A First Snow's Mission

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another happy ending.

Drunk on Devil's Head

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PLBs and Plenty of Zs

I'm still here! Didn't want you to think I'd gotten tired of SAR blogging. No, there just hasn't been a lot of action lately. At least, nothing that's panned out.

We did have a call last Monday morning, I think it was, around 9 a.m. I was in Walmart at the time (yippee!), looking for stuff for our new house, when my back pocket started beeping a tune. A 200 (search) page for a couple of overdue woodcutters on or near the Hualapai Reservation, which is about a three-hour drive from Flagstaff.

It turned out to be a good drill, basically. Several of us proceeded to load tech gear, ATVs, the Ranger UTV, cubes of water, MREs and snacks, and full gas cans, then drove for about 15 minutes before the mission was 10-22'd. The woodcutters had been located near Peach Springs. So we did an about-face, returned to the SAR building, and unloaded and put away all the gear. And that's been about it over the past couple of weeks. I've had way too many full nights of sleep. I'm thinkin' something will happen soon.

Oh, and we did have another cancelled call-out on the afternoon of Saturday, October 25, just as we were finishing up a rather frustrating personal locator beacon, or PLB, training. (I'll get back to that in a sec.) It sounded like a pretty dire call at that. A girl—not sure if it was an adult or child—had been attacked by bees about four miles up the West Fork of Oak Creek, and she was having an anaphylactic reaction. It was going to be a tough litter-carry, possibly involving some wading in places where the creek fills the canyon. And word through the grapevine was that first responders (not sure if that meant medics, deputies, or civilians) were already "working a code." So we were thinking this might end up being one very rugged body recovery by the sound of things.

On my way across town to the SAR building, though, the mission was cancelled. At the time, I thought perhaps the girl had been short-hauled since her condition was apparently very serious. But I later found out she'd been given epinephrine and walked out on her own. Glad to hear that.

So, back to the PLB training. To read specifics about this and other types of devices used to transmit distress signals, you can visit the Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking, or SARSAT, website. As for me, I refer to the thing that emits the distress signal as a "gadget," and the device responders use to track down the gadget (and hopefully the person/s needing help) as a "gizmo." Gadget and gizmo... got it?

So, first we had a classroom session. We learned about the different types of beacons—PLBs used for land-based applications, ELTs for aviation use, and EPIRBS for maritime use—and the basics of how they work. Seemed pretty straightforward at that point.

Then, we went out behind the Sheriff's office, where Sergeant D turned on the training PLB gadget, and we walked a couple hundred yards across the parking lot where we used the gizmo to locate the gadget. Of course, we could see the gadget from where we were standing with the gizmo. Straight line, no obstacles, flat terrain. I understood how it worked and figured, hey, this is easy!

And then it was time to take the gadget and gizmo into the field. We relocated to Fort Tuthill, where the plan was to take turns going off into the woods with the gadget with about a 10-minute head start, and then the rest of the group would use the gizmo to locate the source of the distress signal.

Well, the first time out, things went fine. Trees, yeah, but pretty flat. Now, the gizmo, by the way, makes a continuous, rather annoying sound—a constant, high-pitched, whiny beep—which the responders have to listen to the whole time they're searching. This first trial didn't take us that long so none of us mentioned anything about stomping on the whiny thing. Second time around, though: different story.

We were all over the place, with me using the gizmo for the first hour. At least, it seemed that long. But the thing couldn't seem to make up its gizmo mind. I was getting conflicting signals, first this way and now that. We were now in hilly terrain with lots of rocks and other obstacles, and I guess the signal was bouncing all over the place.

Eventually, I held the gizmo out to Sergeant D and asked (trying not to sound desperate), "Do you wanna try?" thinking at that point, I must be doing something wrong. I'm not sure what our leader was thinking, but he wasn't saying much as the rest of us followed him follow the gizmo.

A few members of our team, who'd been using the low-tech method of detecting a PLB signal with a radio set to a certain frequency and a body shield (if you really want an explanation, feel free to let me know in the blog comments, and I'll give it my best try), had disappeared. I hadn't noticed they'd walked off, leaving just me and another lady following Sergeant D. I looked around and didn't see them anywhere.

Eventually, Sergeant D radioed the others, and we learned they'd found the guy with the gadget a long time ago. What? The gizmo had failed us while the low-tech method had worked? When I saw where the guy with the gadget had been the whole time, I realized we'd passed pretty close to his location early on in the search. Ugh.

So, then Sergeant D took the low-tech method out of the equation, grabbed the gadget, wished the rest of us luck, and took off to hide. Basically, the gizmo took us in a huge circle, leading us to think Sergeant D was on the move with the thing the whole time. So, a moving distress signal, right? We even thought, based on the signals we were getting, that he'd gone back to the vehicles. But, when we got there, not only was there no sign of Sergeant D, but the gizmo was registering no signal at all. Nada. Dead.

Frustrated, we called Sergeant D on the radio, and he gave us coordinates. We used our GPSes to go to those coordinates, thinking we were looking for him and/or the gadget, but we soon realized he'd gotten us fairly close but not right to the spot. He continued to give us hints; we continued to try to follow the directions the gizmo seemed to be leading us in, but we wandered all over the place with no luck. Finally, thankfully, Sergeant D called the whole thing off. We'd apparently walked right by him more than once.

Was it the hills and obstacles interfering, making the signal bounce all over the place? Or was it us, the searchers using the gizmo, who were the problem? What I do know is that I was hearing that whiny beep in my dreams for several nights thereafter.

A Search for Moving Targets

We were sitting in a coffee shop again, my husband and I, when my pager went off. That's a common pastime for us on Sunday afternoons, when we like to relax and chat. At about 7:00 p.m., after several hours of that relaxing and chatting, we were just getting ready to peel our butts off the vinyl seats when I got the call-out for a rescue on Mt. Elden.

I thought I'd be the last one to the SAR building since I had to drop Steve off at home before driving across town. But only two of the eight volunteers responding were there when I arrived, and as it turned out, we all had to stand by for another hour anyway. Two tech team members were already on the mountain doing a hasty search, and, via radio communications, it sounded as though the rest of us might not be needed at all—just a couple of hikers without lights who'd lost the trail. However, a second potential SAR mission was unfolding at the same time.

And it was that second situation the eight of us responded to, ending up an hour south in Sedona instead of ten minutes away on Mt. Elden. Two stranded mountain bikers had used a cellphone to call for help.

When we rendezvoused with the deputy waiting at Midgley Bridge, he called the subjects and asked them to turn on their headlamps, which we immediately spotted in the distance—little pinpoints of light against the dark backdrop of a mountain. Well, this didn't look like a big deal, really.

Uh-huh.

Victor, our team leader that night who knows the area well, suggested the best course of action would be to hike from the other side of the ridge, from Schenbly Hill Rd. up and over the saddle, and descend to the subjects, then bring them back the way we'd come.

Steve and I had hiked that non-system, or what some call "social," trail, most of which is not on the map, a couple of years ago, and I recalled it being tough to locate in places on the other side of the mountain while fairly easy to follow on the side where tonight's subjects were. Obviously, though, the bikers had strayed quite a distance from the trail. But since I couldn't remember where to access the beginning of the trail on their side of the mountain, I didn't suggest an alternative to Victor's plan. By contrast, the access on Schnebly Hill Rd. is easy to locate because the route begins with a short out-and-back trail that is on the map, and that trailhead has its own parking area. (Hope that makes sense.)

So, the eight of us drove around to Schnebly Hill Road, which apparently hasn't seen any maintenance in years, and arrived at the trailhead about 40 minutes later. It was a rough ride, and I'm surprised none of the three SAR vehicles ended up with at least one flat tire.

Before beginning the hike, Victor divided us into two teams, designating me the leader of Team 1—my first time officially being named a leader. (I had to smile at that. How cool.) I'd communicate with Incident Command back at Midgely Bridge on 1-Baker, while another team member would keep her radio on the SAR frequency for communication between us and Team 2 when necessary. The other two members of Team 1 would keep their radios off for the time being, to preserve the batteries. Then the eight of us started up the trail together.

As we went along, we set out glow sticks in spots that were a bit confusing or might prove to be on the way back. At one point, we had to bushwhack around a stretch where the route would have taken us too close to a fall hazard. Erring on the side of caution as we're always supposed to, we picked our way through some cactus, coming back to the trail in a safer spot to continue the traverse.

Soon, we ascended an open slickrock face to a flat area not far from the saddle. At that point, our two teams split up. Mine would stay put while Team 2 went up and over. Team 1 would stand by in case backup was needed and eventually take over when the subjects were retrieved. They'd be handed off to us for the descent to the vehicles.
 

Maybe that second part—the hand-off—was merely to make my team feel more useful, but there really was no need for all eight of us to continue to the subjects, especially because the going would get rough off-trail. So, my group of four made ourselves comfortable and enjoyed a beautiful, still night filled with moonlight and shooting stars.

While one of my teammates, new to the unit and rearing to go, was very fidgety and not happy about staying behind, I was quite content. I've learned over time that we all perform a function during a mission, even if we have to sit tight for a while. Sometimes, waiting as backup becomes vitally important. Even searching an area with a low probability of finding a subject, or driving perimeter roads while other team members are searching high-probability areas, is crucial to a mission, even if it means just ruling out, or "clearing," those places. Besides, after not hiking this route for quite some time and my memory of the details being fuzzy, I felt the four team members who continued on were best skilled to deal with a potentially technical situation, especially with it being darker on the other side of the saddle despite the bright moon, in the mountain's shadow.

As it turned out, I'm glad I was on the team who stayed put. Monitoring radio communications between Team 2 and IC, I could hear they were encountering some difficulty. When they left the trail to try to access the subjects, Team 2 soon found themselves in a tricky spot with significant fall hazards. And, in the meantime, the subjects had become moving targets, apparently now trying to self-rescue. Despite phone calls from the deputy and verbal communication between Team 2 and the subjects, shouting back and forth, the two men who'd called for help were not listening to those who were trying to help them.

At that point, Team 2 had gone far enough down the other side in rough terrain that backtracking would have been more difficult than continuing a descent toward Midgley Bridge... with or without the subjects. The fidgeting member of my team kept asking me to call and see if he could go join Team 2 since he's from Sedona and felt he knew the area better than they did. When I refused to make that call, he asked why we shouldn't just go back to the vehicles then. But I felt we should stay where we were until Team 2 or Incident Command instructed us otherwise. We had radio communication, so they'd let us know.

At the same time, I didn't feel it necessary to interrupt Team 2, as they were obviously busy negotiating hazardous terrain. So, I had a wee bit of a tug-of-war, shall we say, with the one teammate who, like every SAR member, will have to get used to taking direction from those with more experience. I got instructions from Victor, and my new teammate would have to live with a few decisions from me. So there.

After listening to Team 2's increasingly frustrated transmissions for quite some time, Victor told IC they'd decided to hunker down and stay put till daylight, when it would be easier to see. They were still in voice contact with the subjects who had by then split up. Meanwhile, my team was instructed to return to the vehicles on Schnebly Hill Rd. and drive back around to IC at Midgely Bridge, where we'd see what our next assignment would be, if any, for this mission. On the hike back to the vehicles, we collected the glow sticks we'd set out on the way up, after first confirming with Victor that his team wouldn't need them.

When we arrived at the bridge more than an hour later, nothing had changed. There was some talk about our Team 1 hiking another trail to try to get close to the subjects from that way, but we and the deputy decided that wasn't such a hot idea. Comparing the location of the subjects and the nearest point on that trail, the distance between the two was significant given the terrain. Instead, we decided to make a run into town for coffee and snacks, then return to IC and wait.

To make a long story a bit shorter, I'll wrap this up by saying that one of the two subjects made his way to the SAR members still in the field. At that point, he just wanted water for himself and his buddy, and SAR gave him what he asked for. Victor then decided to assist the mountain bikers down to the trail my team had briefly considered hiking up, though the two men would have to carry their bikes.

Once on the well-maintained trail, Victor and his two teammates left the subjects to ride or walk their bikes out on their own. Team 2 arrived at the road maybe 10 minutes before the subjects, wet past their knees from the creek crossing. SAR waited until they arrived and were being interviewed by the deputy before we departed for Flagstaff.

After a 10-hour mission that we thought would take less than half that time, we signed out and headed for home just as the sun was coming up.

A Mock Search... And Then Some

It's like following a horse race. Team 1 gives their coordinates to Sergeant D over the radio, and I, listening in, plot those coordinates on my map. Then Team 2 gives their location, then Team 3. Team 2 is in the lead! They're gaining on us! Not that we're moving.

What the heck am I talking about, you ask? Well, I'm sitting near the edge of an alpine meadow, a couple hundred yards above the Kachina Trail. Joe is here, too, reading his thick computer programming textbook. I suggested he bring something to read because I knew we'd be out here a while. We're "lost," you see. Oh, and I have a leg injury, though I'm not really sure which part of which leg is injured. I'll come up with that once we're found.

Sergeant D left an envelope for me at the SAR building yesterday, with "Confidential information for Deb" written on it, sealed with yellow evidence tape. It felt so... official. In the envelope was a copy of the briefing the new unit members and their experienced instructor-members would be given for today's simulated mission. Sergeant D also gave me coordinates for the place where Joe and I should wait ... and wait ... and wait.

The two of us arrived at the trailhead at noon today for our head start and hiked 2.7 miles to this location, following the digital compass on my nine-year-old Magellan GPS. We positioned ourselves a bit farther from the trail than the coordinates indicated, far enough that passers-by wouldn't notice us but close enough that we could keep an eye out for SAR. If they walk by but don't call out or blow a whistle, we're not gonna yell. Heh-heh.

It's a beautiful yet chilly day up here at close to 10,000 feet, and now, at 4:30 p.m., I feel the air getting colder. Joe and I move a bit further into the meadow, to escape the growing shadows creeping our way and soak up what's left of the sunlight.

We're just about midway along the Kachina Trail. One group of searchers started from the western end, where Joe and I parked. Another group began at the Weatherford trailhead on Schultz Pass road, requiring more than a mile of additional hiking to get to the junction at the eastern end of the Kachina Trail. Those two groups are working toward one another, while the third group, who drove in on a Forest Service road, are hiking north, up an old two-track. They should intersect the Kachina Trail not far to the west of our location. It'll be interesting to see (or hear, rather) which way they turn once they get there. And there's now been a fourth team designated, made up of two unit members who parted with one of the original teams and are now heading back to Incident Command because one of them is experiencing some "mountain sickness."

We also know from radio communication that two tracking/trailing search dogs and their handlers are in the field, too. But I guess their noses don't know what—I mean, who—they're sniffing for, because they have no scent article of mine or Joe's. Must be the dogs in training I heard about, belonging to a couple who are new to the unit.

I hear my watch beep: 5:00. And soon I think I hear a distant call. It's faint, but who else besides SAR would be yelling out here? Joe and I listen closely. Yep, that must be them. We let them get closer, until we can clearly hear them calling Joe's name. I give Joe the nod, and he yells back.

And then... silence. A long silence. Joe and I look at each other, puzzled.

We later find out that when Joe called back the first time, the teams, which by then were all within earshot as they closed in on our position and one another at roughly the same time, froze. I could just imagine them all standing there, holding their collective breath, listening as hard as they could. I would have had a giggle-fit watching that.

Joe and I stay mute too. Ha!

Finally, someone breaks the silence and gives another yell. Joe responds, and then—and I'm laughing as I write this—they all start yelling like mad and blowing whistles. Such excitement! Poor Joe, he has to keep calling back and calling back. "Hey!" "Over here!" "Hey!" Meanwhile, I'm just sitting here in the tall grass. I mean, I can't yell, my leg is broken. Yeah, definitely broken. Maybe even a nice icky compound fracture.

Soon, we see search and rescue—two field teams almost at the same time—emerge into the meadow below. They don't spot us right away, though Joe is now standing, waving his arms as he calls back. And now I hear, "There he is! Up there!" And the mass of people and two bounding brown dogs start moving our way. Within about five minutes, I'm being licked and slobbered on (by the dogs, that is), and as the third team catches up and joins the rest, Joe and I are soon surrounded by about 20 people. Gee, such great attention.

They ask me if I'm cold. No, I say. But Al, one of the experienced members along to provide guidance, looks at me sternly and says, "Oh, yes, Yes, you are."

Oh... okay, I'm cold. Very cold. Yes, new members, the subject needs some of your spare clothing. Yeah, that's much better. Am I hungry or thirsty? I look at Al. Nooooo, not hungry or thirsty. I just ate and drank recently, thank you (which is true). And Al tells me I have a fractured right ankle joint. Ouch! A dog just stepped on it. If this were for real, that woulda hurt.

New member Tom, an EMT, uses a SAM splint, bandannas, and two thick sticks to secure my broken ankle. Then I'm plopped into the litter, and Ken gives a demo on patient packaging.

Now, of course, I can't scribble on my notepad, so into past tense I go...

Part of the group heaved me into the air, as others struggled to attach the wheel beneath the litter. After some technical difficulties, we started to roll ... and bounce ... and jolt. It's kinda funny, looking up at all those faces, listening to the jumble of communication amongst people not used to working together and not used to transporting a person in a litter. At the same time, I was rather comfy and could have taken a nap, actually, had I not gotten dumped out, forced to hike on my miraculously healed ankle after everyone had had a turn handling the litter.

By then, the sun had set, and we proceeded single-file to hike out, our headlamps glowing like a moving line of luminaries along the trail. We chatted as we walked, older members and new ones getting to know one another. I heard some SAR stories shared, and everything was hunky-dory... until, boom! Down goes Laura, one of the new recruits. Uh-oh. This time, the ankle injury was real.

Now Tom the EMT wasn't pretending as he evaluated and splinted another ankle. After a very brief, unsuccessful attempt at an assisted walk-out, we got another patient-packaging demonstration. With a about a mile to go to vehicles, we all took turns on the litter, our real patient apologizing along the way. What an unfortunate way to begin a search and rescue career.

At midnight, I finally arrived home, about four hours later than I'd expected.
 

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In my last entry, I'd mentioned how our pagers hadn't gone off in a while, so I was having a premonition things were about let loose. Well, twice in one day, on that same day, it did. Two injured hikers on two mountain trails. Twice, a bunch of us, including a number of new members who'd just received their pagers, responded to the SAR building, anticipating long litter-carries. Twice the missions were 10-22'd, because Guardian medical personnel ended up going in and getting the victims before we arrived. Well, now the new folks know firsthand what "hurry up and go home" means. It happens.

Don't Tell, But...

There's a little training exercise planned for the new members who are just finishing Coconino County's Basic SAR Academy. Their pagers will go off tomorrow—not tellin' when—just like it's a real mission. They'll respond to the SAR building, sign in, sign out radios, load gear, and respond to Incident Command, which will be at the Kachina Trail parking area up on the peaks.

And who will they be lookin' for? Why, li'l ol' me and my teammate, Joe. We'll be sitting out there, all bundled up (it's supposed to be cold and windy, and we'll be at an elevation of over 10,000 feet) with goodies to keep us warm and occupied. We'll bring books and dinner too, because who knows how long we'll be waiting to be found. We'll also have radios so we can eavesdrop on the searchers' progress.

When they eventually find us, one of us is going to require a litter carry. Joe and I will draw straws, arm wrestle, and fight about who gets to be the injured one, but I sure hope I win. I've been a fake patient before, and riding in that litter makes me feel rather icky (meaning nauseous).

This whole mock SAR mission is dependent on the fact that no real mission takes precedence. It's been vewwy, vewwy quiet for a while. In fact, when I returned from a recent trip to Colorado, I was surprised to find I hadn't missed any missions while I was gone. Hm, makes me think the elk poo is about to hit the fan.

Two SAR in One Day, Take Two

First, there was the suspicious rental car and empty baby carriage left at the Midgley Bridge parking lot. At 3 a.m. on Sunday, Sergeant D sent out a page, and seven of us shook off sleep and responded. We drove down the switchbacks into Oak Creek Canyon to the bridge, where our coordinator updated us on what little additional information he'd gotten so far.

There was a campground ticket on the dash. The campsite, deserted since Saturday, had been checked. Another camper said they'd seen two women but no baby at that site. In the tent was a suitcase with a sleeping bag and a few other items inside, and that suitcase had an airline tag on it. The baby carriage at the bridge also had an airline tag on it. Also at the campsite, a book was found: "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch, a professor who lost his battle with cancer earlier this year. A family photo was tucked into the book. The rental car company's computers were currently down, so we didn't yet have information from them, but a locksmith was on the way to open the vehicle, inside of which Sergeant D could see a cellphone.

The seven of us SAR volunteers and Sergeant D huddled over the Sedona trails map, laid out on the hood of his truck and illuminated by our eight headlamps. We had no idea what to expect from this search, but we had tech gear with us just in case.

It was decided that two team members would hike to the bottom of the canyon and make their way under the bridge. Midgely Bridge had been used as a jumping-off point, so to speak, a number of times before, so we needed to rule that out. We hoped.

Meanwhile, two other teams of two would hike two of the three trails that depart from the area. The third trail, which climbs Wilson Mountain, would be covered next. Our seventh team member, a man in his mid-seventies, would drive around to other trailheads to check for vehicles and people and to pick us ground-pounders up when we got to the other ends of our assigned trails.

My companion and I covered the three-mile Huckaby Trail, calling, "hello!" and "anybody out here?" I blew my loud whistle periodically, making my ears ring.

Eventually, we learned a name via radio transmissions between Sergeant D, dispatch, and another deputy, and then we called, "Laura!" as we went along. Apparently Laura had rented the car, and Sergeant D had been in contact with her friends and family by dialing numbers programmed in her cellphone, which he'd retrieved from the car. Laura was from Canada.

After a careful creek crossing on some narrow logs, Scott and I continued along the trail as the sun came up, but we soon stopped when we thought we heard a distant whistle. We called and listened again, straining our ears against the sound of the wind in the trees. When we were sure we were hearing a whistle, we announced it over the radio, only to learn we were hearing one of our other teams above us on another trail.

Our radios were pretty quiet as we hiked, but just before Scott and I reached the end of our trail, we heard Sergeant D's voice. "The two subjects just arrived at the bridge, Code 4."

They had been a short distance up the Wilson Mountain Trail — the one we hadn't yet checked. They'd been on their way down yesterday evening when darkness overtook them and, with no light, had decided to stay put until the morning. Apparently, they weren't particularly shaken up about their unplanned, bare-bones campout, but, boy, were they freaked out when they got back to their car and found a bunch of Coconino County Sheriff's Search & Rescue vehicles all around it. I expect some rapid follow-up calls to worried family and friends took place.

Oh, and the mysterious baby carriage had no connection to the two women. Tucked into a carriage pocket was a Phoenix hotel map. It's my guess that a couple with a baby got back to their hotel and, when they unloaded the car, they said to one another, "I thought you put the carriage in the trunk."

So, after breakfast with my teammates and the drive back to Flagstaff, I returned from that little adventure soon after my husband had rolled out of bed. We spent a relaxing Sunday together, much of that time sitting at an outdoor cafe where I think I actually fell asleep for a few minutes while I had my head tilted back with my face to the sun. But after a long early-evening walk with our dog, my pager went off again.

This call was for a carry-out on Kendrick Peak. It was a girl with a knee injury, Sergeant D said, and would probably be at least a six-hour deal. Without enough people to take shifts, we'd only be able to switch sides of the litter, to give one arm a break for a while, rather than switch out people.

But, as has been the case lately, things didn't turn out quite like we expected. After the long drive to the trailhead, one SAR member who lives nearby and responded directly to the scene had already reached the victim and victim's friend, along with a deputy who'd headed up the trail on his own. They were apparently a good hour's hike up there, but they were going to try an assisted walk-out.

Sergeant D decided to send four of us who had Wilderness First Responder (WFR or "woofer") training up the trail with medical gear, so we could make a brace for the girl's knee and help with the walk-out. The others would remain behind in case we ended up needing the litter after all. Since the victim had already refused ambulance transport, there were no Guardian medical personnel on the scene, just search and rescue.

We set off at a good clip, not rushing but not wanting to waste time getting up there to help. Thinking we had the better part of an hour's climb, we were surprised to see lights heading toward us well before then. I stepped aside as a rather beefy and very sweaty deputy whooshed by with a girl on his back. Wow! Can he come with us all the time?

Our group did have to pause briefly while the deputy removed his gun belt. The weapon and other equipment around his waist was jammed into the injured hiker's backside and inner thighs. I'd imagine that was probably painful enough to distract her from her injured knee. Seeing how she limped and wobbled when the deputy momentarily set her down, I can see why the attempted assisted walk-out hadn't worked.

A short time later, the grateful victim, her friend, and their two growling dogs were returned to their vehicle, and we headed back to the SAR building to fill up the trucks so they'll be ready to go for the next call-out, put away the tech gear, and then drive our sleepy selves back home.

Just before midnight, my head hit the pillow, and I didn't budge till 9 a.m.

One Day, Two Missions

Okay, now I don't feel quite so bad about missing Wednesday's and Thursday's evidence search.

On Friday morning, just as my mom and I get to the hair salon for her 9:00 appointment (and my trim while her dye is doing its thing), my pager goes off. Shoot! I was going to miss another mission, I thought.

I called in and Sergeant D's message said it was a search for a missing hunter (kind of a recurring theme at this time of year) in the Marshall Lake area. Hmm, I contemplated, that's not far from where I live. So I left a message, saying I'd be tied up for a while but that I'd like to join in if the search was still ongoing after I dropped my mom off back at her house. Then I hung up and called Al, who I knew would be going on the mission. Al said he'd grab an extra radio for me.

I fidgeted while the hairdresser got my mom started, then fidgeted some more while she was combing away at my matted, curly mass. Twice I fished my ringing cellphone out of my pocket as she was trimming, trying not to move too much lest she snip off part of an earlobe. It was Al, calling to tell me he was going directly to Marshall Lake with Cassie, his and the team's tracking dog, to begin a hasty search. So, he'd relayed my request for a radio to another team member at the SAR building. Then it was Al calling again from his truck, asking if I knew a quicker way to get to Marshall Lake.

With my earlobes still intact after those two calls, I called my husband, a Flagstaff native, and asked if he knew of any alternate routes to the lake, on some unofficial dirt roads maybe. Nope. So I slipped my phone back into my pocket and behaved myself for the rest of my agonizingly long haircut, then changed into SAR clothes in the salon bathroom while the hairdresser continued on my mom's head. Tap, tap, tap went my foot as I tried to distract myself with tabloid magazines. (Did you know that Brittany Spears... uh, never mind.)

Okay, so fast forward to about 11 a.m. I got to Marshall Lake just as our team was preparing to depart the staging area and head into the field. Al was already out with Cassie along with the subject's brother and a scent article, a shirt the missing man had worn on a couple of days ago. The hunter, Robert, had been gone since 5 p.m. on Thursday, when he vanished while he and his brother and friend were out looking for elk. One minute he was there, the next he was gone, the friend told me.

The point last seen (PLS) was marked on the maps Sergeant D handed out to each searcher along with the briefing sheet. Robert, who was in his early fifties, was about 6-foot-2, 280 pounds, and had no known medical conditions. He was wearing leaf-patterned camo pants and jacket and a black shirt.

We were also told that Robert had been wearing sneakers, though his friend was unsure of the brand. Sergeant D and other SAR members had looked for prints around their campsite, but there were many different treads in the area.

The DPS helicopter was in the air as our team set off in pairs, some on ATVs, some in vehicles, and Scott and I on the Ranger UTV, which can be used to transport a patient. Scott and I followed a trio of hunters to some sneaker tracks they'd located. We spoke to a young couple camped nearby, then parked the Ranger and set off on foot.

Scott and I yelled and I blew my whistle as we climbed to the top of the mesa near the PLS. We saw quite a few tracks, but they were all boot prints. Meanwhile, another pair of SAR volunteers were following some sneaker prints along a dirt road, with the helicopter leap-frogging them and flying above some of the spur roads ahead. At one point, Scott and I, standing on an outcropping above Cherry Canyon, thought we heard a reply to our calls, but it turned out to be ATV Team 1 down below. Darn.

From there, we started downhill, following a wash. I believe Sergeant D had said that something like 40% of the time, lost hunters are found in washes. Hmm, interesting.

As was the next bit of info to come over the radio. Robert's sneakers were just found in the back of his truck. He was wearing boots when he disappeared. Boots with Vibram soles. Oh.

I don't know about Scott, but by then I was starting to get that sinking feeling. Were we going to find poor Robert, unresponsive or worse, somewhat hidden in the grass in his camo garb? I'd seen a vulture circling not long before. Maybe we should have checked over there. Maybe a stray bullet had missed an elk and... well, you get the idea.

Usually when I start to get "that feeling," the person turns up. Which held true this time, too. At about 2:30 p.m., we heard a deputy call Sergeant D on the radio. He said, "We just got word the subject may be at the Circle K on Lake Mary Rd." The Circle K? Wow, that's a long walk.

Scott and I turned around and slowly made our way back to the Ranger (which luckily I'd remembered to mark on my GPS), while a deputy went to the convenience store and confirmed that, yes indeed, it was Robert. He'd been there since 10:00 that morning. I could have picked him up when I drove by on my way to Marshall Lake. Ah well, all's well that ends well once again. That's much better than the scenario my imagination had been cooking up.

So then, at about 4 p.m., I got home coated with dust-covered sweat and waited for Steve to get home from work. I put off showering, and we walked our dog, made some dinner, ate, chatted, watched the presidential debate, and... you guessed it: My pager went off again. Good thing I hadn't showered yet. Would have been a waste of water, right?

And since I've already been long-winded enough, I'll just summarize:

Man goes for a hike with just a water bottle in his pocket. Man gets a bit misplaced. It gets dark, but hiker-man has no flashlight. He does have a cellphone, though, so he calls for help. Deputy responds and drives around, running his siren and talking to the lost man by phone while SAR team is on the way.

SAR arrives. Doo doo-doo! (That was a trumpet.) By now, deputy has some idea of the man's location based on when lost man said the siren was the loudest. So, SAR divides into two teams and heads out from different trailheads. We call, we blow whistles.

We make voice contact. We find man, escort man back to trailhead, then to Sergeant D, then to man's vehicle a few miles away. Happy, tired man goes home. SAR goes home. I go to bed without a shower. Poor husband, Steve.
 

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A few days later...

Just a little added information on the missing elk hunter who turned up at Circle K. He, uh, got a ride there. Yes, he did get lost and did spend the night in the great outdoors, but then, in the morning, he apparently found his way to one of the many forest roads in the Marshall Lake area and caught himself a ride.

Thing is—so we're told—that ride took him right past the campsite he'd been sharing with his brother and friend. So why didn't he stop there? I don't get it. Even if he didn't go right past the site, it was on THE main forest service road out there, just north of the lake, so it wasn't like it would have been hard to find. Why didn't he ask the driver to take him there?

Ah well, no sense in asking logical questions.

A Life Saved After All

I don't think any of us knew just how serious his condition really was. I'm referring to the man we recently evacuated from the Humphreys Trail after he'd experienced shortness of breath and chest tightness during his descent. While members of our SAR team along with Guardian crew were bringing him down in the litter, medics monitored the patient's condition. It seemed the longer he was on oxygen and the lower we went, the more his condition improved. He was talkative and not in any further distress, he said.

According to Sergeant D, though, who updated us at our general SAR meeting this past Thursday, the patient had a blood clot in his stint. Had he attempted to walk, he may have had a serious, potentially fatal heart attack.

When our coordinator gave us this news, Liz and I looked at each other with wide eyes. Sometimes you don't know what a difference a rescue is making in someone's life during the mission. Boy, I'm glad the Good Samaritan called for help when he came across Andrew sitting by the side of the trail.

On another note, we were paged at 1:15 Friday morning for a missing hunter with a history of diabetic coma. The man's companion had last seen him at 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, before he'd left in his truck from their camp in a remote area near the South Rim of Grand Canyon. The man had mentioned that if he did leave, he'd be going to a particular tank (a watering hole for livestock). But his friend had checked that tank and then drove around for another five hours without any luck. Then he called for SAR.

Coconino County is so big that it can take us a long time to get to an area before we can even begin to search. In this case, the point last seen was 30-some-odd miles down a dirt road and a nearly three-hour drive from Flagstaff. Two deputies were already in the area  while we were on our way, gathering additional information and driving the network of dirt roads and two-tracks. At first light, we'd have the assistance of the DPS helicopter, too.

But as we were nearing the hunters' camp, we heard one of the deputies on scene call Sergeant D. "I hate to do this to you," he said. Al turned up the radio, and we leaned in to listen. Sure enough, they'd just made cellphone contact with the subject, who was about a mile and a half from camp, Code 4. He was fine, he said. No diabetic issues.

Al and I couldn't help but laugh—this kind of timing has happened a number of times before. But good, that's the end result we always hope for. After a little shut-eye for an hour, we turned around and drove back to Flagstaff.

Some PSAR: The Highpointers Are in Town

Mission-wise, things have been quiet for the last couple of weeks, since Labor Day weekend. But our SAR team has had some PSAR to do in the meantime. PSAR stands for preventative search and rescue, which basically involves walking heavily used trails and stationing ourselves in high-visibility areas to answer questions, make sure folks are prepared for what they're doing or setting out to do, and sometimes disseminating informational brochures or just saying a friendly hello to passers by.

This week, the Highpointers are in town for their "konvention" on Humphrey's Peak. Until one of our SAR general meetings a couple of months ago, I hadn't heard of this club with a membership that has an age range of something like five years to 90. The club's purpose, as quoted from their website, is to "promote climbing to the highest point in each of the fifty (50) states; provide a forum for education about the highpoints; aid in the preservation and conservation of the highpoints and their environs; provide a vehicle through which persons with this common goal can meet and correspond with one another; maintain positive relationships with owners of highpoints on private property; assist in the care and maintenance of highpoints; and support public and private efforts to maintain the integrity of and access to state highpoints." Got all that? I've even heard that some club members try to hit high points in all counties as well.

Anyhow, with something like 350 more people than usual hiking Humphreys and other popular Flagstaff trails this week, our SAR team did some planning, parked a command trailer up at the Snowbowl ski area at the Humphreys trailhead, and made ourselves noticeable and available on the mountain, hiking (and riding horses) around with our SAR shirts and radios on. Our goal was not only to do some PSAR but to have team members in the area in case an incident were to occur. It's now Friday morning, the final full day of the Highpointers event and, so far, all is well.

I think the Highpointers Club is pretty cool. And being a list-maker and a goal-oriented girl myself, this makes me go, "Hmm..."

And thank you, Renee from Tidewater Search & Rescue for telling me about a book written by a Highpointer. She tells me it's a fun and easy read, by two men who completed the 50-state quest. It's called, To The Top: Reaching for America's 50 State Summits.

Carrying a Man off Mt. Humphreys

Two days later, my arms are still sore — but in a good way. I feel like I did something and actually helped, compared to the rescue on Mt. Humphreys a couple of months ago (about which I now realize I didn't write a blog entry). During that earlier rescue involving a man from Mississippi who'd broken his ankle when he stepped over a log and landed wrong, I was tentative and only put my hands on the litter a few times. Granted, it was a more difficult evacuation along a somewhat treacherous and snowy route, but I felt more like a bystander than a useful part of the team.

This time around, we were called to evacuate a hiker in his early 50s who'd experienced shortness of breath and chest tightness while descending from the 12,633-foot summit. We were told that the man, named Andrew, has a stint in his heart but is accustomed to climbing Camelback Mountain in Phoenix quite often and has also climbed Mt. Humphreys since the stint was put in. So, this wasn't anything new for him.

When I arrived at the trailhead, having responded directly to the mountain rather than the SAR building, a small team including at least one of our volunteers and a medic was already on the trail. Their goal was to locate Andrew and determine his condition. Meanwhile, another team, including two more SAR members and additional medical personnel, was loading gear into a vehicle, preparing to drive up a ski area service road and then switchbacks on one of the runs to try to get the equipment closer to the subject.

By having access to that locked service road, search and rescue is able to bypass part of the Humphreys Trail and, therefore, save crucial time and human energy. It also allows us to evacuate a subject more quickly. When I got to the staging area, however, Andrew's exact location on the trail was still unknown.

As I waited with our coordinator, team captain, and Guardian Medical battalion chief in the parking lot at the lodge, another contingent of our SAR team arrived. They brought with them our new Polaris Ranger UTV, which I learned to drive at the SAR conference in Heber, Arizona, earlier this year.

Sergeant D pointed at me and said, "Deb is the certified driver." Yay, I was gonna get to drive the "little car" on it's maiden mission! 

Okay, I thought to myself, the gas is on the right, brake on the left. I can do this.

So, up the service road I went with my cohort, Liz, squished in the middle next to me and Scott, a very experienced member of our team, next to her. Behind us was the rest of our crew in a SAR vehicle. I was directed to stop on the service road rather than continue up the switchbacks on the ski run, so the UTV drive was easy and without any of the steep side-tilt that makes me a wee bit nervous. Phew.

From where we parked, our group continued on foot, straight up the mountain with a break-apart titanium litter with the wheel attached, to intersect the trail. As we huffed and puffed and sweat, the initial team found Andrew, and the second team, who had driven up the ski slope, also made their way to that location. Our group arrived at the trail several hundred feet below the subject, so we continued huffing and puffing, taking turns pushing and pulling the litter. If it was this tough without a patient in it, I couldn't wait to see how difficult this was going to get. At least we'd be going down, I thought.

But I soon found that going down didn't seem to make much difference. If anything, it was more difficult. But at least we had a lot of people to help, so we all were able to switch out and change sides (and, therefore, arms) as often as needed.

I was happy to find that our subject was alert and generally in good spirits, though he'd needed significant assistance standing up and getting over to the litter. During the carry-out, the medics continuously monitored his blood pressure and pulse, and a portable machine printed out what looked like an EKG. Apparently, the oxygen the medics were giving Andrew was helping. The only things that seemed to be bothering him during the evacuation were a sore back due to insufficient padding on the litter and concern about how much the helicopter ride to the hospital was going to cost. (No one seemed sure about the answer, given that it was a Guardian, not a DPS, helicopter that was en route to the mountain. Someone replied, "I think it's the same cost as an ambulance ride.")

I do want to mention how great it was to see that another hiker, who'd happened along when Andrew was in distress, had stopped and stayed with him. I don't know the young man's name, but he not only assisted with the carry-out and carried Andrew's backpack, but he told Andrew he'd drive his vehicle to the hospital and meet him there. Andrew had come to Mt. Humphreys alone, but he left with a friend. What a great guy.

Anyhow, to our relief, we finished the evacuation before dark. When we emerged from the trees onto the service road where I'd parked the UTV, our patient, still on the litter, was loaded onto the back of the vehicle. Next to him was a rear-facing seat for a medic. And I was again the driver.

Though my companion in the front asked me if the UTV could go any faster, I drove fairly slow, easing over the biggest bumps. Granted, Andrew had been rolled over lots of bumps during the carry-out, but I figured there was no need to jostle him any more than necessary. Besides, I knew from the traffic coming over the radio in my chest harness that the Guardian helicopter had not yet arrived at the landing zone (LZ). So there was no need to rush.

As we got closer to the LZ on the lower part of the Hart Prairie ski run—just a grassy field covered with prairie dog holes until the first winter snow—I heard that the helicopter was a minute out. What good timing. I could hear it approaching as I came to a stop in the parking lot at the edge of the field. I wanted to let them land, then wait for instruction before driving any closer. But then I heard the pilot say she was going to circle for a while to burn off fuel. I don't know much about helicopters, but I do know they're sensitive to weight, air temperature, and altitude, so I guess the pilot felt it was best to reduce the weight given the  conditions.

As it turns out, Andrew probably could have gotten to the hospital faster in the ambulance that was parked right next to us than he eventually did in the helicopter. But the medics felt he was stable, and Andrew himself seemed rather content. In fact, he was chatting with people coming off the trail, who walked over to see what was going on.

So, there was Andrew, flat on his back, strapped to the litter, which was strapped to the UTV, with several people standing around talking. Sergeant D even got his interview with Andrew done while we watched the helicopter make huge circles in the air.

About 20y minutes after we arrived near the LZ, the helicopter landed, and we carried Andrew over to it. The aircraft has a litter platform that angles out for loading. When you put the patient on there and then push the platform back into the helicopter, Andrew's feet are right next to the pilot.

Moments later, Guardian lifted off as I returned to the UTV. I managed to drive it onto the trailer—another first for me, and phew again—and then search and rescue and Guardian personnel had a debriefing before both teams went their separate ways.

All in all, the evacuation went very well. Good communication, good team work. And, this time, I definitely felt like part of it.