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.

Overdue Hikers Found in Blue Ridge Area

On Wednesday night, May 18th, I was at home, cozy in my PJs and down booties as the winter-like temps in Flagstaff continued to drop after a day of freezing rain and snow. As my friend prepared to head out following our late dinner, I said, "I have a feeling it's a SAR call night." About an hour later, I texted him, "Yep, it's a SAR call night."

This would be a search in the Blue Ridge area for two overdue hikers who'd last been seen leaving their campsite at 1 p.m. earlier that day, unprepared for the cold, wet conditions. They weren't carrying any food, water, or gear other than possibly a lighter.

While 10 of us volunteers readied our gear to depart the SAR building, a second mission was brewing in the same general area, but that one was resolved before we'd finished briefing. Due to icy road conditions and numerous accidents in the area, we took the lower elevation route to our destination, towing ATVs and the Polaris Ranger. In the meantime, a team member who lives in Blue Ridge went directly to the subjects' campsite and met up with deputies and Forest Service personnel to begin searching. The weather conditions and lack of preparedness on the part of the missing hikers lent a sense of urgency to the mission. Hypothermia was a big concern, and they'd already been missing for eight hours.

When the rest of us reached the point last seen, which became our staging area, assignments were given and, two-by-two, we headed out to search. One of the teams included a K9 handler, her four area search dogs, and a backer to do the navigation, radio communication, and assist with searching while the handler worked her dogs. Another team of two took the UTV, and the rest of us went out on foot. My field partner and I were one of the teams carrying night vision goggles, and everyone had warm-up gear to help the subjects regardless of who would find them.

While no DPS helicopter was available—the Phoenix crew couldn't fly due to weather concerns, and there was no crew available from Flagstaff or Kingman—a Guardian medical helicopter came to assist with the search. They arrived on scene just as we were deploying into the field.

Not long after, my partner and I heard through the static on the radio that someone was hearing yelling. It was one of the searchers driving Forest Service roads, doing containment, who had heard the shouts. He and another volunteer in a different vehicle had been slowly driving a perimeter around the area, going in opposite directions and stopping often to make noise and then listen. The two of them had just passed one another on the road when one of them heard the voices.

Soon, two very cold, hungry, and thirsty hikers were inside the vehicle, warming up. A landing zone was located for the helicopter, and the subjects were driven to that location, where they were checked by the Guardian medic as a ground ambulance continued to their location to transport the two to Payson.

It was about 3 a.m. when the lost hikers were located, so they'd been out there for about 14 hours, during which time the rain and snow had resumed for a while. They'd apparently continued moving till around midnight, covering a pretty good distance and certainly more than they'd planned. Finally, they'd laid down between two logs, a short distance from the Forest Service road and not all that far from a highway, for what turned out to be a few more very uncomfortable, freezing cold hours.

At 7:30 a.m. on Thursday, I walked back into my house and once again changed into those cozy PJs and down booties as the wintry, wet weather continued.

See: Lost Hikers Rescued from Cold Conditions from the Arizona Daily Sun

I'm Not Missing! (And a Ropes That Rescue Class)

I'm still an addicted... uh, dedicated... SAR member. It's just been a while since I've posted and just as long since I've been on a mission.

Actually, compared to most of the past few years, when it wasn't unusual to get a least one or two calls per week, lasting anywhere from hours to days, it's been relatively quiet lately. There has been some SAR activity, but I've either been out of town at the time or tied up with my elderly mom, who I take care of and who's had some medical issues lately.

We did have a decent snow storm back in January, when I-17 and other slippery roads in and out of Flagstaff were closed for most of an afternoon, evening, and night, stranding motorists. Several SAR volunteers were hand-called that night (as opposed to a general call-out) and went out in the storm to bring water and blankets and other supplies to people stuck in their vehicles and rescue some who couldn't stick it out. I was pretty well snowed in that night and listened to my teammates on an online scanner.

Let's see... what else happened? Well, there were a few calls that never really got off the ground, when SAR responded late at night, only to hang out at the building until it was confirmed that the situations had been resolved by the helicopter crew or other means. Such is SAR sometimes.

And there were a couple of missions down in the West Fork of Oak Creek—searches for overdue hikers—that both ended well. As did a situation on the peaks, when two of my teammates were asked to go up there to help a couple who'd gotten a bit misplaced, not having a map. They didn't have the required (free) winter backcountry permit, either, so they had a little meet-n-greet with the Forest Service when they emerged from the forest. So that'll cost 'em a bit more than the free permit would have. (Added later: As of 2019, this free permit is no longer required for winter backcountry recreation in the Kachina Peaks Wilderness. Here the Forest Service update.)

At our recent monthly meeting, our team coordinator said he attributes some of this slow-down in calls to the fact that snow conditions have been pretty crappy so far this winter, so skiers and snowboarders generally haven't been venturing out-of-bounds from the ski area or otherwise going into the backcountry. That could change as of this weekend, though, because it's currently snowing quite heavily, and the storm is expected to dump as much as 18 inches here in town, with more on the peaks.

So, I don't have any recent firsthand SAR mission experiences to tell you about since back on New Year's Eve. But I have been doing SAR stuff, including practicing technical rescue skills. Back in November, I took my second class with Ropes That Rescue in Sedona, Arizona, and I just finished a third. Here are some photos from the class.

A Snowy Search Near Munds Park

"Everybody be quiet for a second!" I had to raise my voice over the sound of the wind and radio traffic, neither of which stopped on my command. Nor did the racket caused by the icy pellets hitting my hood.

But my three tracking companions abruptly stopped talking, as I unzipped my jacket to turn down my radio. I thought I'd heard something just as we'd started moving again. If I had heard something, it was certainly far off and in the opposite direction than we'd been headed.

Another tracker said he thought he'd heard something, too.

"I'm going to shout," I told my teammates, then let out the loudest, high-pitched yell that I could. And then we all waited. Seconds later, I exclaimed, "Yes! I heard a bark!"  My teammates moved towards me and listened. Then we all heard it. Definitely a dog, and it was now actively barking.

During our mission briefing, we'd been told the woman we were looking for had called a friend the previous afternoon and said she was going to walk her dog and then come home. But she never returned, and her vehicle was located the following morning at the overlook on I-17 south of Munds Park. We'd also been told that the dog, a husky/shepherd mix named Max, is aggressive and protective so we should be very cautious if we encounter him. But, at this point, the barking was quite a distance off, across a canyon and possibly over the rise beyond.

Almost immediately, the four of us designated Tracking Team 3 took off in the direction of the sound, taking turns shouting and blowing whistles then quickly stopping to listen. "Tanya!" we called, hoping to hear a shout back from the 39-year-old mom we were looking for. "Max!" we yelled, hoping the dog would keep barking.

Once down in the canyon, we lost the sound but kept moving. Eventually, we split up, with two staying in the canyon as it rounded the base of the hill and two of us heading up-slope, trying to pick up the barking again.

We called and listened, called and listened, but it seemed the barking had stopped. As my teammate was talking with Incident Command on the radio, I moved further toward the far side of the hill and continued calling. And then I heard another bark. It still seemed rather distant. Was the dog moving?

The two of us continued in the direction of the sound, then stopped short. Suddenly, the barking was very close, and we caught sight of movement through the thick brush maybe 50 feet away. That was definitely Max! We watched the dog pace while we waited for our teammates to arrive before moving any closer. "Tanya!" we called a few more times, but there was no response.  Was she over there?

Finally, four of our teammates arrived, and we all moved in. Max moved off. No sign of Tanya in the immediate area. Two trackers followed Max, who was dragging his leash, and four of us began looking around.

Soon after, we found articles of clothing mostly buried in fresh snow right where Max had been pacing. A definite sign... but not a good one. We all knew this was likely evidence of paradoxical undressing, a phenomenon often associated with severe hypothermia. One of the items was partially burned, indicating that Tanya had made a futile attempt to start a fire. The other discarded articles of clothing were intact and not burned at all.

The four of us proceeded to search the immediate area, doing some "purposeful wandering" and then line-searching as best we could over the dense, rocky terrain, looking under pinion pine and juniper trees as we slowly worked our way back and forth. But we found no further evidence. Or Tanya.

After a long day of searching, often in blizzard conditions, we hiked out to base as our weary selves were replaced by fresh searchers with fresh eyes and bodies. For the rest of that evening, throughout the night and into the next day, the searching continued, with volunteers from our county and Yavapai County Search and Rescue working together.

At around noon on Wednesday, Tanya Morris's body was located by search dogs about 100 feet from where we'd found her clothing and boots. She'd been covered in snow and not immediately visible.

See: Missing Woman Found Dead South Of Munds Park

Added 3/16: Tanya Morris's obituary was in the paper today. She had four children and a life-partner of 14 years.

SAR and the Art of Hurry-Up-and-Waiting

This had started out as Yavapai SAR's (YSAR's) mission, since the search area was mostly in their county. But when a night and most of the next day went by without locating the subjects, our team was asked to assist.

The two men, one in his early 50s and the other in his 60s, had driven their UTV all the way from Camp Verde to where it eventually ran out of gas, a long way down a network of Forest Service roads somewhere between Beaver Creek and West Clear Creek.

Lucky for the stranded pair, who apparently had no provisions for staying out overnight in those cold and snowy/rainy conditions, they found shelter in a nearby line cabin—a structure used by cowboys out on the range—and were able to make a cellphone call to 911.

I heard they'd told dispatch they were cold, hungry, and thirsty but they weren't sure of their exact location, and the weather and road conditions were quickly deteriorating. So was their cellphone battery. And a cell tower ping provided only a very general area, so that gave us no additional information beyond what had been relayed to us by Yavapai County.

So south we went toward the Mogollon Rim with six Coconino SAR volunteers and a coordinator, towing our Mattrax (a Suburban with tracks instead of tires) and four snowmobiles, only to later realize the snowmobiles would be useless. There was snow on the ground and more coming down, but once off the pavement, there wasn't enough snow over all the mud and rocks to use those machines.

So wherever we'd go, we'd have to go in the Mattrax or on foot, the hard way. But we had such a long distance to cover, slogging through the muck wouldn't be practical or really possible. And then, how would we get the two men out if we located them? Using a vehicle was necessary.

First, we tried a shortcut to the search area, attempting to go in from the north near Stoneman Lake. As two of my teammates and I waited back at the furthest point our regular vehicles could go, the crew in the Mattrax continued on, successfully winching a large blowdown out of the way. Eventually, they were stopped by a 20-foot-wide, fast-running, swollen creek and steep bank on the opposite side. We'd have to go the long way in from the south.

So, back on the freeway we went, then 12 miles down Forest Road 618 (I think it was), heading lower in elevation where the snow was replaced by rain and the mud only got deeper. Once again, three of us and our coordinator waited for hours while the Mattrax crew did their thing.

Occasionally, when the precipitation let up, I'd get out of the truck to stretch my legs, slipping along the muddy road. At one point, I ventured into the darkness amongst the pinion–juniper and prickly pear to pee and sunk to the tops of my boots in mud. Then I got back in the vehicle to listen for more radio traffic, pick away at a really gross MRE I snatched from the coordinator's stash (because I'd forgotten to replenish the food in my pack), yack with my likewise-waiting teammates, and occasionally try to get comfortable enough to catch a few winks, which didn't happen.

Sometimes, going on a SAR mission means you're asked to stand by as backup. And I don't mind that at all (okay, I admit it; it's usually not much fun). Being a backup is important, and sometimes the backups turn out to be vital. In this case, though, I wasn't sure what kind of backup we three could provide, given that we had no other vehicle with us that could manage that kind of deep mud mixed with snow mixed with loads of rocks. Then again, we can't always anticipate what needs might arise, so wait we did through the night. At least we kept our coordinator company as he did his... well, coordinating and information gathering. I know he appreciated us being there.

At about 4 a.m., those of us doing the waiting were finally sent back to Flagstaff, towing the unnecessary snowmobiles. At that point, the Mattrax was headed back to base, low on fuel, but the stranded men had not been located. And that was still the case when we arrived back at the SAR building at 7:00. At that point, YSAR volunteers were returning to the search area.

Sometime later that morning, I got a message on Twitter from a YSAR member, telling me they'd finally located the subjects, who were in good condition. I'm sure they were extremely relieved to be back to warmth and food, home and family after two unexpected days and nights in that line shack.

 A Yavapai County SAR jeep used on this search

Photo courtesy of Jim Cobey, YSAR

A Severe Out-Of-Bounds Injury

He's an experienced backcountry snowboarder. In fact, he's a snowboard instructor. And he did have one of the free winter backcountry permits required for entering the wilderness from the Snowbowl ski area. (Note: This permit requirement has since been discontinued).

But accidents happen, of course, and this was a bad one. The 28-year-old snowboarder lost control on some ice and slammed into a tree, breaking his femur with knee involvement, an obviously very painful and potentially life-threatening injury should shock become a factor.

The victim was fortunate, though, that he was accompanied by three friends, one of whom stayed with him while two went for help. And luckily, Ski Patrol personnel were still on the mountain. They quickly came to the aid of the injured snowboarder and packaged him in a sked. While search and rescue was en route to the scene, we were in contact with these first responders, who kept us apprised of the victim's condition and their progress down the mountain.

In the meantime, a large group of us SAR volunteers deployed the snowcat and three snowmobiles. In the snowcat were a driver, a co-pilot/navigator, and five others, including myself and two Guardian medics, one of whom is also a SAR volunteer. The plan was to get us as far in as possible in the 'cat and then for some of us to continue on foot (on snowshoes, of course) to rendezvous with Ski Patrol and the victim.

Eventually, the snowcat began to bog down in very deep snow, so the five us in the back got out and snowshoed instead to lighten the load. We caught up to the snowcat when it could go no further, and then three of us continued upslope as the sun set and the glow of the full moon permeated the fog. Despite the task at hand, I couldn't help but notice what a beautiful evening it was on the mountain, a far cry from conditions during our last rescue in the middle of a blizzard.

Soon, our whistle blasts were answered by Ski Patrol, and we veered left toward the sound. Not a minute later, we spotted our moving target, making fast downhill progress with the aid of a rope attached to the sked. We'd heard they had to make several technical lowers along the way.

Time had been of the essence from the beginning, but now rescuers were even more concerned about the patient's condition. The three of us SAR folks could see that Ski Patrol wasn't about to stop for us to catch up . They were making a beeline toward the lights of the snowmobiles, which had stopped well short of the snowcat because of a mechanical issue. So, we radioed the 'cat crew and told them to go back the way they'd come, to meet Ski Patrol and the victim further down. We then snowshoed as quickly as we could to rendezvous with the whole group and got there soon after Ski Patrol and the snowcat connected.

The victim was alert but in agony. There's just no painless, gentle way to bring someone down a mountain. Not with that kind of injury. Add to that the fact that his leg was too deformed to put on a traction splint, and you're talking one extremely miserable patient. It was too cold to administer IV fluids or painkillers, so he had to wait till he was loaded into the back of the warmer snowcat. I later heard that nothing touched the pain, and every slight bump or lurch of the snowcat made him scream, which was constant, I'm afraid.

My snowshoeing teammates and I walked out as the snowcat delivered the patient to a waiting ambulance.

All in all, the mission went very well and quite fast (though I'm sure it seemed like an eternity to the victim), thanks in large part to the coordinated effort between Ski Patrol and SAR.

See the article in the Arizona Daily Sun: Ski patrol rescues out-of-bounds skier 

What Were They Thinking?

Okay. I'm usually not critical of the people rescued by our SAR team... at least not publicly. I mean, we all make mistakes. And even the most prepared, experienced outdoors-people get into bad situations, either by a bit of poor luck or a momentary lapse in judgment. But COME ON, folks. Trying to climb the highest peak in Arizona (12,633 feet to be exact) during one of the worst blizzards in Flagstaff history—really?

I wasn't involved with this particular mission, but here's the article from today's issue of the Arizona Daily Sun: Trio Rescued Off Humphreys

Kudos, though, to our SAR coordinator for his handling of the situation. Having the Snowbowl grooming machines line up and shine their lights toward the area was another great idea! And that helped keep team members safer, too.

Also, thanks to those from Coconino SAR who went out on the mountain on a night like that. It was bad enough on Wednesday night and early Thursday morning when I was up there, but I don't think it was AS bad as Thursday night.

Out-Of-Bounders Beware

It's nearly two a.m., and I'm now back at Incident Command, inside the Agassiz Lodge at Snowbowl, warming up and resting a bit before going back out to continue searching.

The blizzard really has intensified. It's blowing and snowing something fierce out there, and I'm thinking about my teammates who are still on the mountain. Three of them just went up the chair lift in whiteout conditions, to search First Gully from the top down. They'll be starting at 11,500 feet.

This isn't looking good. The subject--a 19 year-old male from the Phoenix area--was last seen around 3:00 in the afternoon, when he and his friends ducked under the ropes marking the boundary of the ski area so they could snowboard on fresh powder. This young man is not an experienced backcountry hiker, skier or snowboarder, and he's not carrying any survival gear or an avalanche beacon.

Our team was called out at 5:30pm, after the subject's friends reported him missing. At the time and for several hours into the search, there was no precipitation. But the news media has been warning of this series of major winter storms--combining within several days' time to be a "top-three weather event" for the area--for at least a week. And, sure enough, it started right on schedule around 11pm.

Conditions quickly deteriorated as some of our field teams snowshoed while others did containment on Snowbowl Road and on a Forest Service road in the snowcat. We're also assisted tonight by Snowbowl personnel, who were a huge help in getting the chairlift up and running to bring teams up the mountain.

I guess I'll do what a few of my teammates are doing and find a spot on the floor to try to sleep until we get our next assignment.

*******

Later...

I was just awakened by our team captain as he burst into the room and loudly announced, "We got him!"

It took me a moment to shake off the sleep and realize what he meant.

"He's alive, Code 4," Andy said. "He walked into our containment team in the snowcat."

Amazing! And, wow, that really highlights the fact that containment on a search is so important. Earlier in the mission, after the snowcat team had driven out and back on Friedline Prairie Road, doing sound sweeps as they slowly went along, searching for tracks, they'd called in to Incident Command to say they'd completed their assignment—negative contact. Then they were told to do it again. And again. And thank goodness they did, because it was that containment that led the missing party to them when he saw the lights from the snowcat and then followed its track.

******

The missing snowboarder was located at approximately 2 a.m., about 11 hours after he'd separated from his friends. He was transported by ambulance to Flagstaff Medical Center for evaluation.

Meanwhile, several of our team members were still on the mountain in increasingly difficult conditions, slowly making their way to pickup points along Snowbowl Rd. Once everyone was safely at the vehicles, we carefully drove back to town on snow-packed, slippery streets. I made it home at 7:00.

Read:  Rescuers Find Lost Snowboarder; Missing Man Located from the Arizona Daily Sun.

******

A Note To Those Considering Out-of-Bounds Skiing and Snowboarding

Be aware that a free backcountry permit is required during the winter for the Kachina Peaks Wilderness. So, if you're planning to do any recreating in this area or want to go out of bounds from the Arizona Snowbowl to do some snowboarding or skiing, be sure to contact the Peaks Ranger District at (928) 526-0866 before doing so.

Permits can also be obtained at the Arizona Snowbowl at the Agassiz Lodge ticket window on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays between 9:00 and 11:00 a.m.

[[UPDATE: Sometime after I originally wrote this post, the winter backcountry permit requirement was discontinued. See what's taken its place on the Coconino National Forest website.]]

Also, anyone venturing into the backcountry should have with them a pack with survival gear, including but not limited to light sources, fire-starting supplies, extra layers of clothing, an emergency bivy, food and water, a fully charged cellphone (but don't rely on there being a signal), and in the winter, an avalanche beacon.

A Day At Home? We'll See!

It's 10 a.m. on Sunday, and I'm warm and toasty with my warm and toasty dog, a mug of hot cocoa, and fleece from head to toe as I watch the snow fall outside the large window opposite my chair. I just heard my husband drive by in the plow, which he operates for his employer (and our home), Lowell Observatory, up here on Mars Hill at the edge of Observatory Mesa. I must say, it's nice to be in here and not out there right now.

On Friday at this time, I was en route to the Upper Basin area near Grand Canyon to help retrieve a stranded snowmobile. That is, a snowmobile belonging to our team that had broken down in the field late one night during a mission. So, three teammates and I were asked to go back and rescue it.

There's Todd, steering the machine as we tow it out behind the vehicle with the Mattrax. I'm afraid he got dumped off several times along the way.

We were also asked to check on a hunting camp while we were out there, to make sure the occupant had made it out safely. And, yep, the camp was deserted except for the snowed-in RV trailer.

We returned to Flagstaff the same evening.

On Saturday at this time, I was on a snowmobile myself, back in that same Upper Basin I've become familiar with after three recent missions in the area. This time, we were looking for a group of overdue woodcutters. I hadn't driven a snowmobile since January, and I was a bit rusty.

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know I'm not too great with machinery to begin with. I do think my skills are improving (a little), but I did dump the snowmobile (and myself) yesterday when I hit a deep tire rut and didn't give the heavy thing enough gas to get myself (and the machine) out of it before the machine (and I) tipped over. Other than some snow down my shirt, though, and somehow a little down my ski pants (Ooh, cold!), I was all in one piece and so was the snowmobile, which my teammate and I righted back onto its skis.

Further on in our search, we had to dig him out once and me out twice while maneuvering through deep, untouched snow. With me, it was again a matter of not giving the snowmobile enough juice during turns, so I got bogged down in drifts. After more than 20 miles on the thing, though, I was starting to get better at handling the snowmobile and was learning to speed up rather than give in to my tendency to let off the throttle in tricky spots.

Oh, and about the woodcutters: A couple of our teammates found them, camped not far off a main, paved road, perfectly fine and not lost or stranded at all. Just another one of those cases of family miscommunication (or lack thereof).

So, we all made our way back to Incident Command, loaded up, and returned to Flagstaff, with just enough time to go home and clean up before our team's annual holiday party.

One of our teammates did have to miss the party, though, because he and one of the SAR coordinators, a deputy, had to go back to that very same area to rescue another stranded camper. If this past week has been any indication of the winter to come, we're going to be one very busy team!

Stranded

Okay, now I don't feel so bad about missing Monday night's mission during the blizzard. I just finished 24 hours of SAR time in two days.

First, about that stranded family with the small kids: I heard from a couple of teammates that the subjectswere located at around 4:00 on Tuesday morning in good condition. Eight members of our team had driven five hours in extremely poor conditions and were close to the search area when the family was found by another agency with a snowcat. So, our team turned around, stopped for breakfast, and made it back to Flagstaff at 11 a.m. What a night!

On Tuesday, when I finished digging out my mom after digging out myself—digging out our driveways and my vehicle, I mean—I fished my cellphone out of my pocket three layers down and saw that I had a message. It was SAR. I contacted our coordinator to see if they'd left yet, and he said to come on down.

Seven hours later, we were back at the SAR building after rescuing two stranded elk hunters who were stuck several snow-covered miles down a Forest Service road. Their vehicles and those belonging to dozens of other hunters may very well have to wait till spring to be back on pavement again.

But the rescues weren't over on Tuesday night. In fact, they're still ongoing today, Thursday, and may continue into the weekend, with SAR crews, Forest Service and DPS personnel, and other agencies using snowcats, snowmobiles, vehicles with Mattrax, and helicopters to carry out the rescues.

What I'm wondering is, aside from all of those who've been able to call for help with their cellphones, how many others are stuck in forests around the county who've not been able to contact anyone? I know helicopters have been launched to search from above, and snowmobile and snowcat crews are searching as they make runs to extract known subjects. I hope folks have left detailed itineraries with family or friends at home, in case they aren't accounted for and we need to go looking for them.

Here's an article from the Arizona Daily Sun, detailing some of the rescues. They mention the number 30, but I was told there are many more than that: Stranded Hunters Holding Out 

Snowed In

I don't like not responding to a SAR call. It bothers me, and I feel like I should be out there helping instead of staying comfortable at home. Maybe that's silly—we all can't be available all the time. And this time, I was stuck on Observatory Mesa with almost two feet of snow on and around my car, on the roads, and on the big, twisty hill that leads down into town, which hadn't been plowed for hours (See Flagtaff neighborhoods snowed in).

It was somewhere around 11 p.m. and still snowing and blowing with a vengeance, with ice and pine boughs clattering against our bedroom window when the phone rang. I knew it was SAR before I even looked at the phone.

And I wanted to go, but I knew I couldn't get the car out and down the hill anytime soon. So, I called the SAR coordinator on duty and told him I could snowshoe into town if someone could pick me up. Heck, I could snowshoe all the way to the SAR building, but that would take a while. He told me he'd call me back in 20 minutes if he needed me.

So, I turned on the light and read for a while, waiting. I could be dressed and snowshoeing in about five minutes if he called. But the phone didn't ring a second time.

The call-out message said a family with three very young children was "stuck in a snowbank somewhere" on the Mogollon Rim. That would be about an hour-and-a-half drive in good weather. I'd heard on the scanner that part of Lake Mary Road was closed due to snow drifts, so a drive to the rim right now would also include a detour around Mormon Lake. In those conditions, towing the snowcat and snowmobiles could easily take hours.

I thought about my teammates—whoever was out there—throughout the night, wondering how it was going. I thought about the stranded family, too. Sometimes, the Mogollon Rim gets more snow than we do here in Flagstaff, and we were pushing past two feet by the middle of the night.

So I don't know what happened last night or if the team is even back yet. If I hear anything or read something in the paper, I'll let you know. In the meantime, it's back outside to continue digging out, so I can be ready for the next call.

No Map, No Clue

 It's 10am, and my face is just about thawed out. But when I got off that machine at 5:00 this morning, I couldn't feel my nose, and my mouth wouldn't work well enough to say, "Whoo-ee! That was colder'n a witch's..." Well, anyway.

I got that ATV ride in after all, and there was no getting around it this time. Actually, it even bordered on fun. I mean, why not get out of bed in the middle of the night and freeze your face, hands, and other poorly protected body parts off while noisily riding around on Forest Service roads? Beats sleeping in a cozy, warm bed anytime. (Not!)

But at least I got over my growing phobia about those machines and now know I can hop on any time I'm assigned to an ATV team. I shouldn't go a year and a half without riding now that I'm in SAR, and we do use the quads quite a bit. I've gotten used to driving the Polaris Ranger UTV, but that's quite a different ride. More like a little car than how the ATVs feel.

Anyhow, the call-out was for four lost young adults (local college students, I believe), who'd parked their vehicle just off a main road at about 9 p.m. yesterday and went on foot in search of the Lava Cave (or "Ice Caves" as the deputy was referring to the place last night), which is a mile-long underground tube, basically. From where the "kids" (I'm almost at that age where I can say that about college students) had parked, the Forest Service access was too snow-covered to drive, and the road was gated and closed.

Normally, it should have been something like a three-mile walk. That is, if they'd had a map. Instead, the foursome probably walked eight or 10 miles before they finally decided to call for help at around 11:45. By then, they were exhausted, cold, and thoroughly lost. Luckily, just as with the injured woodcutter night before last, one of them had a lighter and was able to start a small campfire to keep them warm-ish.

Unlike the night before last, however, we didn't have the help of a helicopter, so a deputy started driving around out there, periodically running his siren, while two of us volunteers and a coordinator from SAR were on our way. The deputy did have cellphone contact with the subjects, so that was a big help in figuring out their approximate location. Eventually, they reported hearing the deputy's siren in the distance, which narrowed things down even more.

My teammate and I got to the staging area at around, oh, 3 a.m. I guess, unloaded the two ATVs we'd brought along, strapped our packs and, just in case, our snowshoes onto the quads, and took off to find the foursome. We went in from a different direction than they had, where the roads were more passable. Still, the deputy got his pickup stuck more than once in the soft snow and mud.

After riding several miles while I glanced side-to-side looking for the flicker of a campfire and sniffed at the cold air for any hint of smoke, Al and I spotted a flashing light ahead. Moments later, four figures with that stiff, hands-stuffed-in-pockets, chilled-to-the-bone stance converged around my teammate. I pulled up alongside him, and immediately one of the young men came over to shake my hand. They thanked us profusely more than once.

So all was well that ended well. Al buried the small campfire in dirt and snow, and we waited for the deputy and our coordinator to make their way, spinning and sliding, to our location.

On the ride back to the Sheriff's office, once we'd loaded the ATVs at the staging area where we'd dropped the trailer, I heard comments from the back seat along the lines of "man, I'll never do that again" and "I'm never going out there without a guide." I wanted to turn around and say, "You would have been okay if you'd had a map and known how to read it," but I held my snarky tongue. They were nice "kids," and I'm sure they didn't need me to tell them what their mistake was.

A Wood-Cutting Outing Gone Bad

I don't think I'll ever be completely comfortable around helicopters. And maybe that's not a bad thing, really. I mean, you don't want to take those spinning blades lightly.

At the same time, though, it sure is fun to ride in 'em!

I got my second chance last night, on our first call-out in about a month. My pager went off at 4 p.m., just as I was getting ready for Jazzercise class. So I quickly changed from spandex tights, a t-shirt, and aerobic sneakers into long johns, fleece, coated nylon, and hiking boots. Some of which I did at a rather long red light.

This mission involved an injured man whose exact location was not yet known. "Somewhere south of Williams" was all we heard as we loaded gear—technical, medical, general, and personal—into the SAR vehicles and ATVs onto a trailer.

We had a very good turnout for this mission, which called for technical team members as well as general SAR ground-pounders. Sometimes, or perhaps I should say often, you just don't know what a mission will turn into and what search and rescue volunteers will be called upon to do.

SAR missions are dynamic, to say the least. You think you're heading into a particular scenario, then things quickly change, sometimes drastically. We're always listening to radio traffic on our way to a staging area, and we often hear of changes as we drive. And as the situation changes and develops, so too must plans for the mission.

Yesterday, on our way to Williams, where we'd meet deputies and SAR coordinators at the courthouse for a briefing, information was sketchy. It sounded like the injured man must have made a cellphone call, but for some reason, he wasn't able to give his exact location. Apparently, he'd fallen off a ledge. We knew there were canyons in the area, where he often went to cut wood, but the man's vehicle had yet to be located and there are numerous dirt roads and two-tracks around, many of which aren't on any map.

As we waited for our briefing, deputies were speaking by cellphone with a member of the injured man's family who was out looking for his vehicle, but even she was having difficulty relaying her location. Two helicopters, one DPS and the other from a contiguous county, were in the air, but they had spotted neither the victim, the victim's vehicle, nor the family member's vehicle by the time we received our assignments and headed out to do our thing.

At that time, I was assigned to an ATV team. Our goal was to find the family member and then the victim's vehicle. From there, we would hopefully be able to track him.

As the four of us on that team drove to our assigned area, I mentally reviewed ATV driving, which I haven't done once since my training back in October, the first and only time I'd ever ridden a quad. I've been assigned to do so since then, but each time, things changed and I was reassigned, usually to go out on foot or in a vehicle. And this time was no different: Things changed.

Just before getting to the point where we'd unload the ATVs, we heard that the victim's vehicle had been spotted by the DPS helicopter, in the trees just a short distance from the road we were on. And soon thereafter, they saw the injured man in a nearby canyon. He'd managed to start a fire, which was a good sign.

So things happened quickly from there. Since the subject was on the other side of the canyon, at the bottom of which was a swiftly flowing creek swollen with snowmelt, the helicopter shuttled tech team members and rescue gear to the opposite rim. Meanwhile, I helped with the roadblock (so the helo could use the road as a landing zone) and talked to the man's worried family, who'd immediately driven to our new staging area. I felt good about the situation at that point and tried to make the family feel better, too. I was relieved to see them smile a bit.

Time went on and a sunny day turned into a clear, starry, and chilly night. I was hanging out on the road, chatting with a couple other non-tech members and assuming I would stay there until the man was carried out, when suddenly I heard our field leader say over the radio, "Send Deb." That's always kind of exciting, I must admit.

Next thing you know, I'm sitting next to the helicopter pilot, looking at all those lights and gauges and gadgets and watching the ground fall away through the glass near my feet. Two more non-tech members were also in the chopper. This was to be a difficult carry-out, and more muscle was needed.

Speaking of which, I often don't feel I'm a great help on litter evacuations, though I try my darndest to pull my weight. And now that I've assisted with several of them, I do think I've become more valuable to the team. This time, though, we had to actually carry the subject in the litter because it was too steep and rugged to use the wheel. The weight combined with the crummy footing and dense brush really challenged me, and at one point, I got stuck on a bush that wouldn't give, and I nearly fell on the poor man. Luckily, a teammate quickly responded when I started to lose my balance and said, "Somebody push me into the bushes!" So I landed in the brush instead of on the patient, which I'm sure he appreciated.

Anyhow, long story shorter, with the help of some rope and a lot of muscle, sweat, and satisfying teamwork, we got our subject back up to the landing zone, where he was whisked off to an ambulance on the other side of the canyon. Two and three at a time, SAR members, a deputy, and an EMT were then shuttled back to the road, saving us a rather long and difficult hike out.

At 2:30 a.m., my sweat dry and muscles sore and with bits and pieces of bushes tangled in my hair, I arrived home, shoved my dog to the middle of the bed where she belongs, and crawled in.

Read the news story about this mission here: Injured Chino Valley man rescued after fall near Williams.

Putting SAR Skills to the Test

 Tracking was something I first learned during Basic SAR Academy, and I've practiced those skills time and again during previous missions, but never before have I officially been put on a "tracking team." Not until yesterday, that is, when one of our senior members pointed to me and said, "Is your stuff ready? Good, grab your gear and head to the staging area. You guys (referring to myself and two teammates) will be the tracking team." My mind immediately went into review mode.

At about 11:00 a.m., as my teammates and I drove to Doney Park east of Flagstaff to begin the search, I mentally ran through all the tracking basics I could recall. Things like, measure the stride heel to heel or toe to toe, and mark it on my hiking pole with duct tape. Do I have duct tape on my pole? Yes, check. Measure the length of the print, the width of the ball and the heel, and make a sketch of the sole pattern. I double-checked to be sure I had flagging tape to mark tracks and other clues, and I knew I had a flexible measuring tape and a Sharpie for writing on the flagging. Somewhere in my pack. Darn, I should have re-organized my pack the day before as I'd promised myself I'd do. But I hadn't.

That's been a weak point of mine. For all the backpacking I've done and all the gear management, I've been lax when it comes to reorganizing and replenishing my 24-hour pack following each mission. So mission after mission, it's only gotten more topsy-turvy and more lacking in certain items. Like food, for one. Shame on me. This time, that meant my stomach was growling for all my teammates to hear, and I had to take off my pack and quickly sift through the contents to find the measuring tape and marker. The one time I had to ask a teammate to borrow a Sharpie, I felt like a doofus. Never again!

Anyhow, when we got to the staging area, we were very briefly briefed and shown some tracks known to be—or at least presumed to be—the missing subject's. My teammates and I did the necessary measuring and began trying to follow the girl's movements. We went back and forth, round and round. We'd pick up the track then lose it. Find it and lose it again. Seemed she'd changed directions quite a bit. And given the fact that there were many prints made by different people in the immediate vicinity and some ground that was not the easiest on which to track, the task was quite a challenge.

At the same time, I realized that over the past 16 months, I've definitely gotten better at "seeing." I was able to pick up small portions of prints and detect shine, which is basically a track left as a result of flattening, leaving no evidence other than the way the sun or artificial light reflects, or shines, on the flattened surface.

Still, after a significant amount of time had passed, we trackers hadn't gotten out of sight of the staging area. We were making wider and wider circles, though, cutting for sign and attempting to find matching prints heading away from the area, to determine a direction of travel. In the meantime, other teammates were carrying out different assignments, including driving area roads and hiking to the top of nearby hills. The team tracking dog and members of our mounted unit came out as well.

We were looking for a juvenile who'd been missing since sometime during the previous night. As of early afternoon, the air was still but chilly, and we were intent on finding the girl before sundown. We knew she wasn't dressed warmly enough.

Eventually, assignments were changed as the situation warranted, and I ended up on a team asked to drive some unpaved roads and a pipeline. As we went slowly along, periodically spinning our tires on the snow-covered cinders, I leaned out of my passenger-side window, alternating between scanning the ground for prints and the forest for any sign of movement or anything that didn't belong. As for the latter, all I saw was a very old, smashed car with remnants of two very dead pigs in it. Um... interesting. But no footprints.

Just as our team of three was about to leave the vehicle when it could go no further and head out on snowshoes, we heard a voice on the radio say, "I've got the subject." Yay! And she was basically okay. Yay again! She needed some medical attention but nothing that sounded too serious. A member of our mounted unit had made the find.

Oh, and those prints we'd been following? Well, not the right ones after all. It happens. What matters in the end is the happy ending.

And happy about a successful mission myself, I called my husband and asked him to meet me at a favorite Mexican restaurant not far from the SAR building. After a grande burrito (and a little of Steve's too), which made up my breakfast, lunch, and dinner rolled into one much-needed meal, I headed home and fixed up my backpack. Okay, now I'm ready for the next one!

Where is Mark?

That's the question many people have been asking for the past 10 days. It's the question that's kept me up at night even when I'm exhausted from another day of searching. And I know everyone involved in the effort feels the same. We just want to find Mark, to give this story an ending.

I've started this entry over several times. While every mission I've been involved with—and there have been about 40 or so in my 16 months on the team—has been unique, this one was especially different for me. Not only did the initial facts seem to point to a fairly rapid resolution that didn't happen, but ground-pounders (rather, snow-pounders in this case) didn't find a single clue. At least, nothing that panned out. No matter how closely we looked, we didn't come up with a thing. And that feels... well, really bad.

At the same time, I was seeing Mark's family and friends, who were also searching along with SAR teams from around the state of Arizona, Forest Service personnel, K-9 teams, Civil Air Patrol, and the Department of Public Safety. But it wasn't the lack of a uniform that told me someone was a relative or friend of the missing. That was clear in their faces, even if they gave us a smile.

Over the past 10 days, five of which I was in the field in Forest Lakes, I wanted so much to hear that familiar tone of voice that comes over the radio when a searcher finds something. You can hear it when a SAR member calls Incident Command, and the rest of us stop in our tracks to listen to what will come next. That didn't happen this time.

But no ending (yet) doesn't mean there's an end to hope. If you'd read as many search and rescue stories as I have in the past year and a half, you know that just about anything can happen. So I'll be keeping Mark Irby and his family in my thoughts and waiting for the day we hear he's been found.

48 Hours and Counting

This is an ongoing mission, from which I just returned after 25 hours in the field. I arrived on Saturday, January 3, as several of my teammates were finishing up their own 20-plus-hour shifts, still with a long drive ahead of them back to Flagstaff. I'll fill you in on more of the story once the mission is concluded, hopefully with a find, but in the meantime, this is who we're looking for, reprinted from the Coconino County Sheriff's Office press release:

Missing Person

"Mark Russell Irby is described as a white man, 51 years of age, 5/10, 175 pounds, brown hair, brown eyes, and wearing prescription glasses. He was last seen wearing a denim shirt, blue jeans and 'Croc' style shoes, and riding a red Bombardier ATV with AZ license plate 36B-175. Irby is on medication for high blood pressure. There are no other known medical conditions. Irby was not dressed for the extreme weather or an extended trip away from home.

"Mr. Irby had been known to travel out of the Forest Lakes Subdivision to the west and travel trails between the subdivision and Forest Service Rd. 237. He was last seen when he left the home in the Forest Lakes area at about 10:00 AM Friday, January, 2nd.

"Anyone with information regarding the welfare or whereabouts of Mark Russell Irby is urged to call the Coconino County Sheriff's Office at (928)774-4523 or (800)338-7888."

When I left incident command today, Sunday, January 4, just after 10 a.m., there were at least 30 volunteers from three county SAR teams in the field, and another call-out has since been made for more volunteers to relieve them in the morning, to continue the search if Mr. Irby hasn't been located. I'll be rejoining the mission at 6 a.m. on Monday.

Also, a DPS helicopter has been flying, searching areas around the Forest Lakes subdivision.

It's now snowing heavily, complicating matters because any ATV tracks that may have been visible on Saturday are now much more difficult to detect. This is becoming a very frustrating mission, as search teams have checked and rechecked all logical areas and then some without locating any clues, which is unusual.

Today, Sunday, teams are literally going door to door in the subdivision, walking around each and every house. Many of them are seasonal homes. Searchers will also be checking snow and ice slides that have come off the roofs, some of which are large enough to potentially bury both a man and his quad. That is, if the quad could even have made it up to the houses. It would have been nearly impossible for the ATV to have crossed the huge berms along the sides of the roads and made it through deep snow on the unplowed driveways of unoccupied homes without getting stuck in the attempt. But there's been no sign of the red quad or the man who was driving it.

Let's hope this turns out well.

Same Subject, Different Day

Déjà vu set in—see Once Was Not Enough from 3/31—as I listened to our coordinator's message even before my pager had finished playing its song. (I'm a fast hand when it comes to grabbing the phone to call in for a SAR mission. Like lightnin'.) Sergeant D said this would be a search for the same man who'd been rescued the night before.

Night before? I checked my pager. Nope, no old pages that I'd missed. Must have been a direct call to certain team members, I figured. Which turned out to be the case. They needed volunteers certified to drive the snowcat and snowmobiles, and, though I'm able to operate both, at least to some extent, I haven't been properly trained or certified by the team. Hopefully, I'll have the opportunity to get that done in the near future.

Anyhow, this man had gotten his vehicle stuck on a Forest Service road on Christmas Day. And what a day that was, with heavy snow and wind gusts texceeding 40 miles per hour. As much as I get all revved up when there's a SAR call, I do admit I wasn't thrilled at the idea of going out in that weather. (But I woulda.)

So, from what I understand, people in three other vehicles had attempted to help the stranded motorist, and they too became stuck. According to the article in the Arizona Daily Sun, search and rescue crews spent much of Christmas rescuing a large group, including children and dogs. Then on Friday, one of the former rescue-ees attempted to hike back to his vehicle and hadn't been seen for two hours. I gather from the article that the subject must have had a cellphone and informed members of his party he could no longer continue hiking. So a call for a second round of help was made.

When I arrived at The 105 building after a slow drive across town, concerned about icy roads, a few of my teammates were already there, readying the snowcat for another run and hooking up the trailers loaded with snowmobiles. As I tossed my personal gear into one of the vehicles, the house phone rang. It was our coordinator, asking if everyone had snowshoes. All shouted affirmatives.

Have I mentioned yet how much I love my new snowshoes? I bought them just after returning from the last mission in Forest Lakes and have been using them every day since. Not only is it great exercise—I've heard you can burn 600 calories per hour on those things—but I really enjoy being out amongst the ponderosa pines on virgin snow, untouched except for all the critter prints crisscrossing my path. I walk out my door, 'shoe into the forest, and immediately see that elk, mule deer, jackrabbits, Abert squirrels, a fox, and even a bobcat have recently been out and about. As far as I'm concerned, all this snow can stick around until at least March. I looove my snowshoes.

Anyhow, where was I? Oh, the mission...

As it turns out, it was a pretty dynamic situation, and plans changed rapidly. No longer were snowshoers needed, just the snowcat and snowmobile drivers again. So off went several of my certified teammates, and the rest of us reorganized the SAR building to make room for the trailers when the others eventually returned, and then we headed home.

As I learned from the morning paper, the cold and disoriented man was picked up by an Arizona Department of Public Safety helicopter at 8 p.m. and flown to Flagstaff Medical Center.

Well, it's past my bedtime—unless my pager goes off again, that is—but maybe I'll just take the trash out on my beloved snowshoes before I hit the sack.

But the Volvo Wasn't so Lucky

It was mesmerizing, the falling snow coming right at us, illuminated by the snowcat's bright headlights. This was my first mission in the midst of a full-on blizzard.

My hands were cramping as I held the 'cat's steering and braking levers too tightly. Maneuvering the tank-like machine was easy enough, especially given our top speed of about 10 miles per hour, but adrenaline was making me lean forward, stiff-backed, gripping the controls as if the extra effort on my part would help the beast push through the fresh, deep snow on the long incline. Over the din of the engine, I could hear bits and pieces of radio traffic as we followed the tracks of our two teammates on snowmobiles, who'd gone ahead to locate the subjects' vehicle.

We were looking for two overdue hikers from Tucson, a male and female ages 26 and 21. They'd set out for a multi-day backpack on Thursday, due to return on Sunday. When they began their hike, the skies were sunny and clear and the temperature seasonably warm. On Saturday, the mercury plunged and the snow began. By Sunday, the storm was in full swing with a thickening white blanket on the ground. On the afternoon of Tuesday, December 16, the call came for search teams from both Coconino and Gila counties to look for the missing couple.

The Mogollon Rim is a rugged escarpment that forms the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau, dropping as much as 2,000 feet in some areas. The twosome's intended route would have taken them in a loop both above and below the rim, a trip of about 50 miles in the Forest Lakes area of Northern Arizona. A forest ranger had seen the couple at the beginning of their hike above the rim and knew the location of their vehicle, which they'd parked at a primitive campground near Bear Lake about 12 miles from the nearest paved road. As of Sunday, that vehicle was still there, but the hikers were not.

With Coconino County being over 18,000 square miles and much of it very remote and accessible only by Forest Service roads and rough two-tracks (if by vehicle at all), our team sometimes has to travel several hours to reach the staging area for a search or rescue. Today, the weather and driving conditions slowed us down even more, so, by midnight, we were still trying to reach the missing hikers' Volvo, the first place our coordinator decided we should check.

Earlier in the evening, Gila County SAR had been searching below the rim when they came to a swollen, fast-moving creek they were unable to cross—a creek which likely had been easily crossed before the storm. Our snowmobilers were having some difficulty locating their turn in the current whiteout, as the four of us in the snowcat made our way in that direction. We'd be continuing further along the Rim Road, the hikers' intended return route to their vehicle. After checking the car, part of our team would then search a nearby power line.

We had a lot of ground to cover, and a call-out for more volunteers and other resources had already been made for the morning. Also, two members of our group stayed behind at the staging area to rest; they'd be going out on snowshoes if the hikers were not soon found by the snowmobilers or those of us in the cat. I wondered if I too might end up snowshoeing, which I was more than ready to do.

I glanced at the gauges often as I drove, mostly checking the RPMs as I'd been instructed. I was also watching our fuel level. Wow, that machine was really eats up the gas.

We noticed a fire tower just off the road and backed up to check it out. It was difficult to see much of anything not directly in the path of our headlights, so we'd almost missed it. As we pulled up to the small outbuilding near the tower, Art decided to jump out to take a closer look and immediately sunk to his waist in the snow. I can't imagine anyone walking very far without snowshoes, which we know the two hikers didn't have with them. We were quite sure they were not on the move.

And that assumption proved correct. Just as Art signaled that no one was inside or behind the outbuilding or around the tower, the snowmobilers announced they'd located the vehicle and the subjects with it, code 4. Phew!

Turns out, the hikers had taken a shortcut when the weather started to turn, but that shortcut had proven more difficult to locate and hike than expected. They'd arrived back at the Volvo on Monday after 10 hours of hiking that day, but due to the depth of the snow, could no longer drive out. They'd been at the car for 36 hours by the time our team located them, passing time playing cards, strumming their ukulele and making up songs, and staring out the window at the falling snow, waiting and hoping someone would eventually rescue them.

The couple had some things in their favor despite their predicament. For one, they'd left an itinerary with a roommate, so search and rescue teams had a good idea where to look right from the beginning. Even if hikers leave their planned route, either on purpose or unintentionally, having the itinerary means SAR personnel are able to make educated guesses on the most likely places they may have gone off course.

Also, the couple did have some essentials, including a backpacking stove, a pot, fuel, and fire starter to melt snow for drinking water. They had warm sleeping bags, pads, a tent, and light sources (not to mention the ukulele, of course.) They had brought a map, which, though printed from the internet and somewhat lacking in detail, did help them locate a shortcut to their vehicle. There was no cellphone reception, but had they turned on their phone at some point, special equipment requested by our coordinator could have helped determine their location, if I understood that correctly. I also understood that that equipment would be available sometime on Wednesday.

In addition to gear, the hikers made the right decision in staying at their vehicle and waiting rather than attempting to walk out. If they'd tried to walk in what was about three feet of snow, fatigue and cold could have—would have—really put them at risk despite being young and fit.

Althooough... parking about 12 miles from the nearest paved road when there's a major winter storm coming in wasn't exactly the best decision. But I sorta think they won't do that again. That is, after they eventually get the car back. Their poor little Volvo is probably going to spend a long, lonely winter on the Mogollon Rim.

****

On this rather rare occasion, we have a chance to read about the mission from a subject's perspective. Read hiker John's firsthand account of getting stranded then rescued on his blog.

Read the articles from the Arizona Daily Sun for the media's perspective:

Overdue Hikers Missing Near Forest Lakes

"Overdue Hikers Found Safe in Waist-Deep Snow

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.

Searching for a Man and His Horse

If this call-out is for another out-of-bounds snowboarder, I'm not sure if I'll respond. It's after dark as usual, and not only am I tired but it's so cold out. My husband and dog are all wrapped up, warm and cozy in the blankets, as I call in to see what's going on. I just don't feel like I'm up to snowshoeing all night.

Oh. It's a call-out for a missing cowboy and his horse, and the cowboy is hearing impaired. Well... that's different.

I'd surely regret not responding, so I leave a message that I'm on my way. Two hours later, I'm riding with Al, towing the ATV trailer along a muddy dirt road, with Sergeant D in his patrol car and two other SAR vehicles ahead and one behind us. I hate to say it, but based on my own thoughts at the time my pager went off, I don't think another out-of-bound snowboarder or skier would have drawn quite as many volunteers from their beds on this frigid winter night.

Nearly four hours after the initial call, we finally reach the staging area. What a long drive, 31 miles of it slow-going on unpaved roads on Babbitt Ranches. It also took us a rather long time to get things ready at the SAR building, in part because we had some difficulty with the trailer hitch. I hope our missing cowboy isn't too cold out here, somewhere in all this vast, open space, as he waits to be found.

Now we're given our briefing and maps of the area—thousands of acres of grazing land with a network of dirt roads and very spread-out camps. The briefing says we're looking for a 28-year-old man named Brandon on a bay horse. Brandon is not wearing his hearing aids but does have a heavy jacket and a lighter. He did not, however, bring any food or water, which surprises me; I'd have assumed a cowboy out on the range would have some provisions, especially since his horse can carry both him and his gear.

Babbitt Ranch staff conducted a search earlier this evening when they realized Brandon was overdue, and the DPS helicopter is now en route. The other bit of information in the briefing is that Brandon has cancer and stopped taking his medication a week ago. Since that time, he's been vomiting and has been depressed. Oh. That certainly changes what I've been thinking. Maybe Brandon isn't actually lost, if you know what I mean. I try to shake off such a thought.

Tonight, I'm assigned to ride with a volunteer named Phillip, and we'll take one of the trucks to a cowboy camp where Brandon has been staying. We'll keep our eyes peeled along the way, of course. Meanwhile, four volunteers will be on ATVs and several others in SAR vehicles. Sergeant D will stay at the staging area, where he'll continue to gather information, plot any significant coordinates we call in, and alter our assignments as needed.

Phillip hands me the big map. "You're the navigator," he says. "If we get lost, it's your fault." I've never met Phillip before, but I glance over and he's smiling. I open the map and turn on my headlamp as we begin bumping along. Minutes later, I don't want to let on that I'm still looking for our current location. There are just too many lines on this thing. But I finally figure it out, just in time to tell Phillip to turn right. Seems there are many two-tracks out here that are not on the map. Great.

As the night passes and we drive, we stare into the blackness. There's a spotlight on the driver's side, but I'm limited to the beam of my flashlight. Periodically, I jump out to open a gate, then close it behind us as we make our way toward our destination. I half expect that, at any moment, a bay horse with an empty saddle, reigns hanging, will gallop out of the darkness and cross the path of our headlights. But the only movement we detect is the occasional form of a cow or a rabbit zipping across the road.

I see a light in the distance. How far off it is or how big, I can't tell. We stop driving and stare. Is it a campfire? One moment the light looks yellow, then it appears blue-ish. Phillip and I contemplate the light for several minutes, drive a little further, then stop and stare some more.

Eventually, Phillip says, "Why don't you go ahead and triangulate it so we can get a fix on the location." Um... triangulate. Right. I know we learned this in SAR academy. I know I need my compass. Yep.

I get out of the truck and hold the little thing in the palm of my hand. "You need to move away from the truck," Phillip tells me through the open window. "The metal will interfere." I knew that. So I move several yards and once again hold up the compass. Shoot, I can't remember. I swallow my pride and go back to ask for help.
When Phillip gets out and shows me what to do, I feel silly. I knew that.

We take a bearing on the light, then transfer it to our map and draw a line. Then we drive further, to another known point, and take another bearing, draw another line, and find that the intersection of the two lines is off the map. Whatever that light source is, it's far away, and Phillip now seems quite sure it's not a campfire but rather a street lamp or a light on a building. He thinks it appears to flicker because something—a tree branch perhaps—is between us and it, and the branch or other object is bobbing in the breeze. Okay, I guess I'll accept that.

We move on and eventually arrive at the camp, which is composed of buildings, not tents as I'd thought. No one is home but some cows and horses in the corral. No bay horses, either. As another SAR team is following some horse prints that could have been made by any cowboy's horse, Phillip and I make the long drive back to Incident Command, receive our next assignment, and head out again. I'm struggling to stay awake in the passenger seat as the horizon begins to brighten.

Ranger, the DPS helicopter, flies over our current location, which is a large, dry stock tank. (In the southwest, a stock tank is a man-made watering hole for livestock.) Phillip and I are out of the vehicle now, and he's wandering around the perimeter of the tank. I feel a bit lost, myself. Wide open spaces like this—that is, searching for a comparatively small human being in such a vast area—kind of confounds me. Where to look? Again, too many choices. So I just start walking around, looking at the ground then into the distance. There are a lot of pinion pine and juniper bushes in this area, any one of which could be hiding a person or even a horse from view. I squint and look as far off as I can, trying to see what probably isn't there.

It's now morning, full light, and we hear on the radio that Sergeant D has made a second call-out for more volunteers, including the mounted unit. After nearly 12 hours, those of us who've been searching all night will soon need a rest. In fact, Sergeant D just called Phillip and me and told us to take at least a half-hour break right where we are.

But that break doesn't last more than a few minutes. Brandon is found! Turns out, the ATV team following the horse prints had picked the right set of hoof prints after all. Brandon is a bit disoriented and very hungry, but he's otherwise Code 4: He's okay. What a relief!

Phillip and I plot the coordinates just given by the team who've located the subject and find that he isn't very far from our location. Less than a mile away in a drainage area. Interesting that he didn't stick to a road since his job for yesterday was to ride a particular two-track to check on some cattle and return the way he'd come. No idea how he got lost, but I guess that's not really so important, at least not to us. Still, it's tough not to be curious.

Another curious thing is that Sergeant D had contacted Brandon's family who live out of state, and they say he's in perfect health. No mention of cancer as another cowboy suggested or any other medical problems. Well, I guess we volunteers may never know for sure. But that's the way it goes—in SAR, we find and we rescue but often don't get the whole story, either before or after the mission. Oh well, at least all ends well yet again, and that's what matters most.