Up and Down the Mountain... and Up and Down... and Up and Down

 "What did he say?" I asked the paramedic sitting next to me, loudly enough to be heard above the UTV's noisy engine. With that racket and my helmet on, I couldn't hear what a teammate perched on top of the litter on the back of the Ranger had just shouted.

The Polaris Ranger UTV is the red machine pictured here:

And we were headed up this mountain (although there was no snow):

"Oh, he's just talkin' trash," the young lady from the Guardian crew replied.

Must not like my driving, I figured. I had come rather close to that last big drop. But, really, there wasn't much room on the other side.

In the end, I didn't lose anybody off the UTV, which is always a plus. I'd never driven the thing up that high on the mountain, so I was a little nervous on the first run, sitting forward on the seat, gripping the steering wheel with my sweating, gloved hands.

By my third time up and down to the spot called Midway on a grass- and rock-covered ski slope at the Arizona Snowbowl, I had the drive down quite well. By then, I knew just where to point the vehicle to minimize the bumping and grinding (of rocks on metal below) and the possibility of tipping over.

What I was doing was shuttling SAR members, Guardian medics, and equipment, including a break-apart litter, webbing and rope, to the highest point we could get to by all-terrain vehicle. I was doing this so they (and eventually I) could hike, steeply, off-trail to the saddle and possibly beyond. The patient turned out to be above treeline, though the initial information had placed him close to the bottom. Big difference there.

The hiker had strained or sprained (not broken, I don't believe) his ankle. Apparently, he'd done some hobbling, but there was no way he was going to make it from the ridge about 4 miles down to the lodge on the Humphreys Trail. So we were headed up to carry him down in the litter. It would take hours.

By then, the helicopter was in the air. To my surprise, the pilot was able to set down at the saddle once the landing zone (LZ) was cleared of hikers by... someone 🤷 and the patient was brought aboard. In a way, that was a relief to us, the ground crew, but at the same time, helicopter rescues do carry some risk. But those in charge know what they're doing and weighed the pros and cons for both the rescuers on the ground and those in the air and made the decision to go with the helicopter.

Search and rescue volunteers and paramedics continued carrying out our assignment until we were told to do otherwise. You just don't know if things will change and we'll be needed after all—not until the patient is aboard the helicopter and on the way to the other LZ near the waiting ambulance.

Once that was accomplished, our incident commander got on the radio and told the paramedic I'd shuttled to Midway, already on her way up to the saddle with a few of my teammates, to return to the drop-off point for pickup. Then he told me to turn around and go get her. I was already close to the bottom where I'd been headed to shuttle more personnel.

So, back up I went, picked up the paramedic, and had her back down at the lower LZ just as the patient was being carried from the helicopter to the waiting ambulance the paramedic had originally come from. That meant the ambulance didn't have to wait for her. What timing! (I'm good.)

Then I went BACK up the mountain again to retrieve my teammates, who'd been told to hold their position a bit longer, I guess. (It was hard to hear the radio traffic over that UTV noise and through the helmet, and I had no one to translate for me while I was driving alone.)

"Watch that big drop on the right," my SAR-mate advised on the way back down. He was the one I didn't hear on the first trip up. I considered giving him a few (more) gray hairs but decided to give him a break. 😊

Technical Rescue: Practice, Practice, Practice!

It's like learning a foreign language. At first, it's work, even a struggle. And if you don't keep reviewing over and over again, you can pretty much lose most everything you've gained within days. Then, eventually, you realize you don't have to work at it quite so hard anymore—that you just get it and things make sense. And before you know it, you're fluent. That's basically what I hope will happen with these technical rescue skills I'm trying to master.

Master. Ha! That's difficult to imagine right now. But I'm trying as hard as I can to get the hang of these skills and to commit them to memory, both in my mind and my body. I want my legs and arms and hands and whatever other parts might be involved to execute the knots and the moves and set up the systems like it's all second nature. That's going to take time. And a lot of it.

I went away for two weeks recently on that trip to Colorado, and when I got back and started to think about Rock Rescue Academy again, I was amazed to find how much I'd already forgotten. I was pretty ticked off at myself, actually. And frustrated.

Then I went to a practice session one evening, where we learned something new—the "hot changeover" from ascending to rappelling—and I was even more frazzled. At least, on my first attempt. I was on the rope, sweating and swearing for about half an hour, hanging about 10 feet off the ground in the SAR building, trying to get things figured out. At one point, a teammate even climbed up a ladder to give me some assistance.

After a break, though, practicing with the Rescue 8 rappel device and the release mechanism on the ascenders while on the ground, then lengthening my self-belaying Prusik which was way too short the first time, I went up for another try. 

That time went much better and much faster while a teammate talked me through the whole process, so I'll have to practice, practice, practice that too if I'm ever to do it on my own... while hanging off a cliff. Which will probably be soon, during our next official practice.

In the meantime, I've been getting together with new tech team members and an experienced member at the SAR building to go over skills. This last time, I figured I'd take photos of the set-ups, which would hopefully help me remember how everything goes.

Here are some of those pictures:

This first one is a rescue rack loaded and tied off, ready for lowering.



Here, we're doing a "hot changeover" from a lowering system to a raising system, which is done while the load (i.e., the attendant, patient, and equipment) is on the rope, mid-face. The green webbing with a Prusik is temporarily holding the weight of the load as we attach pulleys and other equipment for a raise with a 3-to-1 mechanical advantage. (Ooh, don't I sound like I know what I'm talking about?)


Next is a tandem Prusik belay with a load-releasing hitch (green rope). The tandem Prusik belay consists of a long Prusik (blue) and a short Prusik (red) attached to the belay line (the yellow rope).


And this is a Meunter hitch, used with the load-releasing set-up. This hitch comes into play if the force of the load is transferred onto the belay line and the Prusiks (in the tandem Prusik belay) become locked. This might happen in the event of a fall or if the belayer doesn't move quickly enough to keep up with the main line, maintaining slack on the belay.

Without the load-releasing hitch, you'd basically be screwed or have to come up some other way (which there probably is, I just don't know... or don't know if I know it yet) to get those Prusiks unlocked. Under force, they're said to "melt" on the rope.


So, those are the sorts of photos I took to help me go through the steps of setting up anchors, lowering and raising systems, and belays in my head as I lie awake at night, wondering if—or, rather, when—I'll get the hang of all this. That is, if my teammates have the patience to put up with me long enough.