The SAR I Missed While On Vacation

Not that I'm sorry we went. Heck no! We had a great time hiking and taking a scenic train ride in Colorado (all of which you can read about here... and here... and here if interested), but I'm always curious to know what goes on with the search and rescue team while I'm away. Yes, I'm a nosy girl.

So, when I got back to Flagstaff late Saturday night, June 20th, I couldn't resist calling the SAR line and listening to the most recent recorded message. It was from Friday evening around 8:00: a call-out for an overdue juvenile mountain biker. But I didn't read anything in the newspaper about that search in the days that followed and haven't heard anything from my teammates, so I'm wondering if that situation quickly resolved itself.

I did, however, see a couple of other SAR-related news stories in previous issues of the Arizona Daily Sun, including Body Recovered From Oak Creek Canyon (which I'm assuming some of our tech team members were involved with) and Searching Dangerous Depths, the latter about the special new (and expensive) camera the Sheriff's Department recently acquired that can be lowered into deep, confined spaces. In this case, it was used to continue the search for German physicist Reinhard Kirchner, who disappeared in the Hell Hole Bend area of the Little Colorado River back a couple of years ago. But nothing but rattlesnakes were found in the particular sink hole that was searched last week.

I know I also missed some Rock Rescue Academy training while I was away, but I don't know exactly what or how much. Kindly, one of my experienced teammates emailed me and offered to get together with me next week for some rope work, so that should help refresh my memory of what I've already learned and maybe even catch up a little. He tells me the next tech training will be on July 25th, so I'll have a little time to practice before then... which is right before I go away again for two weeks and three weekends, when Steve and I will be canoe-camping in Minnesota's Boundary Waters and hiking in the North Country, too.

Found

Now that this is in the news, I can tell you that the remains of a man our team and others searched for for 10 days in January and again in March of this year have been located.

I'm referring to the case of Mark Russell Irby, who disappeared from his home in rural Forest Lakes, Arizona, during what was supposed to be a short ATV ride on "The Loop" around the subdivision—something he often did—before he and his wife would return to their home in the city later that morning.

Mr. Irby, last seen wearing a denim shirt, jeans, and plastic Croc shoes, was not dressed for an extended ride in those winter conditions, and there was no less than three feet of snow in the area at the time.

The initial search involved 1,800 hours of manpower on foot and 20 hours by air. No tracks or clues were found at that time.

I wrote about the ongoing, extensive search in January:

1/4: 48 Hours And Counting

1/11: Where Is Mark?

And again in March, when his ATV was located about 10 miles from his home:

3/17: Three Ongoing Searches

And this is one of the latest news reports:

From the Arizona Daily Sun: Body Of Missing ATV Rider From Valley Found

His remains were found along the shore of Chevelon Canyon Lake, about 12 miles northwest of his cabin in Forest Lakes.

I'm waiting to see if more information is released to the public about this case. If I see anything new, I'll post it here. In the meantime, I'm thinking back on the whole thing—what I know of it, anyway—and thinking, I just don't get it. How did he get so far from home in those conditions?

I feel really sad for Mr. Irby and for his family and friends. I met some of them during the search and really wanted this to somehow have a positive outcome. But I'm glad that at least no one has to wonder "Where is Mark?" any longer.