Tracking was something I first learned during Basic SAR Academy, and I've practiced those skills time and again during previous missions, but never before have I officially been put on a "tracking team." Not until yesterday, that is, when one of our senior members pointed to me and said, "Is your stuff ready? Good, grab your gear and head to the staging area. You guys (referring to myself and two teammates) will be the tracking team." My mind immediately went into review mode.
At about 11:00 a.m., as my teammates and I drove to Doney Park east of Flagstaff to begin the search, I mentally ran through all the tracking basics I could recall. Things like, measure the stride heel to heel or toe to toe, and mark it on my hiking pole with duct tape. Do I have duct tape on my pole? Yes, check. Measure the length of the print, the width of the ball and the heel, and make a sketch of the sole pattern. I double-checked to be sure I had flagging tape to mark tracks and other clues, and I knew I had a flexible measuring tape and a Sharpie for writing on the flagging. Somewhere in my pack. Darn, I should have re-organized my pack the day before as I'd promised myself I'd do. But I hadn't.
That's been a weak point of mine. For all the backpacking I've done and all the gear management, I've been lax when it comes to reorganizing and replenishing my 24-hour pack following each mission. So mission after mission, it's only gotten more topsy-turvy and more lacking in certain items. Like food, for one. Shame on me. This time, that meant my stomach was growling for all my teammates to hear, and I had to take off my pack and quickly sift through the contents to find the measuring tape and marker. The one time I had to ask a teammate to borrow a Sharpie, I felt like a doofus. Never again!
Anyhow, when we got to the staging area, we were very briefly briefed and shown some tracks known to be—or at least presumed to be—the missing subject's. My teammates and I did the necessary measuring and began trying to follow the girl's movements. We went back and forth, round and round. We'd pick up the track then lose it. Find it and lose it again. Seemed she'd changed directions quite a bit. And given the fact that there were many prints made by different people in the immediate vicinity and some ground that was not the easiest on which to track, the task was quite a challenge.
At the same time, I realized that over the past 16 months, I've definitely gotten better at "seeing." I was able to pick up small portions of prints and detect shine, which is basically a track left as a result of flattening, leaving no evidence other than the way the sun or artificial light reflects, or shines, on the flattened surface.
Still, after a significant amount of time had passed, we trackers hadn't gotten out of sight of the staging area. We were making wider and wider circles, though, cutting for sign and attempting to find matching prints heading away from the area, to determine a direction of travel. In the meantime, other teammates were carrying out different assignments, including driving area roads and hiking to the top of nearby hills. The team tracking dog and members of our mounted unit came out as well.
We were looking for a juvenile who'd been missing since sometime during the previous night. As of early afternoon, the air was still but chilly, and we were intent on finding the girl before sundown. We knew she wasn't dressed warmly enough.
Eventually, assignments were changed as the situation warranted, and I ended up on a team asked to drive some unpaved roads and a pipeline. As we went slowly along, periodically spinning our tires on the snow-covered cinders, I leaned out of my passenger-side window, alternating between scanning the ground for prints and the forest for any sign of movement or anything that didn't belong. As for the latter, all I saw was a very old, smashed car with remnants of two very dead pigs in it. Um... interesting. But no footprints.
Just as our team of three was about to leave the vehicle when it could go no further and head out on snowshoes, we heard a voice on the radio say, "I've got the subject." Yay! And she was basically okay. Yay again! She needed some medical attention but nothing that sounded too serious. A member of our mounted unit had made the find.
Oh, and those prints we'd been following? Well, not the right ones after all. It happens. What matters in the end is the happy ending.
And happy about a successful mission myself, I called my husband and asked him to meet me at a favorite Mexican restaurant not far from the SAR building. After a grande burrito (and a little of Steve's too), which made up my breakfast, lunch, and dinner rolled into one much-needed meal, I headed home and fixed up my backpack. Okay, now I'm ready for the next one!
These are my stories as a volunteer member of the Sheriff's Search and Rescue team in Coconino County, Arizona. I'll share what it's like to go from a beginner with a lot to learn to an experienced and, hopefully, valuable member of the team, as well as the missions, training, and other activities along the way.
Where is Mark?
That's the question many people have been asking for the past 10 days. It's the question that's kept me up at night even when I'm exhausted from another day of searching. And I know everyone involved in the effort feels the same. We just want to find Mark, to give this story an ending.
I've started this entry over several times. While every mission I've been involved with—and there have been about 40 or so in my 16 months on the team—has been unique, this one was especially different for me. Not only did the initial facts seem to point to a fairly rapid resolution that didn't happen, but ground-pounders (rather, snow-pounders in this case) didn't find a single clue. At least, nothing that panned out. No matter how closely we looked, we didn't come up with a thing. And that feels... well, really bad.
At the same time, I was seeing Mark's family and friends, who were also searching along with SAR teams from around the state of Arizona, Forest Service personnel, K-9 teams, Civil Air Patrol, and the Department of Public Safety. But it wasn't the lack of a uniform that told me someone was a relative or friend of the missing. That was clear in their faces, even if they gave us a smile.
Over the past 10 days, five of which I was in the field in Forest
Lakes, I wanted so much to hear that familiar tone of voice that comes
over the radio when a searcher finds something. You can hear it when a
SAR member calls Incident Command, and the rest of us stop in our tracks
to listen to what will come next. That didn't happen this time.
But no ending (yet) doesn't mean there's an end to hope. If you'd read as many search and rescue stories as I have in the past year and a half, you know that just about anything can happen. So I'll be keeping Mark Irby and his family in my thoughts and waiting for the day we hear he's been found.
48 Hours and Counting
This is an ongoing mission, from which I just returned after 25 hours in the field. I arrived on Saturday, January 3, as several of my teammates were finishing up their own 20-plus-hour shifts, still with a long drive ahead of them back to Flagstaff. I'll fill you in on more of the story once the mission is concluded, hopefully with a find, but in the meantime, this is who we're looking for, reprinted from the Coconino County Sheriff's Office press release:
Missing Person
"Mark Russell Irby is described as a white man, 51 years of age, 5/10, 175 pounds, brown hair, brown eyes, and wearing prescription glasses. He was last seen wearing a denim shirt, blue jeans and 'Croc' style shoes, and riding a red Bombardier ATV with AZ license plate 36B-175. Irby is on medication for high blood pressure. There are no other known medical conditions. Irby was not dressed for the extreme weather or an extended trip away from home.
"Mr. Irby had been known to travel out of the Forest Lakes Subdivision to the west and travel trails between the subdivision and Forest Service Rd. 237. He was last seen when he left the home in the Forest Lakes area at about 10:00 AM Friday, January, 2nd.
"Anyone with information regarding the welfare or whereabouts of Mark Russell Irby is urged to call the Coconino County Sheriff's Office at (928)774-4523 or (800)338-7888."
When I left incident command today, Sunday, January 4, just after 10 a.m., there were at least 30 volunteers from three county SAR teams in the field, and another call-out has since been made for more volunteers to relieve them in the morning, to continue the search if Mr. Irby hasn't been located. I'll be rejoining the mission at 6 a.m. on Monday.
Also, a DPS helicopter has been flying, searching areas around the Forest Lakes subdivision.
It's now snowing heavily, complicating matters because any ATV tracks that may have been visible on Saturday are now much more difficult to detect. This is becoming a very frustrating mission, as search teams have checked and rechecked all logical areas and then some without locating any clues, which is unusual.
Today, Sunday, teams are literally going door to door in the subdivision, walking around each and every house. Many of them are seasonal homes. Searchers will also be checking snow and ice slides that have come off the roofs, some of which are large enough to potentially bury both a man and his quad. That is, if the quad could even have made it up to the houses. It would have been nearly impossible for the ATV to have crossed the huge berms along the sides of the roads and made it through deep snow on the unplowed driveways of unoccupied homes without getting stuck in the attempt. But there's been no sign of the red quad or the man who was driving it.
Let's hope this turns out well.
"Mark Russell Irby is described as a white man, 51 years of age, 5/10, 175 pounds, brown hair, brown eyes, and wearing prescription glasses. He was last seen wearing a denim shirt, blue jeans and 'Croc' style shoes, and riding a red Bombardier ATV with AZ license plate 36B-175. Irby is on medication for high blood pressure. There are no other known medical conditions. Irby was not dressed for the extreme weather or an extended trip away from home."Mr. Irby had been known to travel out of the Forest Lakes Subdivision to the west and travel trails between the subdivision and Forest Service Rd. 237. He was last seen when he left the home in the Forest Lakes area at about 10:00 AM Friday, January, 2nd.
"Anyone with information regarding the welfare or whereabouts of Mark Russell Irby is urged to call the Coconino County Sheriff's Office at (928)774-4523 or (800)338-7888."
When I left incident command today, Sunday, January 4, just after 10 a.m., there were at least 30 volunteers from three county SAR teams in the field, and another call-out has since been made for more volunteers to relieve them in the morning, to continue the search if Mr. Irby hasn't been located. I'll be rejoining the mission at 6 a.m. on Monday.
Also, a DPS helicopter has been flying, searching areas around the Forest Lakes subdivision.
It's now snowing heavily, complicating matters because any ATV tracks that may have been visible on Saturday are now much more difficult to detect. This is becoming a very frustrating mission, as search teams have checked and rechecked all logical areas and then some without locating any clues, which is unusual.
Today, Sunday, teams are literally going door to door in the subdivision, walking around each and every house. Many of them are seasonal homes. Searchers will also be checking snow and ice slides that have come off the roofs, some of which are large enough to potentially bury both a man and his quad. That is, if the quad could even have made it up to the houses. It would have been nearly impossible for the ATV to have crossed the huge berms along the sides of the roads and made it through deep snow on the unplowed driveways of unoccupied homes without getting stuck in the attempt. But there's been no sign of the red quad or the man who was driving it.
Let's hope this turns out well.
Same Subject, Different Day
Déjà vu set in—see Once Was Not Enough from 3/31—as I listened to our coordinator's message even before my pager had finished playing its song. (I'm a fast hand when it comes to grabbing the phone to call in for a SAR mission. Like lightnin'.) Sergeant D said this would be a search for the same man who'd been rescued the night before.
Night before? I checked my pager. Nope, no old pages that I'd missed. Must have been a direct call to certain team members, I figured. Which turned out to be the case. They needed volunteers certified to drive the snowcat and snowmobiles, and, though I'm able to operate both, at least to some extent, I haven't been properly trained or certified by the team. Hopefully, I'll have the opportunity to get that done in the near future.
Anyhow, this man had gotten his vehicle stuck on a Forest Service road on Christmas Day. And what a day that was, with heavy snow and wind gusts texceeding 40 miles per hour. As much as I get all revved up when there's a SAR call, I do admit I wasn't thrilled at the idea of going out in that weather. (But I woulda.)
So, from what I understand, people in three other vehicles had attempted to help the stranded motorist, and they too became stuck. According to the article in the Arizona Daily Sun, search and rescue crews spent much of Christmas rescuing a large group, including children and dogs. Then on Friday, one of the former rescue-ees attempted to hike back to his vehicle and hadn't been seen for two hours. I gather from the article that the subject must have had a cellphone and informed members of his party he could no longer continue hiking. So a call for a second round of help was made.
When I arrived at The 105 building after a slow drive across town, concerned about icy roads, a few of my teammates were already there, readying the snowcat for another run and hooking up the trailers loaded with snowmobiles. As I tossed my personal gear into one of the vehicles, the house phone rang. It was our coordinator, asking if everyone had snowshoes. All shouted affirmatives.
Have I mentioned yet how much I love my new snowshoes? I bought them just after returning from the last mission in Forest Lakes and have been using them every day since. Not only is it great exercise—I've heard you can burn 600 calories per hour on those things—but I really enjoy being out amongst the ponderosa pines on virgin snow, untouched except for all the critter prints crisscrossing my path. I walk out my door, 'shoe into the forest, and immediately see that elk, mule deer, jackrabbits, Abert squirrels, a fox, and even a bobcat have recently been out and about. As far as I'm concerned, all this snow can stick around until at least March. I looove my snowshoes.
Anyhow, where was I? Oh, the mission...
As it turns out, it was a pretty dynamic situation, and plans changed rapidly. No longer were snowshoers needed, just the snowcat and snowmobile drivers again. So off went several of my certified teammates, and the rest of us reorganized the SAR building to make room for the trailers when the others eventually returned, and then we headed home.
As I learned from the morning paper, the cold and disoriented man was picked up by an Arizona Department of Public Safety helicopter at 8 p.m. and flown to Flagstaff Medical Center.
Well, it's past my bedtime—unless my pager goes off again, that is—but maybe I'll just take the trash out on my beloved snowshoes before I hit the sack.
Night before? I checked my pager. Nope, no old pages that I'd missed. Must have been a direct call to certain team members, I figured. Which turned out to be the case. They needed volunteers certified to drive the snowcat and snowmobiles, and, though I'm able to operate both, at least to some extent, I haven't been properly trained or certified by the team. Hopefully, I'll have the opportunity to get that done in the near future.
Anyhow, this man had gotten his vehicle stuck on a Forest Service road on Christmas Day. And what a day that was, with heavy snow and wind gusts texceeding 40 miles per hour. As much as I get all revved up when there's a SAR call, I do admit I wasn't thrilled at the idea of going out in that weather. (But I woulda.)
So, from what I understand, people in three other vehicles had attempted to help the stranded motorist, and they too became stuck. According to the article in the Arizona Daily Sun, search and rescue crews spent much of Christmas rescuing a large group, including children and dogs. Then on Friday, one of the former rescue-ees attempted to hike back to his vehicle and hadn't been seen for two hours. I gather from the article that the subject must have had a cellphone and informed members of his party he could no longer continue hiking. So a call for a second round of help was made.
When I arrived at The 105 building after a slow drive across town, concerned about icy roads, a few of my teammates were already there, readying the snowcat for another run and hooking up the trailers loaded with snowmobiles. As I tossed my personal gear into one of the vehicles, the house phone rang. It was our coordinator, asking if everyone had snowshoes. All shouted affirmatives.
Have I mentioned yet how much I love my new snowshoes? I bought them just after returning from the last mission in Forest Lakes and have been using them every day since. Not only is it great exercise—I've heard you can burn 600 calories per hour on those things—but I really enjoy being out amongst the ponderosa pines on virgin snow, untouched except for all the critter prints crisscrossing my path. I walk out my door, 'shoe into the forest, and immediately see that elk, mule deer, jackrabbits, Abert squirrels, a fox, and even a bobcat have recently been out and about. As far as I'm concerned, all this snow can stick around until at least March. I looove my snowshoes.
Anyhow, where was I? Oh, the mission...
As it turns out, it was a pretty dynamic situation, and plans changed rapidly. No longer were snowshoers needed, just the snowcat and snowmobile drivers again. So off went several of my certified teammates, and the rest of us reorganized the SAR building to make room for the trailers when the others eventually returned, and then we headed home.
As I learned from the morning paper, the cold and disoriented man was picked up by an Arizona Department of Public Safety helicopter at 8 p.m. and flown to Flagstaff Medical Center.
Well, it's past my bedtime—unless my pager goes off again, that is—but maybe I'll just take the trash out on my beloved snowshoes before I hit the sack.
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