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!
