SAR Is Hurry Up and Wait... and Wait

We've been standing here for two hours—me, two other volunteers, and Sergeant D—waiting to see if this is for real.

The helicopter flew earlier this afternoon and is now returning for another pass. For maybe a minute about an hour ago, I'd been sitting on an ATV with an armed police officer on another, but just as we were about to head out, a second officer arrived, and I had to give up my wheels and go back to just standing here. Darn, I was actually looking forward to getting some ATV experience. But... oh well.

The page came at around 5 p.m., while Steve and I were hanging out at a coffee shop. Apparently, a man in the area of Flagstaff's urban trail system (FUTS), in the woods south of Butler Avenue, had fallen and broken his leg and called for help. My husband said he could use some exercise and fresh air after sitting in that coffee shop for so long, so he offered to walk home and let me take the car to respond to the SAR building directly, and I accepted. The quicker I could get there the better since it would soon get dark and the injured hiker would be lying out there in pain, waiting for rescue. Now, however, we're not so sure the caller was a hiker. Or that he is injured.

When the team and our coordinator, Sergeant D, get to the staging area near Sam's Club—not the usual sort of location for a search and rescue mission to begin—a police officer is there, with two others already in the woods. The subject had contacted dispatch at least a couple more times since the original call, and, at one point, what sounded like arguing was heard in the background. Hence, the armed officers on ATVs.

Other interesting things came out of those subsequent calls. At first, the man said he had a green tent. Then it turned red. He said he had gasoline and a lighter, but, when asked to start a small signal fire, which the helicopter could spot, he refused, saying that would "hurt nature." The man would not even give his name. Given the search area, a popular place for transients to camp in the forest close to town, we're now thinking this man, who seems unwilling to participate in his own rescue, may just be jerking us around. Someone said he sounded drunk.

We hear on the radio that officers are talking to transients in the area, trying to figure out who may have called. One man tells them he thinks he knows who it was, but that lead goes nowhere. Wrong guy.

While all of this is going on, two members of our mounted unit show up. Huh, that's kind of strange for this type of mission. But Sergeant D explains that he was having trouble getting ground-pounders to respond tonight, so he made some calls to mounted. Many of our regulars are currently on an overnight as part of the "snow and ice" technical training, and others are out of town. Assuming this was a legitimate search and rescue mission—as he always would—Sergeant D wanted to get as many people out as possible.

Time goes on, and the horseback riders finish saddling up and head out to search. One of the ATV drivers returns for rope, to help get the other ATV out of the mud. And I keep standing here. Sergeant D suggests to dispatch that an officer go to the nearby convenience store and inquire about who may have recently purchased one of those disposable, prepaid cell phones. Sometimes store clerks get familiar with transients and can identify them. By now, the other two volunteers have gone back to the truck to keep warm and maybe take a nap, but I'm too nosy. So I just stand here some more.

Eventually, the officers return from the forest and decide that enough time and resources have been spent on this mission that seems to be going nowhere, with a supposed victim who won't help us help him. So they call their boss—the Police Chief, I assume—and Sergeant D calls his, and they receive permission to suspend. Sergeant D confirms that the caller was recorded, so he can enter those conversations into the report as evidence that the subject was being uncooperative.

We can't help but wonder if he's watching us from somewhere. Was this a test? Or was this guy just messing around? In any case, we tried.

Searching for a Man and His Horse

If this call-out is for another out-of-bounds snowboarder, I'm not sure if I'll respond. It's after dark as usual, and not only am I tired but it's so cold out. My husband and dog are all wrapped up, warm and cozy in the blankets, as I call in to see what's going on. I just don't feel like I'm up to snowshoeing all night.

Oh. It's a call-out for a missing cowboy and his horse, and the cowboy is hearing impaired. Well... that's different.

I'd surely regret not responding, so I leave a message that I'm on my way. Two hours later, I'm riding with Al, towing the ATV trailer along a muddy dirt road, with Sergeant D in his patrol car and two other SAR vehicles ahead and one behind us. I hate to say it, but based on my own thoughts at the time my pager went off, I don't think another out-of-bound snowboarder or skier would have drawn quite as many volunteers from their beds on this frigid winter night.

Nearly four hours after the initial call, we finally reach the staging area. What a long drive, 31 miles of it slow-going on unpaved roads on Babbitt Ranches. It also took us a rather long time to get things ready at the SAR building, in part because we had some difficulty with the trailer hitch. I hope our missing cowboy isn't too cold out here, somewhere in all this vast, open space, as he waits to be found.

Now we're given our briefing and maps of the area—thousands of acres of grazing land with a network of dirt roads and very spread-out camps. The briefing says we're looking for a 28-year-old man named Brandon on a bay horse. Brandon is not wearing his hearing aids but does have a heavy jacket and a lighter. He did not, however, bring any food or water, which surprises me; I'd have assumed a cowboy out on the range would have some provisions, especially since his horse can carry both him and his gear.

Babbitt Ranch staff conducted a search earlier this evening when they realized Brandon was overdue, and the DPS helicopter is now en route. The other bit of information in the briefing is that Brandon has cancer and stopped taking his medication a week ago. Since that time, he's been vomiting and has been depressed. Oh. That certainly changes what I've been thinking. Maybe Brandon isn't actually lost, if you know what I mean. I try to shake off such a thought.

Tonight, I'm assigned to ride with a volunteer named Phillip, and we'll take one of the trucks to a cowboy camp where Brandon has been staying. We'll keep our eyes peeled along the way, of course. Meanwhile, four volunteers will be on ATVs and several others in SAR vehicles. Sergeant D will stay at the staging area, where he'll continue to gather information, plot any significant coordinates we call in, and alter our assignments as needed.

Phillip hands me the big map. "You're the navigator," he says. "If we get lost, it's your fault." I've never met Phillip before, but I glance over and he's smiling. I open the map and turn on my headlamp as we begin bumping along. Minutes later, I don't want to let on that I'm still looking for our current location. There are just too many lines on this thing. But I finally figure it out, just in time to tell Phillip to turn right. Seems there are many two-tracks out here that are not on the map. Great.

As the night passes and we drive, we stare into the blackness. There's a spotlight on the driver's side, but I'm limited to the beam of my flashlight. Periodically, I jump out to open a gate, then close it behind us as we make our way toward our destination. I half expect that, at any moment, a bay horse with an empty saddle, reigns hanging, will gallop out of the darkness and cross the path of our headlights. But the only movement we detect is the occasional form of a cow or a rabbit zipping across the road.

I see a light in the distance. How far off it is or how big, I can't tell. We stop driving and stare. Is it a campfire? One moment the light looks yellow, then it appears blue-ish. Phillip and I contemplate the light for several minutes, drive a little further, then stop and stare some more.

Eventually, Phillip says, "Why don't you go ahead and triangulate it so we can get a fix on the location." Um... triangulate. Right. I know we learned this in SAR academy. I know I need my compass. Yep.

I get out of the truck and hold the little thing in the palm of my hand. "You need to move away from the truck," Phillip tells me through the open window. "The metal will interfere." I knew that. So I move several yards and once again hold up the compass. Shoot, I can't remember. I swallow my pride and go back to ask for help.
When Phillip gets out and shows me what to do, I feel silly. I knew that.

We take a bearing on the light, then transfer it to our map and draw a line. Then we drive further, to another known point, and take another bearing, draw another line, and find that the intersection of the two lines is off the map. Whatever that light source is, it's far away, and Phillip now seems quite sure it's not a campfire but rather a street lamp or a light on a building. He thinks it appears to flicker because something—a tree branch perhaps—is between us and it, and the branch or other object is bobbing in the breeze. Okay, I guess I'll accept that.

We move on and eventually arrive at the camp, which is composed of buildings, not tents as I'd thought. No one is home but some cows and horses in the corral. No bay horses, either. As another SAR team is following some horse prints that could have been made by any cowboy's horse, Phillip and I make the long drive back to Incident Command, receive our next assignment, and head out again. I'm struggling to stay awake in the passenger seat as the horizon begins to brighten.

Ranger, the DPS helicopter, flies over our current location, which is a large, dry stock tank. (In the southwest, a stock tank is a man-made watering hole for livestock.) Phillip and I are out of the vehicle now, and he's wandering around the perimeter of the tank. I feel a bit lost, myself. Wide open spaces like this—that is, searching for a comparatively small human being in such a vast area—kind of confounds me. Where to look? Again, too many choices. So I just start walking around, looking at the ground then into the distance. There are a lot of pinion pine and juniper bushes in this area, any one of which could be hiding a person or even a horse from view. I squint and look as far off as I can, trying to see what probably isn't there.

It's now morning, full light, and we hear on the radio that Sergeant D has made a second call-out for more volunteers, including the mounted unit. After nearly 12 hours, those of us who've been searching all night will soon need a rest. In fact, Sergeant D just called Phillip and me and told us to take at least a half-hour break right where we are.

But that break doesn't last more than a few minutes. Brandon is found! Turns out, the ATV team following the horse prints had picked the right set of hoof prints after all. Brandon is a bit disoriented and very hungry, but he's otherwise Code 4: He's okay. What a relief!

Phillip and I plot the coordinates just given by the team who've located the subject and find that he isn't very far from our location. Less than a mile away in a drainage area. Interesting that he didn't stick to a road since his job for yesterday was to ride a particular two-track to check on some cattle and return the way he'd come. No idea how he got lost, but I guess that's not really so important, at least not to us. Still, it's tough not to be curious.

Another curious thing is that Sergeant D had contacted Brandon's family who live out of state, and they say he's in perfect health. No mention of cancer as another cowboy suggested or any other medical problems. Well, I guess we volunteers may never know for sure. But that's the way it goes—in SAR, we find and we rescue but often don't get the whole story, either before or after the mission. Oh well, at least all ends well yet again, and that's what matters most.

Searching Out of Bounds

Ah, the lure of fresh powder. If you're a skier or snowboarder—which I'm not—you can probably relate. It must be so tempting to get out there in the fresh snow and make the first tracks after another winter storm has passed. This year, we've had above-average snowfall in Flagstaff, and that's a very good thing for our local ski resort. Some years, Snowbowl can open for only days or maybe weeks if they're lucky. The ski area doesn't manufacture snow (added later: they do now but not at the time of this search), so their business is entirely dependent upon nature, which has been very cooperative lately. Where there's heavy snow in the mountains, however, there can also be danger.

Within the past few weeks, search and rescue has received a number of calls from out-of-bound snowboarders who've ducked under the ropes at the ski area to enjoy the thrill of swooshing through pristine powder in the Kachina Peaks Wilderness. Trouble is, many of these same folks are not prepared, with no gear, food, or water in case they get stuck or lost. No map or avalanche beacon either. Often all they carry is a cellphone, and, lucky for them, they can usually get a signal from that area.

The calls are often similar—the skier or snowboarder, after getting off the chair lift and heading out of bounds, has gone down a gully, which has pulled them far from the ski area and the road. Eventually, the slope decreases to the point where a board or skis just won't go any further in snow that is sometimes several feet deep. One caller was very nervous about the fracturing, unstable snow all around him.

Going out of bounds is not illegal here, but a free, one-year permit issued by the Forest Service is required to do so. The permitting process is simply an opportunity for Forest Service personnel to speak to recreationists about the hazards of winter travel in the backcountry, to give them tips about what gear to carry and the additional risks involved when skiing or snowboarding off the maintained trails, where avalanche danger is mitigated. If someone requests help while out of bounds and is found not to have a permit, the fine is $75. There's no charge for the actual cost of rescue, which can easily be in the thousands of dollars.

This year, the call-outs for stranded out-of-bounders have, until tonight, been resolved when SAR volunteers or the deputy talked them back to the road. Their locations were determined using a DPS helicopter or the callers' descriptions of their surroundings. Then a rescuer was able to guide them by phone through the arduous work of slugging through the deep snow, sometimes pushing their boards ahead of them to cut a path while they followed on their knees, until they could be picked up somewhere along seven-mile Snowbowl Road.

And that was the case earlier today, when I and several other volunteers responded to the first of three calls. That initial call came at about 3 p.m., and, within an hour after we arrived at Snowbowl, the subjects emerged along the road. While waiting for the first two snowboarders, a second call came in, and that person was able to follow the tracks of other two. Scott and I picked him up at the same spot.

But things weren't over for us. A fourth snowboarder by the name of Edward was reported missing, this time by friends who hadn't seen their companion since shortly after going out of bounds at 10:30 this morning. The group had decided to snowboard in what's known as Third Gully. It was now about 5:30 p.m., and daylight was fading fast. We were told that Edward did not carry extra gear or a cellphone.

At midnight, we're still searching for Edward. There are now seven of us on snowshoes, split into three groups, and two guys in the Thiakol snowcat, which runs on tracks like a tank. The snow is so deep that when Scott and I were dropped off along a Forest Service road to head toward the bottom of Third Gully, the Thiakol driver jumped out and ended up buried to his waist. The snowshoes certainly help, but at times I still sink a couple of feet, and the going is extremely slow. At one point, Scott thought we'd gone at least a mile, but I checked my GPS and had to give him the bad news: We'd gone only half a mile in the last hour. Now, after six hours of this, I'm beginning to run out of steam.

As we listen to radio traffic, we know that one of our field teams is following some deep prints, which appear to be heading uphill along a snowboard track. Scott and I are crossing plenty of snowboard and ski tracks—going out of bounds seems to be a popular pastime these days—but the only prints we're seeing were made by a bobcat and the jackrabbit it was following.

I'm nervous tonight. It's eerie being out here in the still, quiet wilderness in the middle of the night, but that's not the issue. What's bothering me is that I'm afraid that, at any moment, we're going to come upon another frozen body. Just like the mission in Pumphouse Wash on January 20th.

The temperature tonight must be below zero. It's so cold, my fingers go numb within seconds when I expose my hands to work my GPS. Though the young man we're looking for is dressed for snowboarding, this frigid air seems to go right through any amount of clothing when you stop moving. And he's been out here for more than 14 hours now, so he must be really tired. If someone falls asleep in the cold, they can succumb to hypothermia and never wake up. I don't like these morbid thoughts.

Then, at about 1 a.m., a transmission comes over the radio, and I hold my breath. I can tell by the tone in Joel's voice when I hear him call Incident Command that he's excited. I hope it's the good kind of excited. And now he says, "We've made contact with Edward." There's a pause and then, "He's code four." Phew!

Turns out that Edward had gotten bogged down in deep snow quite far down the mountain and didn't know where he was. So he turned around and somehow made it up to over 10,000 feet, trying to go all the way back to where he and his friends had gone beyond the ropes. That must have taken an incredible physical effort. Eventually, it had gotten dark and Edward, who by then had done some damage to his knee, was tired and cold. That's when the lighter in his pocket probably saved his life. He made a depression in the snow and began burning pine needles. Our team searching the mountain from the top down at a point directly above where the other team was following the deep prints uphill smelled those burning needles and soon found our guy. We'd never expected to find him that high up.

It takes us another couple of hours for our teams, along with Edward, to snowshoe out of the wilderness area and another hour after that to load the Thiakol and other gear. Edward is delivered to medics to be checked out, and the volunteers go on their way. The mission isn't over until we return to the SAR building, fill the gas tanks, and put everything away, but at least this time we do so with a good feeling. This time, we saved a life instead of finding that one had already ended.

Not Always "Code 4"

My feet are wet. We've been down here in Pumphouse Wash for hours. Most of the time, we've struggled along the edges of the frozen pools, maneuvering over snow-covered boulders and brush, sometimes post-holing up to our hips. Occasionally, we cross over the ice if the going looks easier on the other side or if something "over there" warrants a closer look. I've broken through the ice several times, submerging one boot or the other, but even Gor-Tex doesn't help when water gets in over the top. At least I'm dressed for the conditions, though. We're told the man we're looking for, a 38 year-old husband and father of two named Stephan, is not.

Tonight, four of us are following a set of tracks we know for sure belong to our subject. We know this because his car is parked just off the road above, and we could see his prints heading away from the vehicle. We also know they're his prints because one of the four of us who are down in the wash is Stephan's best friend, searching with us whether we like it or not, and apparently he's familiar with the shoes Stephan is wearing. They're like trail-runners—not the best choice of footwear for a walk in the snow.

Why don't we want Stephan's friend with us? Well, in part, because his adrenaline—his urgency to find Stephan—is making him move too fast, so we're going too fast trying to catch up with him. An important lesson we're taught in Basic SAR training is to take our time. For one thing, moving too quickly may cause one of us to get hurt, and if a SAR member is injured, the search is suspended to deal with that immediate situation. That, of course, takes up precious time, which can make a crucial difference to the lost and possibly injured victim. Also, if we're rushing, we may miss or obscure vital clues. Right now, we're afraid that, in his haste, Stephan's friend might walk over tracks or perhaps even pass by Stephan himself, who may not be able to respond. I think, by this time, we're all silently worried.

Stephan's wife was the one who knew something was wrong, when it got dark and he hadn't returned from what was supposed to be a short afternoon hike beginning at about noon. Being a long-time local resident and avid hiker, he's familiar with Pumphouse Wash, which is pretty close to the road in this area, so we're thinking he may be hurt. Maybe Stephan went as far as the waterfall, now frozen I'd guess, and fell. Maybe he broke his leg. We're told he's in good physical condition and has even taken wilderness survival classes, but today Stephan left his backpack in his car. Perhaps he thought, since it was sunny and he wasn't going all that far, he wouldn't need any gear or extra layers of clothing.

But now, the once-sunny and relatively mild winter day has become a clear and extremely cold night. The snow is glittering in the moonlight and it's beautiful down in the wash, surrounded by ponderosa pine under a star-filled sky, but that's just a fleeting thought as I concentrate on the search and try to ignore my own growing discomfort.

After descending into the wash via a small drainage, Stephan chose to walk on the ice, where there is enough of a dusting of snow to make his prints fairly easy to spot with our flashlights. While my two SAR companions and Stephan's friend follow the prints, however, I scan the slopes on either side, just in case Stephan tried to climb back up at some point. I'm afraid that if we're all looking in the same direction, we might miss something.

Tonight, we have several groups of SAR volunteers spread out in the area, while Sergeant D is at Incident Command back up at the road. When we arrived at approximately 9 p.m. at the site where Stephan left his car, his friend was already there. It seems he, along with his wife and Stephan's wife, had gone out earlier in the evening to have a look on their own, but they followed the prints only a short distance before calling the sheriff's office.

Once we arrived, Sergeant D gave us our instructions, and three of us—myself and two very experienced volunteers—began following the prints with Stephan's friend following us. When we reached the point where Stephan had turned and headed into the side drainage, we asked his friend to return to the road to talk to the deputy. Knowing Stephan so well and having hiked with him many times, he might be able to share more information that would aid in the search—it's where he could be of the most help, my teammates explained. He reluctantly agreed.

Maybe an hour and a half later, however, Stephan's friend came bushwhacking down into the wash again, having slipped away from Incident Command, and intercepted the three of us. This time, though, we call out and tell the friend to stop and wait for us. I stare at the ground, embarrassed, as one of my teammates gives him a polite but stern talking-to, then explains why we do things the way we do. After some objection, he agrees to cooperate and do things "our way."

As we now continue the search at the proper pace, at times losing the tracks then soon picking them up again, we listen to occasional radio communications. The other field teams are searching either side of the wash from above. Ranger, the DPS helicopter, is overhead, sometimes flying directly over our position, briefly illuminating the area like midday. In those moments, I look anywhere and everywhere I can, hoping to spot something I'd missed in the dark. Our shouts into the night are not returned.

Eventually, the tracks we're following seem to stop and shuffle, as if Stephan was looking around, trying to make a decision. The most experienced among us is very helpful, explaining what information he's learning from the prints and what additional clues he's seeing—things my inexperienced eyes don't pick up on until they're pointed out to me. As we go along, however, I'm finding that I'm seeing more, understanding more. It's like reading a story in those prints and other clues.

And now we see something else: some of Stephan's footprints are pointing in the opposite direction from the way we've come. Did he take just a few steps back and then turn around again? We aren't sure. We keep following the tracks in our original direction until, finally, we know for certain Stephan had turned around.

At that point, we find something more: his digital camera lying on the ice. His friend is now very excited. Agitated almost. "That's his! That's Stephan's camera!" he exclaims. He tries to turn it on to see what pictures Stephan may have taken and if perhaps they'd give us any more clues, but the camera battery is dead, frozen, or both.

We now see that Stephan's prints keep going in the opposite direction, often right alongside his first set of tracks. Why hadn't we noticed that earlier? Was it because we were going too fast? That second set of prints leads all the way back to where he initially came down into the wash, but the tracks don't turn uphill into the side drainage. Instead, they pass by that point and head further up the wash.

How come we hadn't spotted that—that the footprints went in both directions—when we first got down here? Perhaps because it made more sense that Stephan had gone down the wash, toward the waterfall. We've been told there's a large pool below the waterfall that Stephan may have wanted to check out, maybe to take his kids skating on it when the ice is thick enough.

We keep following in Stephan's footsteps another difficult quarter-mile or so. And now it appears he's begun to fall, causing large chunks of ice to crack under the weight of his body. His prints are zigzagging, no longer going in a more direct line. That's not a good sign—his coordination seems to be failing. A sure sign of hypothermia.

Each time we lose Stephan's track then discover another print, one of us says, "I've got him!" In fact, I think that's what we've been saying all night. Why we've said it that way, I have no idea. But, walking behind my companions, I'm so used to hearing, "I've got him!" that I assume, this time, my teammate is seeing yet another footprint. 

But when I take a few more steps, then move to the side to look, my heart stops. "Oh my God!" is what comes out of my mouth, in a voice that doesn't sound like my own. This time, it really is him.

We all know Stephan is dead, lying there on his back, his arms bent at the elbows as if he just sunk to his knees and lay down on the ice. Frozen. I can't take my eyes off of him. I'm shocked though not surprised, if that makes any sense. Stephan's friend is standing over him, silent, as my teammate feels for a pulse. He tries again, this time for more than a minute. Just to be sure.

Several hours later at about 7 a.m., following the recovery of Stephan's body, we're back at the Sheriff's office, sitting in a circle, waiting to get this mandatory debriefing over with. It's a counseling session, basically, with three specialists who haven't arrived yet. But we're all exhausted and just want to go home. And I think we all agree: It isn't the sight of death that bothers us—it's that the mission ended this way. That a young, healthy, experienced hiker who knew the area and was so close to his vehicle—so close to warmth and safety—who could have worked up a sweat in no time if he'd only just headed back uphill toward his car, apparently died of hypothermia.

We're now told he probably died even before we were called out to search. When we first found Stephan, I remember immediately thinking of his wife, how we had glanced at one another as I'd walked past her as we began the search. I wonder what she was thinking. But I'm too tired to talk about any of it right now.