An All-Night Search in Ashfork

I was tired. When the call came from SAR, I was sitting in a Lay-Z-Boy being very lazy. It was around 9 p.m., and I was ready for bed. I listened to the short message about the mission, looked at the text that came through seconds later, and put the phone back down. "Not this time," I told Jeremy.

But then, two minutes later, Cindy, our K9 handler, called me directly. Our coordinator was requesting the dogs, and would I be her backer, she asked. *sigh* Okay, for Cindy I would go. So, I met her at the SAR building about 20 minutes later and loaded my gear into her vehicle to the tune of three excited golden retrievers. They'd already hiked several miles earlier that day, but they were still rearing to go. The two of us two-legged creatures, though? Not so much.

We got our brief briefing—a 70-year-old gentleman with what sounded like a moderate level of dementia (possibly Alzheimer's) had now been missing nearly 24 hours after driving someone else's vehicle to the very rural area where he lives, then left the vehicle in the trees near a dirt road and walked away.  This was not the first time he'd gotten lost while trying to go home.

Cindy and I left the SAR building ahead of our teammates as they got some additional gear ready. We were supposed to rendezvous with two deputies who were at the location where the abandoned vehicle had been found. That was now the initial planning point (IPP). From there, we'd begin our search with the dogs, and the other volunteers would soon follow.

When we  found our way to the waiting deputies through a network of dusty roads and jackrabbits (actually managed not to hit any as they streaked across the murky beams of our headlights), we consulted with them (the deputies that is, not the rabbits) about what had and had not been found and determined the area we thought was the highest probability. Then it was time to let the excited dogs out to do their thing: search.

"Your assignment," Cindy half-whispered to the three wet noses that turned her way, "should you choose to accept it... is..." After the usual dramatic pause, she shouted, "Go find!" Three fuzzy golden tails shot off into the dark as we followed much more slowly. We would walk the grid, and the dogs would range around us as we moved.

As the backer, it was my job to handle radio communications, navigate the grid within our search area given the information from Cindy about wind direction and her instructions about how she wanted to work the dogs, and keep us all on track. "Go a little more left," I would say, then, "Turn a bit more to the right," as I stayed behind and to the side of Cindy, trying to make a pretty little grid pattern on my GPS while still looking around.

In the light of my headlamp, obscured by the dust we were kicking up as we walked across bone-dry ground, I tried to manage the topo map and my GPS without walking into a pinion, juniper, or ponderosa pine or tripping on rocks, dips, and forest debris. Needless to say, on more than a few occasions I had to say to Cindy, "I need to stop to get this figured out. I can't walk and try to read a map and GPS at the same time." Yeah, I was moving and searching and calling the subject's name, but I was cranky, too.

I was also still frustrated because it had taken a while for me to get myself oriented that night, out there in the fairly flat and, aside from one major drainage, often featureless, forested terrain. Even when I had my map oriented to the way I was facing, the mental picture was alluding me. And the frustration only confused me more.

After talking to myself, though—aloud for anyone to hear—and working it out ("okay, this is that road," I said, pointing toward my feet and then to the map, "and this is that road... so, okay, we're right here, and we want to go that way...") the mental picture finally appeared and cleared. So on my mark, we were ready to go.

And then Cindy gave the dogs their little "your assignment" shpeel. (See, I still have things all messed up.)

Anyhow, this whole K9 handler/backer thing is so much about communication, and though we sometimes get cranky—one or both of us—Cindy and I really have learned how to talk things out, to problem-solve and reason and get back on track when we get a bit off. We've also worked through temporary miscommunications and misunderstandings without getting all unglued. The more we work together, the better we become as a team. I like that!

Well, long story just a little shorter, we did lots of walking throughout the night and into the next morning. We also did lots of calling out for the subject. The dogs worked their tails off. And we saw, to our pleasure, that one of Cindy's dogs, who'd originally been trained as a tracking/trailing dog and later switched over to air-scenting, reverted to tracking/trailing when the opportunity—human scent on the ground—presented itself. Sure enough, we found footprints. Good dog!

But we weren't the ones who actually found the subject. It was a friend of his who found him, safe and asleep in the corner of a room in his own home, just after Cindy and I were released to return to Flagstaff later that morning. The man we'd been looking for for nearly 12 hours had apparently found his house sometime during the night, after the friend, who was supposed to stay in case the man showed up, had left to return to his own home.

Well, all was well enough that ended well. The man was okay and, for now at least, home safe.

A couple of hours later, after insisting to Jeremy that I can't sleep during the day, I was fast asleep on the living room floor.

A Busy Memorial Day Weekend for Search and Rescue

The San Francisco Peaks / Wikipedia -- CC

It was a bright, sunny day in Flagstaff, but I was nervous about going up that mountain I've hiked so many times before. My nerves were because that clear spring day was unseasonably cold and extremely windy in town, more than 5,000 feet lower than up on the exposed ridge. I have what I think is a healthy respect for those conditions, which made me pause to reconsider them when our coordinator walked over to those of us who'd congregated at the base of the trail and said no one was obligated to go up if they didn't feel comfortable or prepared.

I quickly looked through the extra clothing in my SAR pack, now adjusted for warmer weather, and decided I had just enough (thermals, fleece, and Gore-tex) for the freezing temps we'd face up there. But I was still on edge about the wind, which would be much stronger on the ridge. Ultimately, I decided to go up with my teammates.

This was to be a body recovery. Our team knew that before we'd left the SAR building, where a group of us had been in the midst of a Saturday technical rescue training. Others were doing P-SAR (preventative search and rescue) in a popular ATV area, which always sees a lot of activity and often a number of accidents over the Memorial Day weekend. A couple of those SAR volunteers also responded to this mission on the mountain.

We'd been informed that a couple of hikers had come upon an unresponsive man a short distance from the 12,633-foot summit of Mt. Humphreys and immediately began CPR. One of the hikers continued to work on the victim while another called 911 (there's cellphone coverage high on the mountain). Sadly, after about half an hour of effort, CPR was unsuccessful. No one knew at that point how long the then-unidentified man had been down when the hikers found him.

What was obvious, however, when our team, including our coordinator who hiked up with us, arrived at the victim's location was that he was a runner. And that's what he'd obviously been doing—an early trail run to the summit—when he'd died among the rocks and rime ice. None of us recognized this man, who we eventually found out was from Goodyear, AZ. He was 53 years old and appeared to be exceptionally fit.

In fact, he'd recently run a marathon and was, according to his family, doing high-altitude training here in Flagstaff for an upcoming event. So said the news article I read a few days later. I'd been scanning the paper each day for any information.

At the time of the mission, though, I looked at this man for long moments every now and then, thinking, who are you? And who might be waiting for you at home?

When this man, lying among the rocks, had woken up that morning, it had probably been a day like most any other day. Or so he'd thought. I'll bet he'd been feeling fine. Probably better than fine. I didn't know a thing about him at the time, but I was sad for him and for his family and friends, whoever they might be.

But back to work...

As our team braced against the uncomfortable conditions on the ridge, discussing options for bringing the man's body down the mountain, we all noticed a rather sudden drop in the wind. So, in an attempt to take advantage of the improved conditions, however long they might last, our coordinator made a call to DPS and, within a short time, we heard the helicopter approaching. One of the best pilots there is anywhere hovered, the helicopter visibly shifting and swaying, buffeted by the gusts that were still plenty strong, as he and his medic assessed the situation, and those of us on the ridge hoped aloud that this alternative would work.

It could, the pilot said over the radio. The winds were too strong for a short-haul, but he would go land down at Snowbowl, remove a door, prepare the cargo net, and burn off some fuel, then return to hover over our location.

Still, nothing was certain until that actually happened. We took shelter on the lee side of some boulders as we waited for the helicopter to return. If the cargo net maneuver didn't work, then it was back to plan A or B or... well, something much more difficult for us mere mortals on the ridge.

In less than an hour, the man who'd died on Humphreys earlier that day was air-lifted from the mountain as those of us who'd gone up to help began descending the long way.

*********

That wasn't the only time this recent Memorial Day weekend that our SAR team was called to Mt. Humphreys. The night before the body recovery, on Friday, May 25, several of our members rescued hikers from the saddle who were unprepared for the cold.  

Another group was rescued from the nearby Kachina Trail.

*********

Our K9 team was also busy over the weekend, after hikers found a human skull at a small campsite in Forest Lakes. K-9 handlers Cindy and Dianne and their dogs were called to search the area and eventually located 26 more bones and other evidence, but there was no vehicle around and no ID found.

Sheriff's Office investigators are asking for the public's help to identify the man based on items located. Investigators believe the man had a 44-inch waist and wore size double-extra-large shirts. A Bass Pro Shop hat and a tan hat with a red diver's symbol on it were also found, as well as a Harley Davidson bandana, red Peterbilt suspenders, fishing waders, and a green five-gallon water jug. The man was possibly last wearing a tan T-shirt and blue jeans.

See: Weekend No Holiday for County Sheriff's Office

A Remote Canyon Search

The sand-blasting lasted less than a minute as the helicopter lifted off, and then it was quiet. Very quiet and still, save for a distant tweetle (of a Canyon wren perhaps) and a curious fly buzzing my ear. I stood there for a long moment, taking in the silence and surveying the scenery. We'd been dropped off on what seemed like an island, on a shelf between the Esplanade high above us and the Redwall cliffs below.

This was my third day on what had been, so far, a week-long search for an overdue and very experienced canyon hiker. Today was his 66th birthday, and I was hoping to wish him a happy one... or that someone else would, at least.

Was he out here somewhere in this vast, rugged, incredibly beautiful landscape of colorful rock layers, cactus and cliffs? If anyone could survive out here, he could. But for how long? Or was he long gone maybe, alive and well outside of the area? Lots of scenarios had passed through my mind and in the minds of other searchers over the past week.

My teammate broke through my thoughts and the silence.

"You can search the inner part," he said. "I'll go out near the edge." He knows I'm not fond of edges when I'm not on a rope.

We both hoisted our packs, heavy with water, and began walking slowly among the cactus and desert brush, studying the ground and stopping frequently to look around for anything that didn't look "usual"—an out-of-place color that might catch our eye, bird activity. Any kind of sign that another person had passed through the area. We were also listening and looking carefully for rattlesnakes. Both "pinks" and "greens," the latter being the very deadly Mohave rattlesnake, had been seen (and heard) during this search.

These were some of the most difficult tracking conditions I'd encountered during my years in SAR, not just the rocky and coarse, sandy substrate but the fact that wild horses and other critters had tramped all over the place, including here, along the bottom of the canyon where I'd searched two days earlier, and on the Esplanade where I'd searched two days before that. Add the age of some of the tracks we had encountered, and I really had to go slow, look around at the same spots from different angles, and get down on hands and knees at times. My teammate and I occasionally consulted with one another: "Is that a footprint or a hoof print?" Sometimes, in some conditions, it's hard to tell.

We searched our canyon island from end to end, looking carefully at the "pinch-points" to the north and south where someone would have to have walked in order to get around the side canyons, the heads of which left little room to negotiate the drop-offs.

No signs of human prints or other evidence.

We took a break in the shade of a large overhang, careful to check there too before sitting down, in case someone else had also taken respite in that cool, cozy nook. But again, nothing.

We watched a single, circling vulture, but the bird soon moved on and circled somewhere else. 

And we found nothing more before the helicopter came back for another sandblasting, to pick us up and fly us back to Incident Command, where we converged with other field teams. No one reported any new sign on this particular day.

But as far as I heard at the last general SAR meeting, there is more searching to be done, to follow up on sign found by a Park Service employee who was helping with the mission. I'd seen him when he started off at the head of Mohawk Canyon, prepared to be out for as long as six days. He was one of several canyon experts who's assisted the Sheriff's Office and our team with this search.

Want to read more about this mission and who we're searching for? See...

Hiker on Hualapai Reservation Missing

Missing Hiker a Canyon Expert

A bird's-eye view from the helicopter

On the Esplanade on my second day as part of this search

My teammate, Steve, searches on the Esplanade.