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.

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

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

Searching the ridge after the thunderstorm moved off

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

Family members described Frank 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

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

Incident Command / Base Camp

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

We search again the next day.

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

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

Two for the SAR Dogs: A Night Search on the San Francisco Peaks

Two very dehydrated hikers were lost with no lights and no other gear and separated from each other. One of them had a cellphone and, luckily, a signal. He finally decided to call for help after hiking ahead of his friend, who could go no further.

They'd come up from the Verde Valley to hike to the summit of Humphreys beginning at 3 p.m., but unbeknownst to them, they were not actually on the Humphreys Trail. Instead, they'd hiked down the Kachina Trail, away from Humphreys. At some point, they decided to go off-trail anyway and up toward a different summit. Eventually, the two turned back when their energy supplies and daylight started to fade quickly.

At about 9:30 p.m., I heard SAR activity on the online scanner, so I knew the call-out was coming. At around 10:00, it did, and I and five other volunteers, including one K9 handler with two search dogs, responded. In three pairs of two, myself with the handler and the two youngest of her four air-scenting golden retrievers, split up per our assignments and headed to our starting locations.

Cindy and I began hiking with the dogs from the trailhead at Snowbowl. Another pair of searchers drove down Schultz Pass Rd., then headed up the Weatherford Trail to intersect with the Kachina Trail from the other end, and our third pair of searchers drove down Friedline Prairie Road to that trailhead, to hike up and intersect the Kachina Trail at another location. So, we were searching from both ends and in the middle. I had a feeling, based on the information our coordinator was given by the one hiker on the phone, that Cindy and I were closest to the subjects' locations.

And that turned out to be the case. About three-quarters of a mile in, the dogs alerted, and we soon had voice contact with the first subject. We found him sitting in the middle of the trail in the dark. After thanking us for coming out, the first thing on his mind was water. He ended up drinking four liters before I eventually hiked him back to the trailhead. Other than being very dehydrated and hungry with a resulting headache, and a bit chilly (so I lent him one of my jackets), he was in good condition and denied needing medical attention. I stayed with him while Cindy and the dogs continued up the trail to try to locate the second hiker.

The young man I was with told me that, for a while, he'd practically carried his friend, who was in worse shape. Finally, the friend had said he had to stop and lay down, while the first guy kept going. At some point, he too had stopped, but the two remained in distant voice contact. That is, until the weaker of the two either fell asleep or passed out for a time. When he awoke, he later said, there was no answer from his friend. That's because his friend (the one I was with) had decided to try to keep going with the light from his phone. He'd made progress for about another 45 minutes before he again had to stop. I believe it was then that he'd called 9-1-1.

DPS helicopters were not available to assist with the search, but a Guardian medical helicopter was able to come out. They didn't locate either hiker with their night vision equipment, but they did help in relaying communications for us once Cindy lost radio contact with me and with our coordinator back at the Snowbowl trailhead.

About a mile or so past where we'd found the first subject, the dogs again alerted, this time heading off trail, up-slope into a gully. In the distance, Cindy heard the jingling of the bells on the dogs' collars increase in speed, meaning they were running. Then she heard a bark, as one of her dogs will often do when alerting at night. Then the dogs returned to her, gave their other alerts—jumped on her—and took off back into the gully as Cindy followed. Soon, as the dogs ran back and forth between the human they'd found and their handler, Cindy made voice contact with the second subject.

Thankfully, after he too was hydrated, the second hiker was able to walk out with Cindy and eventually met me, his friend, and our coordinator back at the trailhead. After all the obligatory information was gathered, some preparedness information given to the two subjects, and the second young man declined medical attention, we all went on our way. I was home at 3a.m.

Thank you to those super SAR dogs for making our job that night easier and faster. Had the second hiker been unresponsive, finding him without the dogs would have been a much longer, more difficult task.

Cindy and her search dogs on another mission.

He Tweeted While He Waited

Kinda funny. Today on Twitter, when I mentioned that I'd been up most of last night on Mt. Humphreys on a SAR call-out, one of my followers responded and gave me the Twitter user name of the young man we'd fetched off the mountain. So I took a peak at his profile page and saw that our subject had been tweeting while waiting for us to arrive. Which is why his cellphone battery just about pooped out, I guess.

But if I were stuck up there at 11,000-some-odd feet in the dark, shivvering in my shorts and t-shirt and without a light, I'd be nervous and wish I could tweet away, too, I suppose. 

Anyhow, I spent most of last night on that same mountain I was up and down, up and down... and up... and down the last time I posted, which was what? Saturday? This time, I drove up in the dark at about 11 p.m. Heck, I could just about do it with my eyes closed now.

On the way, one of my teammates said, "In SAR, we all have our thing. And THIS is your thing." He was referring to me being the UTV driver. Hmm... can I change my thing to something else?

So okay, where was I? Oh, the mission.

Well, it turned out fine. We drove "my little red car" up the ski run and parked it at the bottom of our extremely steep shortcut to intersect with the trail at around 11,400 feet, slipping on the scree. I was grabbing at tree branches, trying not to tip over backwards—boy, would that have been embarrassing—and to our surprise, made voice contact with the young man as soon as we reached the trail. We'd thought he was beyond the saddle as far as the first false summit and then on a scree slope about 800 to 1,000 feet down. In fact, he was just a short distance off the trail, having missed a switchback in the dark and ended up on a boulder field. Well, good. The would be much easier, relatively-speaking, than we'd expected.

After we handed over some Gatorade and extra clothing to the cold hiker, then explained that we wanted to descend, not down the trail but down our steeper but shorter route to the parked UTV, and our subject quickly agreed, the three of us SAR members and one relieved hiker made our way back down the mountain.

The end. (For now.)

Arizona Daily Sun article: Hiker Rescued Off Of Humphreys Peak Early Monday

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My latest SAR Stories News post: Search & Rescue and Social Media

A First Snow's Mission

It's still Sunday. I got home from the "Drunk on Devil's Head" mission at 4:30 this morning. At five-something this afternoon, we had another call-out. Between the two missions, Steve and I enjoyed a midday dog walk, during which the sun was shining and it warmed up enough that I shed my winter coat and tied it around my waist. Sometime during the afternoon, however, while we were busy painting our bathrooms (too yellow, unfortunately), the clouds moved in, the temp dropped, and white stuff began falling for the first time this season.

And now I'm in a warm SAR vehicle, while several of my teammates are hiking in the precipitation, alternating between flurries and whiteout conditions throughout the evening. Three other volunteers have driven around to the other end of this five-mile section of the 800-mile Arizona Trail, which stretches from the U.S.–Mexico border to the Utah state line. The two lost subjects, a man and woman, are stuck between Sandy's Canyon and Marshall Lake.

This is a basic unprepared hiker scenario: no maps, no lights (save for the flash of a camera, we're told), improper clothing. But they do have a cellphone that ain't dead yet. So, when they got lost and it got dark, the couple called for help.

As a result of cellphone communication with a deputy, we pretty much know where the stranded hikers are located. In fact, they can see our spotlight from here at Incident Command and even heard the deputy yell when he walked a short distance into the forest. So, as the crow flies, they aren't far from here, but there's a canyon between us and them, and they can't safely move in the dark. They're also now wet and cold.

Fifteen of us are out tonight, so more than enough SAR as long as things go smoothly and no one gets hurt or overly hypothermic. That's why I'm toasty and snug in the vehicle along with two of my teammates, while four others are getting some exercise. The leader of the ground team just called in some coordinates on the radio, and I could hear him huffing and puffing.

Time passes as my vehicle-mates and I chat about this and that. I keep one ear on radio comms and the other on the conversation in the truck. Oh good, they have voice contact. And soon, the ground team reaches the subjects. They're going to warm the two up and give them additional clothing before hiking them out.

Turns out, they're closer to the other SAR vehicle near Marshall Lake, so that's where they're headed. The rest of us drive around to rendezvous there.

We wait for a while until the ground team arrives with the rescued hikers, who appear to be in their fifties or so. They look happy and grateful. I can't hear what they're saying, but I see their smiles, their single Camelbak (water pack) and one water bottle, the camera around the man's neck, their cotton sweatshirts. While I don't personally condone hiking with cellphones to the exclusion of other essential gear, it's a good thing they were able to make that call tonight. Otherwise, severe hypothermia would most likely have caught up with them before anyone else would have.

Another happy ending.

Drunk on Devil's Head

So I think there's a bit of a pattern emerging here. I tell you how unusually quiet it's been for a while, then beep, beep, beep! Well, it's more of a song my pager emits than a series of monotonous beeps... but my point is, the thing seems to go off not long after I make that sort of comment. That's what happened the other night after I finished the "PLB's and Plenty of Z's" entry. I'd been reading in bed (Lost in the Amazon, it's called), and my book had just settled on my face when I was jolted awake by that familiar little song.

The page-out was initiated by our team captain, also a volunteer, since Sergeant D is out of town. This would be a search for a 43-year-old male who'd driven up to the top of Mt. Elden, drunk (or had gotten drunk up there, perhaps) earlier in the afternoon and hadn't been seen since. The reporting party said the man was not dressed for the cold. It was now a little after 10 p.m. on Saturday, below freezing in town at 7,000 feet and certainly colder at over 9,000.

I've never driven up Elden Lookout Rd. before, just hiked to the top via various trails. And I think I prefer the hiking. The trails are fairly strenuous but not nearly as rough on the body as bouncing up that dirt road, which is more a jumble of boulders than actual dirt. As a passenger that night, I was holding on to the "oh-sh*t" bar with both hands. Even my seat belt wasn't enough to keep my head from bumping the roof of the vehicle a time or two. And that drive took us a while. I'm thinking I may have been able to hike up there faster.

At any rate, there ended up being 13 of us searchers and rescuers on the mountain, including two deputies. When we convened at the tailgate of one of our pickups, a usual location for a team briefing, we learned some additional details:

Originally, there had been four in the party: the man who's now missing, his girlfriend, his brother, and a friend. They drove together to the top of the mountain, where they drank and they drank. Then they argued. Then, the brother and the friend took the vehicle and left the mountain. Bye-bye! Meanwhile, the now-missing man and his girlfriend continued to argue and walked southward, across an open area called Turkey Park, and apparently slid aways down the side of Devil's Head.

Just to give you an idea of the terrain, it's basically one long mountain with three peaks: Little Elden to the east, Elden in the middle, and Devil's Head to the west. Mt. Elden, the highest of the three, and Devil's Head are mostly separated by a grassy area called Turkey Park. You can drive right up to the top of Elden or, just below Turkey Park, take the other prong of the forked road and go to Devil's Head.

Anyhow, the reporting party this evening had been the missing man's girlfriend. The details were a bit fuzzy, but I think the man had slid further down Devil's Head than his girlfriend had (at one point someone said she'd actually pushed him)—or perhaps not but was maybe drunker than she was—and he couldn't get back up, either due to injury, inebriation, or maybe both. I'm not sure about any of that, but I do know the girlfriend climbed back up to Turkey Park, then walked all the way down Elden Lookout Rd., and somehow got a ride back to town where she called 911.

Okay, so before breaking into ground teams, we gathered around a clear footprint definitely made by the man we were looking for when he and his girlfriend had started walking southbound, first on the road and then overland toward the rim. He was wearing cowboy boots.

We then divided into several groups. One team of three had arrived a bit before the rest of us and were already headed to the area the girlfriend had described as where they'd gone off the side of Devil's Head. The rest of us were assigned to scouting the interior of Turkey Park—"purposeful wandering," as our leader for the evening described it—searching the perimeter of Turkey Park along the rim and searching the radio and lookout towers at the summit of Mt. Elden. We had no idea if the subject had perhaps left the area where his girlfriend had last seen him. We had no idea if he was badly hurt or if he was suffering from severe hypothermia. Or both. Alcohol only makes matters worse, of course.

I was on the three-person team doing the purposeful wandering around the interior of Turkey Park. We spread out about, oh, 30 feet or so and searched the tall grass and clumps of short trees, calling out the subject's name as we always do and looking closely in case he was there but unresponsive.

Eventually, Team 1, who'd gone to the general area last seen, found what looked to be a slide pattern. And, soon afterward, they had voice contact from below. I was actually a little surprised how accurate the girlfriend's description had been, given her altered state at the time of the slide.

Turns out, the man was not seriously hurt. Nor was he apparently stuck, at least not by then, because he walked up to meet the SAR team. After warming him up, the rest of the ascent was quite slow as apparently the man had to, uh, stop and dispose of some "cookies" shall we say (okay, barf) every so often. At the request of Team 1, other SAR members brought Gatorade down to the dehydrated guy. Eventually, he was handed over, wobbling, to a deputy, who drove him home.

I heard the subject was lucky he hadn't slid off the edge of Devil's Chair, which is a sheer cliff. I'm not familiar with that area on an up-close-and-personal basis, but if you see it from a distance, that's what the formation looks like: a big chair. All in all, things turned out much better than some of us had anticipated. A heavy-duty hangover is nothing compared to a broken neck.

Anyhow, that's how I spent Saturday night till 4:30 Sunday morning. No Zs that night.

He Plugged His Ears?

I'm supposed to be at work right now, and I guess that's bothering me a little. I haven't been late or missed a day in the five years I've been at my current job. But this first time, I think it's warranted and that my boss will understand. We've been searching for a lost 15-year-old boy for the last 10 hours, since late last night.

It was so dark with no moonlight at all. When I turned off my headlamp, I couldn't see my hand just inches from my face. As three of us searched, calling for Blaine and blowing our whistles along the Mormon Mountain Trail, I thought about how scared I'd be, even as an adult, being lost out there alone all night long. And it got pretty chilly just before dawn. The boy, we're told, was wearing desert camouflage and carrying no extra clothing.

Blaine came up from Phoenix with his uncle to do some archery deer hunting in the Mormon Lake area. His uncle dropped him off at the gate near the top of Mormon Mountain at 2:00 yesterday afternoon, with an arranged rendezvous time at that same location. But Blaine didn't make it back. At 7:30 p.m., he made a cellphone call to his uncle, saying his GPS had run out of battery and he'd gotten lost. The reception was poor, and the conversation was short.

The uncle told us he'd fired off 30 rounds to try to help the boy navigate to his location. No further cellphone contact was made, and it appears Blaine's phone may have since gone dead — our calls keep going right to voice mail.

Blaine's uncle had a spotlight, which he pointed straight up, hoping to provide a beacon once it got dark. But even if Blaine could and did see the light, he had no light source himself, so navigating this rocky, thickly forested terrain would have been just about impossible. If he did try to move, injury would be a likely scenario, so hopefully the boy stayed put at least until first light.

The deputy in charge of this search in Sergeant D's absence told us Blaine's last cellphone call had bounced off a tower near I-17. That gave us some indication of what side of the mountain Blaine would have been on at the time of that call. So we took that into consideration when coming up with a game plan.

Given that only three of us SAR members were able to respond last night, we had to search on foot as a single team while Blaine's family and the deputy drove the perimeter roads throughout the night.

After we cleared the area along the Mormon Mountain Trail, finding no footprints and not establishing voice contact despite all the noise we made, which seemed to carry far in the stillness, a deputy picked us up and drove us back to the top of the mountain.

So, what now?

We decided that a little rest was in order, and we'd wait until dawn to continue our search. At that time, another call-out would be made to hopefully get some additional help and cover more area. So, Bob, Joe, and I climbed into SAR vehicles, made ourselves as comfortable as possible, and got some spotty shut-eye for about an hour. As soon as we could see without headlamps, we resumed searching.

We've just finished bushwhacking around the mountaintop, shouting down slope and searching for clues. Everyone is getting progressively more worried. Is the boy injured and unresponsive? Could he have crossed over the perimeter road and kept going? If so, he might be pretty far away after walking since 2 p.m. yesterday. Could someone have picked him up along the road?

We're glad that Flagstaff Ranger, the DPS helicopter, has now arrived, flying a grid pattern over the mountain. And we're told six additional SAR members are on their way with Sergeant D, as well as several deputies who'll assist. We've asked them to bring ATVs too. There are many two-tracks in the area that aren't even on the maps.

In the meantime, the three of us who are on our second—or third—wind will drive some other Forest Service roads. We're now heading down the road from the top of the mountain, and we see one of the family's vans coming up. They stop, and we roll down our windows to talk to the uncle, who's gotten out and is walking our way. He still doesn't look particularly alarmed. Like last night, he seems almost nonchalant, confident that his nephew will turn up.

He walks over to our driver's side window.

"We haven't found anything yet," Bob tells the uncle. "But more searchers are on their way."

There's a pause.

"Great," the uncle replies. "Well, actually... we found him."

What? Yay! I'm so relieved.

"Is he okay?" I ask, while Bob fishes for the radio to inform Incident Command.

"Yeah, he's fine."

"Great! Where did you find him? Where was he last night?"

The uncle proceeds to tell us that they found Blaine on this same road, heading down from the top, where he'd seen one of our SAR vehicles but it was unoccupied at the time. So he kept walking toward the place where he and his uncle had camped at the base of the mountain the night before last.

And where was Blaine last night? A little ways off the Mormon Mountain Trail! But... that's where we'd been calling for him.

"Yeah," said the uncle, "he plugged his ears and went to sleep. When he woke up this morning, he heard the siren, but he went back to sleep for a while."

He plugged his ears! Why, that little ... uh, I mean, that brave boy. I'm so glad he's okay.

I check my watch. Well, I can probably be at the office by noon.

An All-Nighter on Kendrick Peak

I haven't slept for 36 hours, so if I sound loopy, that's my excuse. I was just drifting off to sleep last night when my pager jerked me awake and onto my feet. Two overdue hikers on Kendrick Peak, Arizona's fourth highest mountain at 10,418 feet.

I checked the clock: 11 p.m. Why were we being called out so late? Maybe the reporting party, one of the missing men's sons, kept thinking they'd show up at any moment and procrastinated. Oh well, no matter. Off I went.

When seven of us got to the mountain, a deputy was already climbing the 4.5-mile Kendrick Trail but had not had any voice contact with the subjects or found any sign of them. Another deputy filled us in on the details as the reporting party sat cross-legged on the ground nearby, not looking particularly alarmed by the situation. We were told the men were in their early fifties and weighed about 260 and 280 pounds. (I hope they'll be able to walk out on their own, I was thinking. A carry-out would be a doozy.) They had no lights, maybe one liter of water between them, were wearing t-shirts, and had no extra layers of clothing. They did have cell phones but had left them in the car.

Our plan: Four of us would start up the trail, putting our tracking skills to use and calling periodically, until we'd reach the point where the subjects had last been seen by the son as he was descending. (The older men had turned around, having decided they weren't up for continuing to the summit. The son was much faster and had already gone to the top.) At that point, at about 8,800 feet, we'd split into two groups of two searchers and go off trail. Meanwhile, the others would drive Forest Service roads around the base of the mountain.

As we all set off to carry out our assignments, Kingman DPS Ranger was searching from the air. The noise from the helicopter made it difficult to listen for any response to our calls. Every once in a while as we were hiking, one of us would stop suddenly and say, "Hey, I think I heard something." So we'd wait until the helicopter moved off, call again, and listen. Nothing. 

Though I had a hard time hearing anything but my own huffing and puffing. It wasn't easy keeping up with my speedy companions, who didn't seem winded at all. We spent about an hour on the trail before coming to the point last seen.

Even with our headlamps and flashlights off, we could easily see the trail; the moon was bright and the sky clear. Much of the trail was lined with rocks, but we did check for prints where drainages or game trails may have confused the men in the dark and caused them to veer off, but we found no evidence anyone had gone off the trail.

At the point last seen, we stopped for a drink and snack break while studying our topo map and discussing the next course of action, when we'd split into two and two. Meanwhile, we listened to radio traffic between Incident Command, Kingman Ranger, and the volunteers driving Forest Service roads. The men in one of our vehicles had stopped to call out and listen and thought they'd heard something in the distance, up on the mountain. Ranger was in the process of flying over that area.

Soon, we heard that the lost men had been spotted, high on the mountain, one of them waving a white cloth as the helicopter passed over. They appeared to be uninjured. Somehow, our SAR teammates and the two hikers had heard one another from over a mile away. Amazing how the sound had carried. Ranger transmitted some lat-long coordinates, which we converted to UTM and plotted on our map.

The decision was made that Ken and Joel would stay put and wait for the deputy to come back down the trail, then return with him to Incident Command while Al and I would contour around the mountain and make our way toward the subjects. They certainly had gone a long way off the trail somehow, and Al and I would have to bushwhack at least a couple of miles to get to them. The coordinates taken from the air were only approximate, so we'd have to gain voice contact and hone in on their exact location.

Meanwhile, Val and Joe would leave their vehicle and head up the mountain, too. Eventually, the four of us would rendezvous with the stationery subjects and escort them, hopefully under their own power, to the vehicle. We were all carrying extra drinks, snacks, headlamps, and clothing to share with them.

Initial voice contact with the subjects had been established at about 2:45 a.m. It was close to dawn by the time Val and Joe reached the men, and Al and I arrived a short time later, a bit bruised and scratched from the effort. The going was tedious and slow through thick stands of young aspen trees, piles of dead fall like oversized pickup sticks, and large boulder fields.

But we were happy to find two uninjured, albeit exhausted and dehydrated, men, both in good spirits. Seeing there was a female in the group, one of them gave me a humorous warning the moment I arrived, telling me he'd torn open the seat of his jeans so I might want to avoid the sight if I was easily embarrassed. "Ah, that's okay," Val said. "Deb hangs out with us."

We were able to turn off our headlamps soon after we began picking our way down the mountain as the sun came up. And now the going was painfully slow. I fidgeted each time we stopped to give the men a break. But they were good-natured and grateful, and we couldn't have hoped for nicer rescue-ees.

One of the men admitted to me they'd gone off-trail on purpose on their way down, cutting switchbacks in an attempt to make a beeline back to their car and shorten the distance. It was still daylight when they realized they were very lost, and matters only worsened when it got dark. Well, that plan certainly backfired.

When we finally reached the vehicle at about 8 a.m., rescuers and the rescued had the longest farewell session I've experienced so far, with the men telling us they're going to make a donation to our team. Very cool. Unexpected and unsolicited but very much appreciated.

When I signed out back at the SAR building around 9:45 a.m., I had just enough time to drive across town to pick up my mom for a full day of errand-running (she doesn't drive anymore) and a pre-planned lunch. I met Steve at home at 5:00. We had some dinner and ... my pager just went off again.

Did I say how much I enjoy this SAR stuff? Let's see what's goin' on now...

Searching Out of Bounds

Ah, the lure of fresh powder. If you're a skier or snowboarder—which I'm not—you can probably relate. It must be so tempting to get out there in the fresh snow and make the first tracks after another winter storm has passed. This year, we've had above-average snowfall in Flagstaff, and that's a very good thing for our local ski resort. Some years, Snowbowl can open for only days or maybe weeks if they're lucky. The ski area doesn't manufacture snow (added later: they do now but not at the time of this search), so their business is entirely dependent upon nature, which has been very cooperative lately. Where there's heavy snow in the mountains, however, there can also be danger.

Within the past few weeks, search and rescue has received a number of calls from out-of-bound snowboarders who've ducked under the ropes at the ski area to enjoy the thrill of swooshing through pristine powder in the Kachina Peaks Wilderness. Trouble is, many of these same folks are not prepared, with no gear, food, or water in case they get stuck or lost. No map or avalanche beacon either. Often all they carry is a cellphone, and, lucky for them, they can usually get a signal from that area.

The calls are often similar—the skier or snowboarder, after getting off the chair lift and heading out of bounds, has gone down a gully, which has pulled them far from the ski area and the road. Eventually, the slope decreases to the point where a board or skis just won't go any further in snow that is sometimes several feet deep. One caller was very nervous about the fracturing, unstable snow all around him.

Going out of bounds is not illegal here, but a free, one-year permit issued by the Forest Service is required to do so. The permitting process is simply an opportunity for Forest Service personnel to speak to recreationists about the hazards of winter travel in the backcountry, to give them tips about what gear to carry and the additional risks involved when skiing or snowboarding off the maintained trails, where avalanche danger is mitigated. If someone requests help while out of bounds and is found not to have a permit, the fine is $75. There's no charge for the actual cost of rescue, which can easily be in the thousands of dollars.

This year, the call-outs for stranded out-of-bounders have, until tonight, been resolved when SAR volunteers or the deputy talked them back to the road. Their locations were determined using a DPS helicopter or the callers' descriptions of their surroundings. Then a rescuer was able to guide them by phone through the arduous work of slugging through the deep snow, sometimes pushing their boards ahead of them to cut a path while they followed on their knees, until they could be picked up somewhere along seven-mile Snowbowl Road.

And that was the case earlier today, when I and several other volunteers responded to the first of three calls. That initial call came at about 3 p.m., and, within an hour after we arrived at Snowbowl, the subjects emerged along the road. While waiting for the first two snowboarders, a second call came in, and that person was able to follow the tracks of other two. Scott and I picked him up at the same spot.

But things weren't over for us. A fourth snowboarder by the name of Edward was reported missing, this time by friends who hadn't seen their companion since shortly after going out of bounds at 10:30 this morning. The group had decided to snowboard in what's known as Third Gully. It was now about 5:30 p.m., and daylight was fading fast. We were told that Edward did not carry extra gear or a cellphone.

At midnight, we're still searching for Edward. There are now seven of us on snowshoes, split into three groups, and two guys in the Thiakol snowcat, which runs on tracks like a tank. The snow is so deep that when Scott and I were dropped off along a Forest Service road to head toward the bottom of Third Gully, the Thiakol driver jumped out and ended up buried to his waist. The snowshoes certainly help, but at times I still sink a couple of feet, and the going is extremely slow. At one point, Scott thought we'd gone at least a mile, but I checked my GPS and had to give him the bad news: We'd gone only half a mile in the last hour. Now, after six hours of this, I'm beginning to run out of steam.

As we listen to radio traffic, we know that one of our field teams is following some deep prints, which appear to be heading uphill along a snowboard track. Scott and I are crossing plenty of snowboard and ski tracks—going out of bounds seems to be a popular pastime these days—but the only prints we're seeing were made by a bobcat and the jackrabbit it was following.

I'm nervous tonight. It's eerie being out here in the still, quiet wilderness in the middle of the night, but that's not the issue. What's bothering me is that I'm afraid that, at any moment, we're going to come upon another frozen body. Just like the mission in Pumphouse Wash on January 20th.

The temperature tonight must be below zero. It's so cold, my fingers go numb within seconds when I expose my hands to work my GPS. Though the young man we're looking for is dressed for snowboarding, this frigid air seems to go right through any amount of clothing when you stop moving. And he's been out here for more than 14 hours now, so he must be really tired. If someone falls asleep in the cold, they can succumb to hypothermia and never wake up. I don't like these morbid thoughts.

Then, at about 1 a.m., a transmission comes over the radio, and I hold my breath. I can tell by the tone in Joel's voice when I hear him call Incident Command that he's excited. I hope it's the good kind of excited. And now he says, "We've made contact with Edward." There's a pause and then, "He's code four." Phew!

Turns out that Edward had gotten bogged down in deep snow quite far down the mountain and didn't know where he was. So he turned around and somehow made it up to over 10,000 feet, trying to go all the way back to where he and his friends had gone beyond the ropes. That must have taken an incredible physical effort. Eventually, it had gotten dark and Edward, who by then had done some damage to his knee, was tired and cold. That's when the lighter in his pocket probably saved his life. He made a depression in the snow and began burning pine needles. Our team searching the mountain from the top down at a point directly above where the other team was following the deep prints uphill smelled those burning needles and soon found our guy. We'd never expected to find him that high up.

It takes us another couple of hours for our teams, along with Edward, to snowshoe out of the wilderness area and another hour after that to load the Thiakol and other gear. Edward is delivered to medics to be checked out, and the volunteers go on their way. The mission isn't over until we return to the SAR building, fill the gas tanks, and put everything away, but at least this time we do so with a good feeling. This time, we saved a life instead of finding that one had already ended.

My First Search and Rescue Mission

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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