A Happy SAR Ending for the New Year

Wikimedia Commons / CC

I know it's been a while since I've written anything here, and the reasons are many, including the fact that we just haven't received as many SAR calls over the past several months as we did before that, during my five years and counting on the team.

And that's a good thing! It may be that more calls have been resolved by Sheriff's deputies before they've gotten to the point that the team was needed and/or perhaps fewer people have gotten into bad SAR-type situations recently... at least, in our area.

Whatever the case may be, my phone hasn't rung nearly as much with "SAR" showing up on the display.

But there have been missions, including some technical rescues I've not been able to respond to. I'm just not always allowed to write about the missions I'm involved with... unfortunately for me, being the prolific writer-type. So, I sometimes have to sit on my hands.

Suffice it to say, some of those missions haven't had happy endings like the one that just happened yesterday, when a seven-year-old boy who'd been missing since about 10 a.m. the day before was reunited with his family after an extensive search that included search and rescue teams from several counties, with ground-pounders, K9, and mounted units, jeep posses, and air support from DPS and the Air Force, along with the many locals who came out to help search. Cole Evans had spent a long, cold night alone "out there," under an abandoned trailer, so we learned when he was finally located around nine-something the next morning.

Here's an article about the search with a great photo of Cole's reunion with his dad: Missing Seligman Boy Found

All I can say is: YAY! What a huge relief. As I was searching through much of the night with my field team, I kept noticing the cold—at freezing or below with snow still on the ground among the pinion, juniper, and cactus—thinking about Cole and wondering if he was cold and scared.  As we searched beneath trees and up in the branches, and under and inside abandoned vehicles and trailers, I kept hoping that someone would say over the radio that the boy been found. It didn't matter who found him of course—just that he was safe.

As my group debriefed back at Incident Command in the middle of the night, I looked over at the house Cole should be in, warm and safe. I saw the lights on and thought about what the family inside must be going through.

As my search partner and I drove away, talking to ward off the need for sleep after our shift, we saw lights of searchers' headlamps glimmering in the distance, the headlights from searchers' vehicles, red and blue flashing lights from law enforcement vehicles, lights in the sky from searching aircraft, and we wondered if Cole was seeing or hearing any of that.

Needless to say, I was so relieved to hear, later that morning after I'd gotten some rest and pulled prickly pear spines out of my socks, that Cole had been found, and that he was "fine" and eating snacks. I began to see the happy announcement posted all over social media, where people had been sharing search updates from the media and worrying together about the boy.

Thinking about recent missions that didn't have a similar outcome, this one left me with a very big smile and a happy heart. Let's hope the trend continues.

SAR Ops: From Classroom to Call-Out

 

I had just received my Inland Search Management class certificate the day before, on Friday. At 4:15 a.m. Saturday, my phone beeped me awake with a text message then rang moments later. It was a call-out for operations leaders to respond to the SAR building for a search for a missing person—my first call-out as one of those ops folks.

Also the first to show up, I found a note on our coordinator's office door, saying he'd gone to the main Sheriff's Office building—something about picking up information regarding the subject's recent cellphone activity—so I waited. I wasn't sure what the procedures were for our team's ops volunteers as opposed to what I usually do when I arrive for a regular call-out. But two, more experienced ops leaders walked in within minutes and put me to work. Then our coordinator returned and gave us a short briefing.

While I shouldn't... well, can't give many details about the search (I have to remind myself of that sometimes), I can say it was fun (probably politically incorrect but true) coming up with various scenarios and working on plans for the search.

Shortly after our SAR coordinator had briefed us on the situation, I'd been instructed to call one of our volunteers who lives in the area of this search, which was a good distance from our base in Flagstaff. This searcher is often notified directly when there's SAR activity in his neck of the woods, so he can get a head start as he did this time, heading out to meet with the RP (reporting party) and drive some roads in the area. He knows those roads well. 

Next, I helped prepare a briefing packet for the initial response, and then several of us leaned over maps spread out on the conference room table, at times our heads nearly touching. Cellphone information was plotted on those maps, fingers followed contour lines and Forest Service roads, distances were measured, and scenarios were hashed out and re-hashed.

Not long before the general call-out was made to the rest of the team, two of the ops leaders, also regular members of the unit like I am, left for the search area. They would eventually rendezvous with our volunteer already there and assist with the "route and location search," which is what we're calling a hasty search nowadays, based on what we'd come up with as the most likely places the subject might be found.

I'm happy to report that the information gathered in the initial investigation, combined with the scenarios and plans formulated back at the SAR building and the quick response from our volunteer in the area, the subject was located and in good condition.

I was also able to attend the next call for ops leaders just days later to discuss a potentially very complex search in remote, rugged terrain. I didn't say much at that meeting, except when asked directly for my opinion, but I found it really interesting to listen the other, more experienced ops leaders and law enforcement/SAR personnel talk about scenarios, logistics for getting a large amount of specialized gear and personnel into the area, and weigh the risks against the quality of the information—or lack thereof—that was available so far. 

Yep, I really find this SAR Ops stuff fascinating. Although I already knew quite well what goes on behind the scenes of a SAR mission and what's involved in more extensive, multi-operational-period and multi-agency missions, the ops classes I've taken have really reinforced that there's so much more to SAR than people just showing up to wander around, looking. The classes also showed how important it is that as many people as possible be trained to work within the Incident Command System, particularly for large, complex situations. This training also drives home the message that taking the time to properly investigate and plan a search, as opposed to just rushing out to the field, can really save time in the end and get the missing subject found sooner than later.

Both paid and volunteer SAR professionals work with the WIN-CASIE computer program during the Inland Search Management class, held in Flagstaff, Arizona

**********

And in other team news...

Our own Cindy McArthur received word from NASAR Canine Committee Chair, Ann Christensen, that her dog, Nitro, who passed away earlier this year, has been selected to receive the NASAR Canine of the Year award. Christensen stated, "This year, we were very fortunate to have a number of deserving canines nominated for this award and the competition this year was stiff and the decision difficult," but, in the end, Nitro was chosen for his years of excellent service to the SAR community.

Nitro will be honored and the award presented at the 2012 NASAR Conference Closing Award Ceremony on Saturday, June 9^th at Lake Tahoe.

Congratulations, Cindy and Nitro!


And speaking of SAR canines...


The 2nd annual Arizona K9 SAR Conference, held here in Flagstaff, AZ, just concluded this past Sunday and, once again, was a great success, with more than 60 handlers and their dogs attending. We're looking forward to more of these educational training events in the future.

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.

Little Colorado River Gorge

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?

Being a K-9 Backer -- A Search Near Wapatki

View of the San Francisco Peaks from Wapatki National Monument

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

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

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

When I'm backing the K9 team, I'm responsible for navigation and radio communication while I help Cindy keep an eye on the dogs (she often uses all three of her current search dogs at the same time) and do my own searching, too.

I also help Cindy decide the best way to search our assigned area. Sometimes, the Incident Commander asks us what we think the best area and search strategy would be, so we put our heads together and hash out ideas, taking into account wind direction (related to the dogs' ability to scent a subject), terrain, and what we know about the missing person's actions and the point last seen (PLS).

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

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

Cindy tested the wind direction with her little bottle of baby powder. She does this frequently as we search with the dogs, since wind direction can change quickly. We also discussed where to search and what to use as boundaries in this very open area. We noted power lines both on the map and in the field, along with two-track roads we could use. We would also use random GPS coordinates to create the area for our grid search.

At this point, given what we knew, we agreed that walking tight grids would be best, in case the subject were unresponsive (i.e., due to hypothermia or worse).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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....

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. 

Missing at The Wave

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

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

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

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.

*******

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.

*******

Recent SAR Stories News posts:

New Search and Rescue Reading and Ongoing Searches

Search and Rescue Reading and Writing

The Mountain Locator Unit and Other Emergency Signaling Devices

Search for Overdue Backpacker on the North Rim, Grand Canyon

On Thursday, members of our Coconino County Search and Rescue team headed out to help the National Park Service with a search in the area of Sowats Point and Jumpup on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Volunteers were told they needed to be prepared to be self-sufficient for 48 hours.

I don't know a lot about the search at this time, except that the 64-year-old solo hiker was on a strenuous multi-day trip including the Bill Hall Trail and was due out of the canyon on Monday. After the Park Service was notified, presumably by family, that the hiker was overdue, they conducted some of their own investigation and searching before contacting Coconino SAR for assistance on Wednesday afternoon. I'm told that high winds have hampered aircraft searches in the area.

If the search continues beyond Saturday, I expect more requests for Coconino SAR's assistance. My backpack is always ready, just in case.

******

In other Coco SAR news...

On June 8th, the team was called out to help with evacuations and road blocks associated with a wildfire in the Turkey Hills area east of Flagstaff. This turned out to be an intentionally set fire—make that fires because there were 14 of them (!) along a gas pipeline—which forced the evacuation of approximately 50 area residents and burned an unoccupied mobile home. Thankfully, no one was hurt, and the fire was quickly contained by several ground crews and air tankers.

As the firefighting efforts were underway, a woman approached one of our team members at a road block. Visibly upset, she spoke to the SAR volunteer for several minutes, then admitted she was concerned that a family member had started the fires. Information was taken from the individual, and then SAR contacted the Sheriff's Office.

In the early hours of June 9th, 20-year-old Obrian Wilson Kee was arrested and eventually admitted to starting the fires because he was upset with his girlfriend. See: Arrest Made in Hill Fire from the Arizona Daily Sun.

SAR also recently responded to three calls for lost or overdue hikers on the same day. All were quickly located and in good condition.

We have a feeling this is going to continue to be a busy summer for Coconino County Search and Rescue, in part because Arizona's White Mountains have been torched by the Wallow Fire, likely bringing even more people to the northern part of the state for outdoor recreation. 

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

A view from Submarine Rock / Flickr -- CC

What a Strange Mission

Things changing on a dime during a SAR mission isn't anything unusual; situations are often dynamic, and we're accustomed to altering the plan, often more than once during a search or rescue. But this one takes the cake for the weirdest twists and turns during any mission I've been on over the past few years.

So, okay, this is my best attempt to explain...

First, we responded to a call-out for overdue hikers in the area of Schnebly Hill Rd. in Sedona. That was sometime around 5:30 p.m.

As we were loading gear and getting ready to deploy, there was a second call-out, this one for a search on Mt. Elden. Technical team members were requested for that mission. Several of us were already at the SAR building, so we split off from the other group heading to Schnebly Hill. Others tech members would be responding directly to the mountain and rendezvous with us there.

Apparently, a couple of hikers on Mt. Elden had reported hearing someone yelling from somewhere above them. That was all we knew.

Information-gathering was ongoing as five of us drove to a trail access to the waterfall area. En route, a teammate who was handling ops (operations) advised us that we should split up—drop two of us off at Buffalo Park to hike east and try to make voice contact with whoever was out there... or might be out there, possibly stuck or injured on the mountain.

In the meantime, a deputy had hiked in toward the waterfall (which is usually more of a trickle on a steep slope covered with huge boulders that eventually cliffs out) and was able to make voice contact... with someone. After hearing from that someone that he was not injured but was stuck on a ledge, the deputy hiked back to meet with SAR members at the parking area.

Over the radio, our ops leader gave the rest of us approximate coordinates of where the voice came from, and we all headed that way. I was one of the two hiking from Buffalo Park, so we had a longer distance to cover than the others.

Somewhere along the line—not quite sure of the exact timing of all this—two of my teammates who live near Mt. Elden got a head start on climbing and also eventually made voice contact... with someone.

At one point, I heard radio traffic stating the subject had an ankle injury and would need a litter evacuation. Huh? Why had the stranded person not told the deputy he was hurt? Or was this a new injury since then? An evac team began preparing to hike in with the litter and  ropes.

Then the information changed again. No injury now. We all kept moving toward the coordinates we'd been given.

Soon, the going got much tougher. The trail Sueanne and I had been following petered out so we used game trails instead, and the terrain steepened to the point where we had to use our hands to scramble. The spear-like agave and prickly pear cactus became formidable obstacles. (I later discover scrapes on my legs that I somehow hadn't felt during the mission. And Sueanne put her hand right on a prickly pear while climbing.)

Okay, so...

We saw our teammates' lights above and continued in their direction when, all of a sudden, we heard a scream. Was that an animal? It didn't sound very human. Then we heard it again. Yep, human alright, and it sounded bad. There was some radio talk amongst the rest of the team and IC (Incident Command) about that scream. Someone said, "He sounds altered." Uh-huh. A head injury? Drugs?

Eventually, Sueanne and I had climbed to the location where most of the rest of the team had stopped. The other two who'd gotten a head start were above us—some were guessing 50 feet above, some 100 feet... no one was quite sure—and they'd now gotten a visual on two people.

Is this getting too long? Sorry, I'll try to speed it up...

So, long story shorter, we had one young guy on a cliff. He's the one who'd screamed. The other guy—older, who turned out to be a homeless man who'd been living in a cave somewhere on the mountain for more than 10 years—said the younger guy was suicidal. The "cave man" was yelling in a threatening way at my two teammates, who were in a precarious situation, both terrain-wise and otherwise.

Were either of the subjects armed? Were they dangerous? The older guy from the cave was demanding our teammates shut off their headlamps and climb down in the dark. Afraid of having rocks hurled at them (or worse) while clinging to the side of the cliff, they retreated to a safer location and requested law enforcement assistance. Two deputies began hiking toward the mountain. In the meantime, the rest of us were told to hold our position.

As we later learned, when the cave man continued to yell and demand our teammates turn off their lights and hike down in the dark, they'd responded with something like,"No, we're not going to do that. You two go that way, and we'll go the other way." Then they turned off their lights and stayed put for about 15 minutes as they watched the two subjects move off. That's when the rest of us were informed they might be headed toward us and that we should turn off our headlamps, too, but talk so we wouldn't startle them. No, we didn't want to surprise those two.

Eventually, IC told us to return to base. We waited till our teammates above descended to our location, and then the nine of us picked our way down the mountain. Maybe half a mile from the parking area, word traveled up to the front of our line of SAR volunteers that the younger subject had come up behind the last person. No sign of the cave man.

Our teammate in the back, who I'm sure was a bit startled, had said, "Hey... where ya goin'?"

And the young man replied, "Down."

"Well... do you want to walk with us?

"Okay," the subject had agreed. He was clearly dehydrated, weak, and cold.

The rest of us were asked to wait as two SAR members in the back stopped to give Eric—that was his name—some water, snacks, and a jacket. He was very tall and extremely thin, wearing all black clothing and untied combat boots. His shaggy hair hung down over his face but not enough to conceal his blackened eyes. Was that makeup? Or bruises?

When Eric was able to continue walking, we went the rest of the way to Incident Command at the parking lot. At one point, I stopped and Eric passed me, and I watched him sway. I was ready to grab him if he fell over.

When he saw the lights from the deputies' vehicles and waiting ambulance, Eric repeatedly looked at my teammate Sueanne, an EMT who'd evaluated him after he joined us. He was clearly nervous.

He also looked very familiar.

When we arrived at the vehicles, Eric was helped into the waiting ambulance as I walked over to hear what one of the deputies had to say. He told of a close encounter with the cave man, a dark shadow moving through the forest. That dark shadow must have brought Eric down to where we were (followed us without our knowing it), set him in our direction, and then slinked off. When the cave man passed the deputy, he hadn't responded to his request (or order, I would assume) to stop. They'd be looking for that dark shadow in the morning, he said.

As my teammates and I were headed back to the SAR building, someone mentioned that Eric had said he was from Munds Park. And that's when I knew why he looked so familiar; we'd searched for him earlier this year when he walked away from the group home where he was (is?) living.

So, how did he come to be on that ledge on Mt. Elden? Did the cave man lure him up there? Or did he find him up there? Eric said he started walking in the morning, but we weren't sure if that was accurate. He said he hadn't had anything to eat or drink in a day, and he certainly wasn't dressed for the temperature. Had he been out there all night, the result likely would not have been good.

And who had been talking to the deputy when he first made voice contact? Eric or the other guy?

Well, I'm sure I've left out some details, but that's the gist of it. Kinda weird, huh?

As far as the other mission—the one in Sedona we'd initially responded to—I don't know yet what happened with that, but I think I heard someone say it had been wrapped up fairly quickly. 

And here's a media release about a rescue (that I wasn't able to respond to) in the same waterfall area on Mt. Elden the night before these two missions: (content was removed) Search and Rescue Locates and Rescues Overdue Hiker on Mt. Elden

Hunters Lost

It's been a common theme lately with our call-outs: hunters lost or reported overdue. It's usually been late at night or duing the wee hours of the morning and a good distance from our SAR home base in Flagstaff.

But the volunteers have responded, getting out of their warm beds and going out into the cold nights to search and rescue. At least, that was plan on several recent occasions. I've been able to respond to only one of these calls, in part because I've been away at a Ropes That Rescue class for a week (more on that later), but I've gotten the scoop from teammates.

The missions have gone something like this...

Overdue hunters on horseback, not dressed for the conditions. SAR is called, drives to the search area a few hours away, and arrives just as the three subjects are spotted by the helicopter.

Overdue hunters again. SAR responds. The helicopter spots the subjects, and SAR waits at the building for about an hour in the middle of the night until it's confirmed the lost have been retrieved.

Hunter is reported overdue near Happy Jack. SAR is called, drives an hour or so. Hunter is found at the first campsite SAR checks.

Lost hunters south of Williams, Arizona. They walked away from their truck but couldn't find their way back. So, SAR responds just after midnight and arrives on the scene just after the pair are spotted and retrieved by helicopter. One of them isn't feeling well and, after being flown to the road, climbs into the waiting ambulance for treatment as SAR turns trucks and trailers around and heads home. (I responded to this one and got back into bed six hours after getting out of it, just as the sun was coming up.)

Overdue hunter near Long Lake. SAR is called around 2:30 a.m. The team is ready to deploy from the building when our coordinator receives a call: The helicopter has spotted a campfire. SAR waits at the building until it's confirmed that the hunter and his horse have been found and rescued.

Well, such is SAR sometimes. But the next time could very well be one of those times when the team saves a life. You just never know, so you go when you can.

**********

Alpine season is back, and the San Francisco Peaks are getting whiter, so our technical team will be training accordingly. In the spirit of the season, this is the "mountaineering bible" members of our team are reading and reviewing...

Mountaineering: Freedom of the Hills

"Since the publication of the first edition in 1960, Freedom, as the book is known, has endured as a classic mountaineering text. From choosing equipment to tying a climbing knot, and from basic rappelling techniques to planning an expedition, it is all here in this essential mountaineering reference. A team of more than forty experts, all active climbers and climbing educators, reviewed, revised, and updated this compendium to reflect the latest evolutions in mountaineering equipment and techniques. Major updates include a significant new chapter on conditioning, plus detailed and extensive revisions to rescue and first-response, aid climbing, and waterfall and ice climbing."

Mountain Rescue Association Tests: One Down, Two To Go

Our team has decided to apply for membership in the Mountain Rescue Association (MRA). The MRA is made up of mountain rescue teams from around the country and has strict requirements for membership. The teams make up the association rather than individual members.

To become accredited by MRA, a team has to pass three different field tests based on guidelines established by the association. The tests are conducted on appropriate terrain in the team's home area by at least three current MRA teams working together to evaluate the applicant group that's being tested. The tests include high-angle rescue (rock rescue), ice and snow, and wilderness search. Accredited teams must retest every five years to maintain their accreditation.

From the MRA website: 

"The Mountain Rescue Association ... was established in 1959 at Timberline Lodge at Mount Hood, Oregon, making us the oldest Search and Rescue association in the United States.With over 90 government authorized units in the US, Canada and other countries, the MRA has grown to become the critical mountain search and rescue resource in the United States.

"Because MRA teams are test-qualified by their peers, local, state, and federal agencies feel confident about working with them on search and rescue operations."

Our team was very happy to pass the first of three tests: Wilderness Search. It was run like any real search operation that's gone beyond the hasty search phase. In this case, the hasty phase was verbalized by our coordinator as all participants and evaluators gathered around the command trailer for the briefing. As usual, searchers were given packets with information about the missing subjects, maps of the area, the weather forecast, and safety and communications information. When all field teams had their assignments, we headed out to do what we always do... except, this time, we were being watched and evaluated and had to answer evaluators' questions as we worked.

All in all, the mission went really well. Teams located most of the clues that had been placed in the rather large search area, and we located both subjects, one of whom required medical evaluation and care and a litter evacuation to an imaginary waiting ambulance. The other subject, who was mobile, was found by one of the containment teams driving Forest Service roads.

At the end of the mission later that afternoon, evaluators met privately to discuss the operation and how we did, then came over to our waiting group to give us feedback and announce that we'd passed. Yay!

And now for test number two, rock rescue, in October. So, that means extra practice for many of us on the technical rescue team. Here's Patrick practicing a mid-face litter scoop in the SAR building (without the cliff face, that is):

The rescuer gets the injured victim into the "tuxedo" to protect his spine.

The rescuer maneuvers the patient into the litter.

Tah-dah! Ready for raise.

 In other Coconino County SAR news, our team was involved in a body recovery below Midgley Bridge in Sedona. See: Midgley Bridge Suicide Briefly Closes 89A.

A Walk In The Woods

There's no news article link to give you for this one. I guess the ending didn't make it a newsworthy story. Still, a disabled teen did spend a cold night in the woods, and search and rescue, local firefighters, and members of CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) did spend all night looking for him, wandering the forest, Forest Service roads and trails, tracking, and knocking on doors in Munds Park.

He'd left the house around 5 p.m. on Friday but hadn't returned home by dark. The first searchers on scene checked what was said to be his usual route to Frog Tank, but there was no sign of the subject, legally an adult but mentally much younger, who wasn't dressed well for what was becoming a very cold night.  It had, after all, been a rather warm spring day.

We'd brought ATVs with us but were told the young man would probably be afraid of searchers, so the vehicle noise certainly wouldn't help. Not to mention the muddy and very wet conditions that would have made driving difficult. Even on foot, my search partner and I encountered some obstacles, at one point stopped by a wide and deep, swiftly moving creek swollen with spring runoff. We talked to two of our teammates who'd arrived on the opposite side of the creek, compared notes about our perspective assignments, and since our next search assignment was on their side and theirs on ours, we swapped.

As my companion and I looked for prints around a stock tank and seasonal ponds and along water-filled washes, we had to climb over barbed wire fences, slog through the mud, watch our step on jagged rocks and mounds of snow, and at one point, cross a very rickety suspension bridge. Meanwhile, we called the subject's name as nicely as we could, adding that he wasn't in trouble and we just wanted to help. We'd stop to listen for any response, but all we heard were coyotes.

And the only tracks we found belonged to critters, big and small. Other searchers even spotted some fresh mountain lion prints. In the pitch dark, I couldn't help but wonder if we were being watched.

Another search team did, however, find human prints in the woods. They matched prints they'd spotted around the subject's home. Incident Command had checked and described the tread on the boots of those who'd arrived first on scene to do a hasty search and ruled those out, so everyone was optimistic these were the missing teenager's prints. But the tracks were eventually lost in rocky terrain.

At daybreak, weary searchers were replaced by a fresh crew. But it wasn't long before the subject was located, Code 4 (fine), as he was walking back home.

Communication Is Key

Why does it often seem like family members don't communicate as well as strangers do?

I don't mean to sound cranky. Besides, I enjoy SAR missions and the company of my teammates. But looking for those who aren't lost and who don't even know they're missing can get to be a drag. Not that we have any way of knowing that until the person is found, of course.

And not that I blame the parents for worrying and calling 9-1-1 when they realized their grown daughter hadn't returned to their family campsite. She had left on Tuesday morning in her truck with the big horse trailer, two horses, and one dog. Early Wednesday morning, her parents discovered she hadn't returned. So of course they were concerned.

But apparently there had either been a miscommunication or, more likely, a lack of it, because the subject was found in good condition, oblivious to the fact that anyone was looking for her. That is, until the DPS helicopter landed nearby after spotting the truck and trailer from the air and soon made contact with her. Then those of us searching Forest Service roads heard the confirmation and "Code 4" over the radio and began making our way back to Incident Command. But I guess the never-lost lady decided to continue with what she'd been doing rather than return to the family's campsite to see her folks, who were very grateful for our efforts, we were told.

The team rendezvoused at our staging area, debriefed, and then drove the hour and a half back to Flagstaff, refueled the vehicles, put all of the equipment away, and went home following that seven-hour mission.

And that's about all there is to say about that one. 

Trusting My Gear and My Teammates

Have I mentioned that I'm a bit afraid of heights? Well, make that afraid of "exposure" more like. Either way, being suspended 100 feet above the ground between two sides of a canyon isn't exactly within my comfort zone. 

But that's where I found myself on Saturday, with some of my technical rescue teammates on one side of the canyon at Paradise Forks, lowering me, and the others on the opposite side, raising. There was a main line and a belay line on either side, with me somewhere in the middle, hanging while attached to all four ropes.

I could have said no. More than one of my teammates said, "Deb, if you don't feel comfortable with this, no problem. You don't have to do it."  I may have hesitated at that suggestion for a split second, but I said, "No, I'm fine with it."

I tried my best to look and sound at ease. Besides, it's better I do it—go over the edge—as much as possible, to get more comfortable with the skills and with the feeling of trusting my life to gear and teammates.

And I couldn't be safer than with SAR. We do things carefully, with redundancy and with safety checks. As I was tying into the main and belay lines, a teammate was watching closely. Then I was checked over by three other experienced people—everything from my seat and chest harnesses to my caribiners and knots. The safety officer for the exercise also checked all anchors and main line and belay setups. Then, when all team members were ready, I walked off the edge. Wheeee!

Truth be told, it was actually quite fun. A teammate later told me I had a bit of a "newborn giraffe" look when I was temporarily set down on a pinnacle around mid-canyon, but I soon got my feet under me and stood up on my own. Then I was once again lifted and brought the rest of the way across the canyon. It turned out to be a very smooth ride.

One very useful, real-world example of how this maneuver would come in handy would be if, say, a victim were stranded on some sort of pinnacle like the one where I was briefly set down or on the top of a vehicle trapped in swiftwater. A rescuer could be lowered and suspended to a point somewhere between two stable sides, to where the victim is located, do a pick-off or package a patient in a litter, and then be raised along with that victim to either side.

This Saturday's tech team practice also included working with a guiding line, used to keep rescuer and rescue-ee away from rock walls and obstacles, making the lower and raise easier on both. I thought these setups were pretty fascinating, and I was excited to be part of them and to find that I could actually be useful. By George, I'm learnin' me stuff!

I've honestly been nervous that I wouldn't remember some of the basics when we'd move on to more advanced skills, even though I've been practicing those basics on the side. But I now realize that the basics come into play all the time. They're a foundation for the more advanced skills, so I get to use them even as we advance to more complex maneuvers. I find this all pretty exciting, though I still not have the nerves. And maybe that's a good thing. Getting too comfortable can lead to errors, so I've heard and read.

Other than training, we've also had a couple of call-outs. One ended quickly when a teammate who responded directly to the last known point (LKP) because he lives nearby, found the subject soon after he started searching. Not a happy ending, I'm afraid.

Then, last night, our team was called to assist Navajo PD in locating an overdue hunter on the reservation. The man was found... well, he found us... and was just fine. In fact, he was wondering who we were all looking for. Just a case of miscommunication with the reporting party, so it seems.

Oh, and finally (for now), on a recreational note: I recently went on a great hiking and car-camping trip to northern Arizona and southern Utah in the Paria-Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness Area, where I visited a place called White Pocket and the now internationally known Wave. Here's one of the many photos I took of the Wave before my camera went kaput (again):

If you want to see more of my pics and read an article I wrote about the hike, see Hiking The Wave In Coyote Buttes.

Now off to replenish the snack supply in my 24-hour pack before our next call-out.