get your assignment. Then you carry out that assignment to the best of your ability. And that's what Cindy and I and four hard-working air-scenting 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.
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 as an avid day-hiker who was inexperienced as a camper. He'd had surgery for a detached 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 11:30 a.m., 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.
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.
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
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 go without 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 SAR coordinator. Most counties do not.) As a searcher, though, you report to whomever is in charge. If asked for, you give your two cents—your ideas and suggestions—and you get your assignment. Then you carry out that assignment to the best of your ability. And that's what Cindy and I and four hard-working air-scenting 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 |
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| 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 as an avid day-hiker who was inexperienced as a camper. He'd had surgery for a detached 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 11:30 a.m., 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 |
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| Basic information on the missing person on the side of the Command Trailer |
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| 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
A Vision Quest Gone Bad?
That's what the note said that 43-year-old Michael Snarski of Thornton, Colorado, had left on his dashboard—that he was not lost; he was on a vision quest. The note was dated 7/24.
Two weeks later, someone reported to the Sheriff's office that the car was still there, parked at a pull-out about 20 miles south of Williams, AZ. That's when detectives asked for our K9 team, trained in human remains (HR) detection, to come to the site and check the vehicle. They'd smelled what could have been an intermittent, faint "odor of death," they said. Our dog handler, Cindy, then contacted me and another team member, often her backers on other missions, to accompany her and her four NASAR-certified golden retrievers.
All four dogs independently alerted on the trunk, but my teammates and I didn't smell anything in the air or coming from the car. Still, each dog gave an enthusiastic, distinct alert, a couple of them becoming what I'd call frustrated at not being able to get to the source of the smell, digging at the ground by the trunk and jumping up on the vehicle with their front legs.
A deputy called his boss for permission to have the vehicle unlocked and the trunk opened. Permission was granted, and we all waited, wondering what we'd find inside.
Once the trunk was opened, however, there was no visible evidence of human decomposition and no odor—or at least none detectable by our human noses. The dogs were again brought back to the car, one by one, and each now alerted on a specific area of the trunk.
"Show me," Cindy would say when they each alerted. And each dog jumped back up and touched the same spot inside the trunk with their paws and noses. Something related to human decomposition was there, but whatever it was, we couldn't see it, and we were not allowed to touch the numerous items in the trunk to look beneath them.
Later, after the vehicle was towed and law enforcement searched it, it was discovered that the dogs had indeed found something: a spot of blood about the size of nickel on a pair of pants.
Following more investigation, an extensive area search was planned. SAR volunteers from both Coconino and Yavapai Counties were called, including K9, ground, and mounted units. I'm sure everyone was expecting this would likely be a long, tedious search through difficult terrain. Even the command trailer was being brought out to the site.
K9 units arrived at the search area at first light, to begin while the air was still cool and the light winds would still be coming up out of nearby Bear Canyon. That way, the cross-trained dogs would be able to detect human scent if the missing person were down in that canyon. The wind would (and did) soon change direction as the sun rose, so we wanted to search the rim as soon as possible.
But the search didn't last long. As Cindy and I slowly made our way along the rim with two of her dogs, picking through thick manzanita over rocks and other pinion–juniper forest debris and one lethargic snake, another K9 team discovered Michael Snarski's body not far from the road.
He was sitting on a blanket, up against a tree, with full water bottles and a couple of uneaten, by then blackened bananas at his side. Facing west toward what may have been the sinking sun on his final day, he still had his sunglasses on. This is the last view Michael would have seen but without all of the SAR vehicles. His car had been parked where ours now were:
Two weeks later, someone reported to the Sheriff's office that the car was still there, parked at a pull-out about 20 miles south of Williams, AZ. That's when detectives asked for our K9 team, trained in human remains (HR) detection, to come to the site and check the vehicle. They'd smelled what could have been an intermittent, faint "odor of death," they said. Our dog handler, Cindy, then contacted me and another team member, often her backers on other missions, to accompany her and her four NASAR-certified golden retrievers.
All four dogs independently alerted on the trunk, but my teammates and I didn't smell anything in the air or coming from the car. Still, each dog gave an enthusiastic, distinct alert, a couple of them becoming what I'd call frustrated at not being able to get to the source of the smell, digging at the ground by the trunk and jumping up on the vehicle with their front legs.
A deputy called his boss for permission to have the vehicle unlocked and the trunk opened. Permission was granted, and we all waited, wondering what we'd find inside.
Once the trunk was opened, however, there was no visible evidence of human decomposition and no odor—or at least none detectable by our human noses. The dogs were again brought back to the car, one by one, and each now alerted on a specific area of the trunk.
"Show me," Cindy would say when they each alerted. And each dog jumped back up and touched the same spot inside the trunk with their paws and noses. Something related to human decomposition was there, but whatever it was, we couldn't see it, and we were not allowed to touch the numerous items in the trunk to look beneath them.
Later, after the vehicle was towed and law enforcement searched it, it was discovered that the dogs had indeed found something: a spot of blood about the size of nickel on a pair of pants.
Following more investigation, an extensive area search was planned. SAR volunteers from both Coconino and Yavapai Counties were called, including K9, ground, and mounted units. I'm sure everyone was expecting this would likely be a long, tedious search through difficult terrain. Even the command trailer was being brought out to the site.
K9 units arrived at the search area at first light, to begin while the air was still cool and the light winds would still be coming up out of nearby Bear Canyon. That way, the cross-trained dogs would be able to detect human scent if the missing person were down in that canyon. The wind would (and did) soon change direction as the sun rose, so we wanted to search the rim as soon as possible.
But the search didn't last long. As Cindy and I slowly made our way along the rim with two of her dogs, picking through thick manzanita over rocks and other pinion–juniper forest debris and one lethargic snake, another K9 team discovered Michael Snarski's body not far from the road.
He was sitting on a blanket, up against a tree, with full water bottles and a couple of uneaten, by then blackened bananas at his side. Facing west toward what may have been the sinking sun on his final day, he still had his sunglasses on. This is the last view Michael would have seen but without all of the SAR vehicles. His car had been parked where ours now were:
Searching for Those Who Don't Want to Be Found
I could feel the sweat dripping down my neck and back and occasionally off the tip of my nose. It was late at night, but Oak Creek Canyon was holding in the heat and monsoon season humidity. I turned off my headlamp as my partner and I stopped for a brief rest, and in the absence of a moon, couldn't see the drop-off to my right.
We each called one of the missing boys' names. As we'd expected, there was no response from the darkness.
These were not "just" missing teenagers, though—they were runaways. Earlier that day, they'd taken off from some sort of camp for troubled or in-trouble youth, scrambling up a very steep slope, toward what we didn't know. Did they?
Randy and I picked up some human tracks, off-trail, soon after we'd arrived at our assigned search area along Route 89A in Oak Creek Canyon. But we lost those tracks amongst the thick pine needles and game trails partway up the calf-burning slope. We later wondered if the boys had stopped and hidden until the coast was clear, then gone back down to the road.
Picking and slipping our way back down ourselves, I stopped frequently to pull bits of forest debris out of the palms of my hands. Mental note: Wear my work gloves when doing stuff like this.
When we got to our vehicle, we drove down the road (up and down, actually, until we found the nondescript trailhead we were looking for) and headed up the Thomas Trail to the rim, calling and searching up-slope and down with our headlamps. We needed to be sure that the boys, though they had intentionally run away, hadn't gotten themselves into a bad situation —cliffed out, for example, or injured—in the process.
Meanwhile, other ground teams were searching by ATV and UTV up on the rim. Another pair of searchers was hiking the Telephone Trail, parallel to ours, maybe a mile away. All reported negative contact.
Before Randy and I had hiked back to the bottom of the canyon, we contacted Incident Command (IC) and found out that our coordinator had gone further down 89A to assist with a multiple fatality, head-on collision near Grasshopper Point and Midgley Bridge. Earlier, he had asked us to look closely for sign (footprints or other clues) at the top of the trail, but we saw nothing of interest around Thomas Point.
About an hour later, we slipped our sweaty packs off our sweaty backs. Randy then called IC on the radio for our next assignment.
"You can return to Flagstaff," our coordinator told us. "The subjects have been located."
Back at the SAR building close to midnight, we learned that a family member had contacted law enforcement and said the boys were safe... somewhere.
We each called one of the missing boys' names. As we'd expected, there was no response from the darkness.
These were not "just" missing teenagers, though—they were runaways. Earlier that day, they'd taken off from some sort of camp for troubled or in-trouble youth, scrambling up a very steep slope, toward what we didn't know. Did they?
Randy and I picked up some human tracks, off-trail, soon after we'd arrived at our assigned search area along Route 89A in Oak Creek Canyon. But we lost those tracks amongst the thick pine needles and game trails partway up the calf-burning slope. We later wondered if the boys had stopped and hidden until the coast was clear, then gone back down to the road.
Picking and slipping our way back down ourselves, I stopped frequently to pull bits of forest debris out of the palms of my hands. Mental note: Wear my work gloves when doing stuff like this.
When we got to our vehicle, we drove down the road (up and down, actually, until we found the nondescript trailhead we were looking for) and headed up the Thomas Trail to the rim, calling and searching up-slope and down with our headlamps. We needed to be sure that the boys, though they had intentionally run away, hadn't gotten themselves into a bad situation —cliffed out, for example, or injured—in the process.
Meanwhile, other ground teams were searching by ATV and UTV up on the rim. Another pair of searchers was hiking the Telephone Trail, parallel to ours, maybe a mile away. All reported negative contact.
Before Randy and I had hiked back to the bottom of the canyon, we contacted Incident Command (IC) and found out that our coordinator had gone further down 89A to assist with a multiple fatality, head-on collision near Grasshopper Point and Midgley Bridge. Earlier, he had asked us to look closely for sign (footprints or other clues) at the top of the trail, but we saw nothing of interest around Thomas Point.
About an hour later, we slipped our sweaty packs off our sweaty backs. Randy then called IC on the radio for our next assignment.
"You can return to Flagstaff," our coordinator told us. "The subjects have been located."
Back at the SAR building close to midnight, we learned that a family member had contacted law enforcement and said the boys were safe... somewhere.
*******
Earlier last week, our SAR team responded to a call to search for a missing suicidal female. We were given the description of her vehicle, and our search area was based on information from a cellphone ping from her most recent call. We were instructed to contact Incident Command if we located the woman and/or her vehicle but not to approach. She was eventually located in that vehicle, alive but in need of medical assistance.
*******
Searching Under the Desert Sun
I was still searching, looking left and right and sometimes behind me because you can miss things on the backsides of boulders and other terrain features, but I also kept glancing ahead at that enticing little slice of shade in the distance, beneath the large rock overhang. I would head to that slice of shade and stop there for a good rest with the two men searching on either side of me. We all needed it.
I was feeling cooked—broiled, baked, sauteed, and steamed. The air temperature was at least 100 degrees, but the sun reflecting off the sand and rock made it feel even hotter, right through the soles of my boots. I wasn't sunburned, though; the sunblock I'd already reapplied twice was doing its job.
My water and blue Gatorade was hot, and I was now doing more of a shuffle than a walk. Walking in sand in that heat sure saps your energy.
So, have I mentioned it was hot? 🌞
We'd started searching our rather large segment a few hours earlier. We had plotted the UTM coordinates for the four corners of the assigned area then entered them into our GPSes, which were set up to record our tracks. Those tracks would later be downloaded by our coordinator onto his mapping software.
We drove up the highway to the southeast corner of our segment, spread out, and began an east-west grid search, walking about a mile with each pass. The canyon on the western edge of our segment required additional effort to search each time we came to that end. We could see fresh ATV tracks in the sand at the bottom of that canyon, which had been searched from below the day before.
This was the second day of SAR's involvement in the search, with two counties now participating, divided into several field teams. We'd met up at 4 a.m. to drive to the search area and get an early start because of the high desert temperatures. The sun was intense by 8:00. The K9 teams put special vests on their dogs that were soaked with water, and human searchers exchanged some gear for extra water bottles in their packs.
(In case you didn't know, it was hot!)
Shortly before I reached that coveted slice of shade, I overhead the K9 teams on the radio. They'd completed their assignment, and the dogs were spent. Incident Command offered rides back in the Polaris (UTV) for canines and handlers, and they readily accepted.
My search partners, both from Yavapai County, angled in toward my location, and the three of us dropped our packs in unison and ourselves into the shade. We'd completed about half our segment by 11 a.m. Another team reported that they too were taking a shade break before continuing to grid search their segment. We heard the lucky team on the river over the radio, doing their searching by boat and with a spotting scope. (But they deserved that assignment; both had been out here on foot and on ATVs the day before.)
After about 20 minutes of rest, my partners and I resumed our grid pattern, staying alert for the sound of rattling that could come from beneath any bit of brush or shaded bit of ground beneath a rock at any moment. We'd been told to watch out for rattlesnakes and scorpions, but no one reported encountering either one. I'm quite sure they were watching us, though.
Later that day, field teams converged back at base. The subject was (and as far as I know at this time, still is) missing. I can't give any details of the mission, I'm afraid, since it's an ongoing investigation, but I can point you to the brief missing person's report with the young man's photo: Police Search for Missing Page Man.
The search continued the following day, with members of our team's mounted unit responding.
And in other recent Coconino County SAR news...
Last week, I reported about the search in Grand Canyon for the overdue backpacker who'd begun his hike on the North Rim. I'm happy to say that the missing man was found on June 17th, tired and unable to each much but otherwise in good condition and good spirits.
Coco. SAR also recently responded to a call for the carry-out of a hiker who'd fractured her ankle near the saddle on the Humphreys Trail. Four search and rescue volunteers went up to Snowbowl (ski area), where a fire engine and an ambulance were already there. Two firemen and three personnel from Guardian had been deployed via a Snowbowl UTV up one of the ski runs to the base of a steep route that eventually connects with the Humphreys Trail at 11,400 feet. (We use this route as a shortcut when subjects are located near or beyond that elevation.)
Coconino County SAR drove our team's own UTV to the bottom of the route and then proceeded on foot. By that time, the firemen and medics were already with the subject. SAR made good time, and when they rendezvoused with the others, they tied the patient into the Stokes litter and carried her up the trail a ways until they found a relatively clear area to descend. They attached a 300-foot rope to the litter and slowly lowered the patient. It took four evolutions to get her down to the Polaris Ranger. She and two Guardian medics rode the UTV to the ambulance, while the rest walked down.
There was also a call-out to search for an overdue hiker in the Blue Ridge area, but SAR was turned around at Lake Mary when the subject turned up.
And last night at 7:45, while I was at a dinner party, there was another call-out for a litter carry near the saddle on the Humphreys Trail, for another patient with a fractured ankle.
I was feeling cooked—broiled, baked, sauteed, and steamed. The air temperature was at least 100 degrees, but the sun reflecting off the sand and rock made it feel even hotter, right through the soles of my boots. I wasn't sunburned, though; the sunblock I'd already reapplied twice was doing its job.
My water and blue Gatorade was hot, and I was now doing more of a shuffle than a walk. Walking in sand in that heat sure saps your energy.
So, have I mentioned it was hot? 🌞
 |
| Two members of Yavapai County SAR and I grid search in the desert. |
We'd started searching our rather large segment a few hours earlier. We had plotted the UTM coordinates for the four corners of the assigned area then entered them into our GPSes, which were set up to record our tracks. Those tracks would later be downloaded by our coordinator onto his mapping software.
We drove up the highway to the southeast corner of our segment, spread out, and began an east-west grid search, walking about a mile with each pass. The canyon on the western edge of our segment required additional effort to search each time we came to that end. We could see fresh ATV tracks in the sand at the bottom of that canyon, which had been searched from below the day before.
This was the second day of SAR's involvement in the search, with two counties now participating, divided into several field teams. We'd met up at 4 a.m. to drive to the search area and get an early start because of the high desert temperatures. The sun was intense by 8:00. The K9 teams put special vests on their dogs that were soaked with water, and human searchers exchanged some gear for extra water bottles in their packs.
(In case you didn't know, it was hot!)
Shortly before I reached that coveted slice of shade, I overhead the K9 teams on the radio. They'd completed their assignment, and the dogs were spent. Incident Command offered rides back in the Polaris (UTV) for canines and handlers, and they readily accepted.
My search partners, both from Yavapai County, angled in toward my location, and the three of us dropped our packs in unison and ourselves into the shade. We'd completed about half our segment by 11 a.m. Another team reported that they too were taking a shade break before continuing to grid search their segment. We heard the lucky team on the river over the radio, doing their searching by boat and with a spotting scope. (But they deserved that assignment; both had been out here on foot and on ATVs the day before.)
After about 20 minutes of rest, my partners and I resumed our grid pattern, staying alert for the sound of rattling that could come from beneath any bit of brush or shaded bit of ground beneath a rock at any moment. We'd been told to watch out for rattlesnakes and scorpions, but no one reported encountering either one. I'm quite sure they were watching us, though.
 |
| There were all sorts of nooks and crannies where rattlesnakes could be hanging out. |
Later that day, field teams converged back at base. The subject was (and as far as I know at this time, still is) missing. I can't give any details of the mission, I'm afraid, since it's an ongoing investigation, but I can point you to the brief missing person's report with the young man's photo: Police Search for Missing Page Man.
The search continued the following day, with members of our team's mounted unit responding.
And in other recent Coconino County SAR news...
Last week, I reported about the search in Grand Canyon for the overdue backpacker who'd begun his hike on the North Rim. I'm happy to say that the missing man was found on June 17th, tired and unable to each much but otherwise in good condition and good spirits.
Coco. SAR also recently responded to a call for the carry-out of a hiker who'd fractured her ankle near the saddle on the Humphreys Trail. Four search and rescue volunteers went up to Snowbowl (ski area), where a fire engine and an ambulance were already there. Two firemen and three personnel from Guardian had been deployed via a Snowbowl UTV up one of the ski runs to the base of a steep route that eventually connects with the Humphreys Trail at 11,400 feet. (We use this route as a shortcut when subjects are located near or beyond that elevation.)
Coconino County SAR drove our team's own UTV to the bottom of the route and then proceeded on foot. By that time, the firemen and medics were already with the subject. SAR made good time, and when they rendezvoused with the others, they tied the patient into the Stokes litter and carried her up the trail a ways until they found a relatively clear area to descend. They attached a 300-foot rope to the litter and slowly lowered the patient. It took four evolutions to get her down to the Polaris Ranger. She and two Guardian medics rode the UTV to the ambulance, while the rest walked down.
There was also a call-out to search for an overdue hiker in the Blue Ridge area, but SAR was turned around at Lake Mary when the subject turned up.
And last night at 7:45, while I was at a dinner party, there was another call-out for a litter carry near the saddle on the Humphreys Trail, for another patient with a fractured ankle.
An All-Night Search in Sedona
Seven of us from three merged ground-pounder teams lay on the cool rock with our packs under our heads, stargazing as we rested and waited. Our headlamps and any other sources of light were off. Not far from Submarine Rock, on the jeep road in the trees below, a team on the Polaris UTV shut off their vehicle lights, and another team on foot somewhere in the area went dark as well. The helicopter, DPS Ranger out of Phoenix, had arrived with their night-vision equipment, so searchers held their positions and became as little of a distraction as possible. If the missing hikers were out there, it was them we wanted to stand out.
It was around 3 a.m. on Sunday. We'd been hiking and searching for several hours, with teams starting from different trailheads, covering as many trails and roads as we could in this hasty search phase, sometimes bushwhacking through dense manzanita, cat claw, and cactus to try to get a look into a side canyon. Earlier, a few of us had detected a faint whiff of smoke from the top of Submarine Rock, but it soon dissipated on the breeze. We reported it and the general direction we believed it came from to Incident Command. From our high point, we didn't see any glow in the surrounding forest.
We were looking for three missing French-Canadian hikers who'd started out from the Chapel of the Holy Cross parking lot around midday on Saturday, rendezvousing with their three friends at Chicken Point at 2:30 in the afternoon. The others had started hiking the Broken Arrow Trail from the north, and the two groups had exchanged car keys when they met up, as planned. The three hiking to the vehicle parked at the chapel arrived at their destination, but the three hiking north never had. After waiting and doing some searching, the friends of the missing hikers had called 9-1-1.
We'd been told that the missing hikers were wearing shorts, light clothing, and sneakers, and they had one liter of water left between the three of them when they'd met the other group at Chicken Point. One of the missing was a smoker, so she possibly had cigarettes and a lighter or matches with her. If so, they may have been able to start a fire.
We also kept calling and blowing our whistles and stopping to listen. We looked for prints—there were many in this popular hiking area—especially watching for any fresh tracks that veered off the main trails. We took a closer look at prints now and then that were on top of all the rest and the mountain bike tracks, but we found nothing that seemed significant. On a beautiful weekend day in that area, a large number of feet would have passed through.
As we lay on the rock, the helicopter made a big circle around the area. We watched them return in our direction and then disappear behind a butte. They didn't immediately come back into view, and within less a minute our radios transmitted our coordinator's message in unison: Ranger had located our three missing hikers. It was indeed the smoke from their fire we'd smelled earlier. Thanks to the helicopter, locating the source of that smell was very much expedited. Had we tried to find it on foot in that rugged terrain and given their location in the bottom of a wash about a mile from any trail, it would have taken us hours longer.
DPS Ranger gave us coordinates, which we plotted on our maps and entered into GPSes. Five of us hiked up the rocky drainage and bushwhacked to their location, arriving at the three happy hikers at about 5:15am. They were not only in a good spirits, laughing at the whole situation and thanking us profusely for coming to their aid, but they were in good physical shape, too. Carrying an ill or injured hiker out of that location would have been a beast.
After dousing and buying their fire, offering the hikers water and making sure they were okay to walk out, we all followed the boulder-strewn wash back to the jeep road. From there, the three hikers were given a ride on SAR's UTV to their waiting friends at the Broken Arrow Trailhead.
Before departing, I got lots of appreciative French kisses... uh, meaning the cheek-to-cheek kind... meaning the face-cheek kind... as the vacationing hikers and their friends again thanked me and my teammates for our help. Despite the skin I left behind on the cat claw "claws," it had been a good night for some SAR.
See: 3 Lost Hikers Overnight in Sedona Wilderness from the Arizona Daily Sun
It was around 3 a.m. on Sunday. We'd been hiking and searching for several hours, with teams starting from different trailheads, covering as many trails and roads as we could in this hasty search phase, sometimes bushwhacking through dense manzanita, cat claw, and cactus to try to get a look into a side canyon. Earlier, a few of us had detected a faint whiff of smoke from the top of Submarine Rock, but it soon dissipated on the breeze. We reported it and the general direction we believed it came from to Incident Command. From our high point, we didn't see any glow in the surrounding forest.
We were looking for three missing French-Canadian hikers who'd started out from the Chapel of the Holy Cross parking lot around midday on Saturday, rendezvousing with their three friends at Chicken Point at 2:30 in the afternoon. The others had started hiking the Broken Arrow Trail from the north, and the two groups had exchanged car keys when they met up, as planned. The three hiking to the vehicle parked at the chapel arrived at their destination, but the three hiking north never had. After waiting and doing some searching, the friends of the missing hikers had called 9-1-1.
We'd been told that the missing hikers were wearing shorts, light clothing, and sneakers, and they had one liter of water left between the three of them when they'd met the other group at Chicken Point. One of the missing was a smoker, so she possibly had cigarettes and a lighter or matches with her. If so, they may have been able to start a fire.
We also kept calling and blowing our whistles and stopping to listen. We looked for prints—there were many in this popular hiking area—especially watching for any fresh tracks that veered off the main trails. We took a closer look at prints now and then that were on top of all the rest and the mountain bike tracks, but we found nothing that seemed significant. On a beautiful weekend day in that area, a large number of feet would have passed through.
As we lay on the rock, the helicopter made a big circle around the area. We watched them return in our direction and then disappear behind a butte. They didn't immediately come back into view, and within less a minute our radios transmitted our coordinator's message in unison: Ranger had located our three missing hikers. It was indeed the smoke from their fire we'd smelled earlier. Thanks to the helicopter, locating the source of that smell was very much expedited. Had we tried to find it on foot in that rugged terrain and given their location in the bottom of a wash about a mile from any trail, it would have taken us hours longer.
DPS Ranger gave us coordinates, which we plotted on our maps and entered into GPSes. Five of us hiked up the rocky drainage and bushwhacked to their location, arriving at the three happy hikers at about 5:15am. They were not only in a good spirits, laughing at the whole situation and thanking us profusely for coming to their aid, but they were in good physical shape, too. Carrying an ill or injured hiker out of that location would have been a beast.
After dousing and buying their fire, offering the hikers water and making sure they were okay to walk out, we all followed the boulder-strewn wash back to the jeep road. From there, the three hikers were given a ride on SAR's UTV to their waiting friends at the Broken Arrow Trailhead.
Before departing, I got lots of appreciative French kisses... uh, meaning the cheek-to-cheek kind... meaning the face-cheek kind... as the vacationing hikers and their friends again thanked me and my teammates for our help. Despite the skin I left behind on the cat claw "claws," it had been a good night for some SAR.
See: 3 Lost Hikers Overnight in Sedona Wilderness from the Arizona Daily Sun
 |
| A view from Submarine Rock / Flickr -- CC |
Overdue Hikers Found in Blue Ridge Area
On Wednesday night, May 18th, I was at home, cozy in my PJs and down booties as the winter-like temps in Flagstaff continued to drop after a day of freezing rain and snow. As my friend prepared to head out following our late dinner, I said, "I have a feeling it's a SAR call night." About an hour later, I texted him, "Yep, it's a SAR call night."
This would be a search in the Blue Ridge area for two overdue hikers who'd last been seen leaving their campsite at 1 p.m. earlier that day, unprepared for the cold, wet conditions. They weren't carrying any food, water, or gear other than possibly a lighter.
While 10 of us volunteers readied our gear to depart the SAR building, a second mission was brewing in the same general area, but that one was resolved before we'd finished briefing. Due to icy road conditions and numerous accidents in the area, we took the lower elevation route to our destination, towing ATVs and the Polaris Ranger. In the meantime, a team member who lives in Blue Ridge went directly to the subjects' campsite and met up with deputies and Forest Service personnel to begin searching. The weather conditions and lack of preparedness on the part of the missing hikers lent a sense of urgency to the mission. Hypothermia was a big concern, and they'd already been missing for eight hours.
When the rest of us reached the point last seen, which became our staging area, assignments were given and, two-by-two, we headed out to search. One of the teams included a K9 handler, her four area search dogs, and a backer to do the navigation, radio communication, and assist with searching while the handler worked her dogs. Another team of two took the UTV, and the rest of us went out on foot. My field partner and I were one of the teams carrying night vision goggles, and everyone had warm-up gear to help the subjects regardless of who would find them.
While no DPS helicopter was available—the Phoenix crew couldn't fly due to weather concerns, and there was no crew available from Flagstaff or Kingman—a Guardian medical helicopter came to assist with the search. They arrived on scene just as we were deploying into the field.
Not long after, my partner and I heard through the static on the radio that someone was hearing yelling. It was one of the searchers driving Forest Service roads, doing containment, who had heard the shouts. He and another volunteer in a different vehicle had been slowly driving a perimeter around the area, going in opposite directions and stopping often to make noise and then listen. The two of them had just passed one another on the road when one of them heard the voices.
Soon, two very cold, hungry, and thirsty hikers were inside the vehicle, warming up. A landing zone was located for the helicopter, and the subjects were driven to that location, where they were checked by the Guardian medic as a ground ambulance continued to their location to transport the two to Payson.
It was about 3 a.m. when the lost hikers were located, so they'd been out there for about 14 hours, during which time the rain and snow had resumed for a while. They'd apparently continued moving till around midnight, covering a pretty good distance and certainly more than they'd planned. Finally, they'd laid down between two logs, a short distance from the Forest Service road and not all that far from a highway, for what turned out to be a few more very uncomfortable, freezing cold hours.
At 7:30 a.m. on Thursday, I walked back into my house and once again changed into those cozy PJs and down booties as the wintry, wet weather continued.
See: Lost Hikers Rescued from Cold Conditions from the Arizona Daily Sun
This would be a search in the Blue Ridge area for two overdue hikers who'd last been seen leaving their campsite at 1 p.m. earlier that day, unprepared for the cold, wet conditions. They weren't carrying any food, water, or gear other than possibly a lighter.
While 10 of us volunteers readied our gear to depart the SAR building, a second mission was brewing in the same general area, but that one was resolved before we'd finished briefing. Due to icy road conditions and numerous accidents in the area, we took the lower elevation route to our destination, towing ATVs and the Polaris Ranger. In the meantime, a team member who lives in Blue Ridge went directly to the subjects' campsite and met up with deputies and Forest Service personnel to begin searching. The weather conditions and lack of preparedness on the part of the missing hikers lent a sense of urgency to the mission. Hypothermia was a big concern, and they'd already been missing for eight hours.
When the rest of us reached the point last seen, which became our staging area, assignments were given and, two-by-two, we headed out to search. One of the teams included a K9 handler, her four area search dogs, and a backer to do the navigation, radio communication, and assist with searching while the handler worked her dogs. Another team of two took the UTV, and the rest of us went out on foot. My field partner and I were one of the teams carrying night vision goggles, and everyone had warm-up gear to help the subjects regardless of who would find them.
While no DPS helicopter was available—the Phoenix crew couldn't fly due to weather concerns, and there was no crew available from Flagstaff or Kingman—a Guardian medical helicopter came to assist with the search. They arrived on scene just as we were deploying into the field.
Not long after, my partner and I heard through the static on the radio that someone was hearing yelling. It was one of the searchers driving Forest Service roads, doing containment, who had heard the shouts. He and another volunteer in a different vehicle had been slowly driving a perimeter around the area, going in opposite directions and stopping often to make noise and then listen. The two of them had just passed one another on the road when one of them heard the voices.
Soon, two very cold, hungry, and thirsty hikers were inside the vehicle, warming up. A landing zone was located for the helicopter, and the subjects were driven to that location, where they were checked by the Guardian medic as a ground ambulance continued to their location to transport the two to Payson.
It was about 3 a.m. when the lost hikers were located, so they'd been out there for about 14 hours, during which time the rain and snow had resumed for a while. They'd apparently continued moving till around midnight, covering a pretty good distance and certainly more than they'd planned. Finally, they'd laid down between two logs, a short distance from the Forest Service road and not all that far from a highway, for what turned out to be a few more very uncomfortable, freezing cold hours.
At 7:30 a.m. on Thursday, I walked back into my house and once again changed into those cozy PJs and down booties as the wintry, wet weather continued.
See: Lost Hikers Rescued from Cold Conditions from the Arizona Daily Sun
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