Back From the Arizona State SAR Conference

Every 18 months, search and rescue volunteer and paid professionals from around the state of Arizona, and some from other states, get together to learn from one another and improve their skills. At this year's conference, my second since joining SAR, classes included:

• Basic Map & Compass
• Basic GPS
• PLB/ELT Direction Finding
• Tracking, an 8-hour course (I took this one. Learned a lot.)
• Wilderness Survival
• Basic ATV and Basic UTV
• Advanced ATV Search Tactics
• Air Operations, Ground and Air Unit Coordination
• Alzheimer's Disease Considerations for SAR (This class was great!)
• Swiftwater Rescue Awareness
• Vehicle Track Awareness (another one I took this year)

... and more. There were also classes and field work for those in mounted and K-9 SAR.

At the conference, I had a chance to meet SAR volunteers and coordinators from many Arizona counties, Civil Air Patrol, the Department of Public Safety, and from SAR teams in California and Mississippi, including one deputy who is just starting up a new team. Experience levels ranged from new volunteers just going through a Basic SAR Academy to seasoned veterans who've been involved with hundreds or even thousands of missions.

Based on my experiences at the Arizona SAR Conference, I'd recommend that anyone involved with search and rescue look for a conference to attend at least once. Even if you're very experienced, it never hurts to learn how other teams operate and how they teach the skills. It's also really nice to meet people from teams and organizations you may interact with during a multi-agency mission. If I ever have the opportunity, I'd like to attend a conference in another state and the national conference at some point, too.

If you're looking for a conference, one website to check is SARAZ.org's Conferences/ Training section. This is an Arizona-based website, but listings include events in other states, including the International Tech Rescue Symposium in Pueblo, Colorado, and the annual Georgia SAR Conference.

******

As far as recent missions go, there were a couple shortly before the conference, one of which was a tech team call involving a hiker in West Clear Creek canyon who'd injured his knee. But we ended up being turned around en route to the scene because the helicopter was able to land in the canyon and pick up the patient.

The next mission involved a lost hiker in Sedona, who reported his predicament by cellphone. This turned out to be a joint mission with the adjacent county, with each member from our team paired with a member of the other. I wasn't able to respond to that late-night call-out because of a commitment I had to my mom early the next morning and because I was really tired, but a teammate filled me on the details. He also told me what a pleasure it was to work with the Yavapai County team and that it was a "textbook" SAR mission. I was sorry to have to miss it.

While more than a dozen of my teammates and I were at the Arizona State SAR Conference, there were a few more requests for Coco SAR, one involving a patient carry-out (possibly a technical rescue) when a vehicle went off the highway and two other calls for lost hikers. But our team is large enough and deep enough to handle call-outs even while many of us are out of town and unavailable. I can find out what happened on these missions at the next general meeting, when our coordinator will review the call-outs from the preceding month.

So, now I'm home and ready to get back out there. I'm also looking forward to helping with the Basic Academy's map and compass class this weekend. I actually really like going over these skills, over and over again, and helping others learn them, too, because it keeps me from getting rusty, which is really easy for me to do.

And speaking of practicing, a few of us newbie tech team members are getting together this week to run through some of what we were recently tested on. We all passed the test, but we don't want to forget what we've learned before we move on to new skills.

Have I mentioned lately that I really like SAR? I get frustrated when I screw up or don't do my best, but I sure am happy when I do something right or get better.

A Grand Canyon Search Is Over

Here's the latest news release from Grand Canyon National Park about the search for Andrew Brunelli of North Carolina: Body Believed to be that of Andrew Brunelli Found

I send my deepest condolences to Mr. Brunelli's family and friends. As always, I wish the ending to this story had been a happy one.

******

Well, I'm off to tidy up my SAR pack, then attend the second evening of this year's new-member academy with my husband, who's joining the team. I'm going to help out with some of the classes, but sitting in on the rest never hurts. I always learn something new and refresh my memory on everything else. We have a big group this time, with around 30 new recruits attending.

A Grand Canyon SAR

I'm back home now after a day and a half at Grand Canyon, helping with an ongoing SAR mission. As I type, I'm listening to the live audio feed from the Canyon, trying to keep tabs on the search for 43-year-old Anthony Brunelli of North Carolina (pictured here), who's been missing since Monday, August 31, when he was last seen at the South Rim entrance around 5 a.m. His rental car was later found at the Grandview trailhead, which is east of Grand Canyon Village and the South Kaibab Trail.

On Sunday, four of us from Coconino County SAR headed to Grand Canyon where, after a 6 a.m. briefing, we were given our assignments and joined the search, which had already begun. Each of us was assigned a team leader and inserted by helicopter into various locations in the relative vicinity of the Grandview Trail and Horseshoe Mesa, though often miles away. We'd work our way back toward that area as we searched.

This was quite an adventure for me, not only seeing how SAR at Grand Canyon operates but also getting my first helicopter rides in and out of that awesome place. I also saw part of the canyon I'd not been to before, including Grapevine Canyon and the six miles of the Tonto Trail between there and Cottonwood drainage, parts of which are right along the edge of a very long way down.

I was assigned to work with a volunteer member of Coconino County SAR who also happens to be a park ranger. He was great company and very supportive when I admitted my anxiety—not that I could have hidden it—about the exposure along the Tonto Trail. We played some fun (okay, sorta silly but effective) memory and word games as we hiked along those stretches, which helped me focus on my brain rather than my fear, though I kept close watch on the trail and took careful steps. Having tripped over my own trekking poles in the past, I didn't want that to happen there.

The scenery, though, was just incredible, which I couldn't help but marvel at as we searched. My partner and I made our way up both forks of narrow Grapevine Canyon and then searched Grapevine in the other direction, toward the Colorado River, until the route became too technical to proceed without ropes.

Once we were finished with that part of our assignment, we took a break in the shade as the temperature in the sun topped 100 degrees. But we decided to proceed onto the Tonto Trail midday, as some cloud cover eventually helped mitigate the heat. We each had over a gallon of water left to make the trek to our intended campsite and the water cache back at the Cottonwood drainage, so we both were comfortable with continuing then rather than waiting till late afternoon.

As we hiked, we both looked up and down washes and scanned the area for any sign of... well, anything unusual, including a bit of color that didn't fit or increased bird activity. And I periodically stopped and looked behind me for a different view of what we'd just passed, not wanting to miss anything. As of late afternoon, when we reached Cottonwood Creek at the cache, we hadn't located any clues.

After staying the night at Cottonwood drainage with two other search teams who'd converged there, while others camped in different areas around and on Horseshoe Mesa, most of us were extracted by helicopter the next morning and exchanged with fresh teams. One of my CoCo SAR teammates, also a Grand Canyon PSAR volunteer, was reassigned to work with K-9 teams brought in from another county, while the rest of us debriefed and then headed back to Flagstaff.  We were willing to stay on and continue to help, but the park had enough personnel to handle things at that point.

For more information on the search, see the National Park's latest News Release at The Search for Andrew Brunelli Continues in Grand Canyon National Park

My First SAR Mission as a Tech Team Member

"Did he just say my name?" I ask another new tech team graduate who's standing next to me in the dark street. Our coordinator has just announced the four members of tonight's hasty team.

"Yep, he sure did," my teammate confirms.

It's not like I've never done any scrambling, but climbing of any kind really isn't my forte. And all the training we did during the three and half months of Rock Rescue Academy was from the top down, rigging anchors and belays and going over the edge. Tonight, we'll be going up. Way up, it appears.

At our coordinator's request, the two stranded hikers he's in contact with by cellphone flick their Bic, and we see a small point of light appear against the dark backdrop of the huge rock formation, darker than the sky surrounding it.

I rush to get my seat and chest harnesses on and thankfully receive some help with the straps from a teammate. Adrenaline is interfering with my dexterity. And I don't want to keep the other three hasty team members waiting.

Once I have my gear on, with all my carabiners and other equipment weighing down my seat harness, I grab my pack and 200 feet of rope and follow my teammates up the trail. It's awkward hiking with all this gear hanging on me.

But I have plenty of time to get used to it.

Hours pass as we hike and scramble one way and then another, looking for a route to the two teenagers and their dog. We know they're uninjured and in a secure spot, which is a good thing; in the dark, we're having a heck of a time trying to get to them.

A second team is now trying other routes. We wonder if the route would be obvious in daylight. I mean, they got up there somehow, with a dog and without ropes. Surely there must be a much easier way. If only we could find it. The boys' description of the route they took isn't matching anything we've found so far.

As we use our hands to scramble and steady ourselves, we notice in the beam of our headlamps: scorpions. All over the rocks we're touching. I'm sweating profusely, but the sight of those creepy stinging things makes me shiver. A teammate also notes a "huge" spider. Another reminds us to watch for rattlesnakes. Oy! I'm having a hard enough time keeping myself out of the cactus.

"Go check it out," one teammate says to another, and I look up. I see an intimidating dark spire silhouetted against the night sky.

We're going to climb that?

"There's about a 10- or 12-foot, narrow chute we'd have to chimney up," our teammate calls down to the three of us waiting below. "It doesn't look good, but I think we could do it. I can't see what's beyond that, though."

I hate to say anything—I don't want the others to know I'm unsure of myself up here—but I admit aloud that I'm not an experienced climber. Just, you know, so they're aware of that.

In the end, they decide it's not the right way to go anyway, and I'm relieved. I wish I hadn't admitted my insecurity, but it's too late now. Besides, we have ropes and tech gear, and if my experienced teammates had deemed the route doable, I know we would have done it as safely as possible. And I would have sucked it up and followed.

But now we're heading back down. I have to use my hands and sometimes my butt along the way, and I make little zigzags as I descend to prevent myself from slipping... which I do anyway. I pull a few barbs out of my exposed fingers (my leather gloves are fingerless) as I go, but I manage to keep up. We reach the main trail again and head back to the staging area at the road as we listen to field Team 2 over the radio. It seems they're getting close to the stranded hikers.

Finally, one teammate manages to climb part of a vertical face and reaches the subjects. From there, he finds an easier way back down that face. Now the descent will be steep but manageable, especially if some of us back at the road bring up extra lights for the subjects.

I'm not tired at all and want to be useful, so I'm glad when our coordinator hands me an extra light to bring up. I also grab extra water for the hikers and their dog and stuff it in my pack. At least now I don't have to carry that 200-foot rope as I start back up the trail.

Before long and after a stretch of uncomfortable bushwhacking through vegetation intent on tearing off pieces of my skin, hair, and clothing, we rendezvous with the party coming down and hand over the lights. The hikers don't want anything to drink, but their dog sure does. I get a face-licking after their part pit, parts some other breeds of pup finishes off a large bottle of water as I pour it into my cupped hand.

After assuring and reassuring one of the boys that, no, they won't be fined or charged for search and rescue, they accompany us back to the trailhead, where their parents have been waiting all night.

All night? Wow, those nine hours between signing in and signing out back at the SAR building went by quickly, even with all the hiking and scrambling. I guess my excitement about my first mission as a member of the tech team carried me through the night and all the next day, until I finally fall asleep at my computer the following evening.

******

Here's the brief write-up in our local paper about this mission: Lost Hikers Found (Hey, they left out the part about the scorpions.)

Well, folks, I best be off to bed. I have to be at the SAR building by 4:30 a.m. to head to the Grand Canyon, to assist with a mission there.

I Passed! And Other News of the SAR and Backpacking Kind

Yyyaaayyy! I'm a very happy—and very relieved—SAR girl. I had test anxiety all last night and this morning before I began demonstrating my new technical rescue skills, as my experienced teammates watched at each test station. I had no idea how it all would go, but I'm happy to report that... well, I didn't suck. 💪 😃

I started off at the patient packaging and litter rigging station, moved on to ascending and rappelling with a hot changeover on the rope, and then went to the pick-off station. (A pick-off is what you do when someone is stranded over the edge, either on a rope or unsupported, perhaps clinging to a rock face.) Next, I set up belay systems, anchors, and mechanical advantage systems and then tied a bunch of different knots and a load-releasing hitch. I had to explain a pretensioned back-tie, make improvised chest and seat harnesses, and be checked for having the required personal tech gear.

When I had gone through all of the testing stations, the instructors had marked off and signed my entire checklist. Phew! Then I got my naew rock rescue patch for my SAR shirt. (Yay! again.)

I'd been a little worried that I hadn't practiced quite enough right before the test, since earlier this week I'd opted instead to go backpacking in Grand Canyon for four days with one of my friends from the team. She's a volunteer for the Park Service and had an opportunity to hike the South Bass Trail to check some archaeological and historical sites for the park. And she invited me to come along. Neither of us had ever hiked this amazing and rather remote trail so I could hardly pass up the chance, though I'd miss two final pre-test tech practice sessions.

But I'm really glad I decided on the hike. Here are some photos:

This is one of the archaeological sites we looked at: granaries used by the Anasazi.

We also saw the remains of the (William Wallace) Bass Camp, the Ross Wheeler Boat on the rocks above Bass Rapids (abandoned in 1915 by Charles Russell and August Tadje after an unsuccessful attempt at running the river), some agave roasting pit,s and other evidence of past human residents of the Canyon.

This is a view from the Esplanade, 1300 vertical feet and a 1.3-mile hike below the South Rim. The Esplanade in this area is covered with vegetation, whereas in other parts of the Canyon it's nothing but rock. Here, we cached a couple of gallons of water where we'd camp on our return trip to the rim...

After leaving the Esplanade, we descended another 3,000 vertical feet over 6.5 miles to the Colorado River, passing through this narrow side canyon in the Red Wall formation along the way. We were glad for the shade on that part of the trail as the temperature soared midday...

By the time we got to the Tonto platform and below, we were starting to roast, but we knew the river was getting closer.

This was our first view of the Colorado River below, which we couldn't see or hear until we were less than a quarter mile from the point where we scrambled a couple hundred feet down to the beach over some very hot rocks...

We were relieved to get to the water, soak our feet, and rest in the little bit of shade provided by some willows. We spent the afternoon and evening on the beach, watching river runners float by, listening to Bass Rapids, and watching butterflies, birds, lizards, and later that night, the stars as we slept on the sand.

And this is the old and somewhat battered Ross Wheeler boat on the rocks above Bass Rapids...

 

For a trip report and more photos, see: Hiking Grand Canyon's South Bass Trail.

I could yack on and on about the hike—now one of my all-time favorite Grand Canyon trips—but to get back to SAR stuff...

I wanted to mention a nine-hour mission that took place last Sunday, the day before I left for the canyon. Make that nine hours of driving, with me bouncing around in the backseat most of the time. These were some of the worst dirt roads I've ever been on. I think my head hit the roof of the vehicle a few times, even though I was wearing my seat belt. Needless to say, I was very relieved—and my neck, back, and backside were very sore—when we finally returned to pavement after finding the overdue West Clear Creek (canyon) hikers at the trailhead and transporting them to their friend's vehicle. They were tired but in good condition, which is always what we hope for, so my sore self was happy about that.

Um... so, I guess that brings my blog up to date for now. And now I'm off to find a needle and thread to attempt to sew my Rock Rescue Tech patch onto my uniform shirt. (Yay! just one more time.)

A Good Search and Rescue Read

I read this while I was in the Boundary Waters since the searches happened there. Lost in the Wild: Danger and Survival in the North Woods by Cary J. Griffith is really well written and interesting, even if you're not a SAR story addict like me.

Since I already wrote about it on my other blog, I'll just send you over there if you're interested in learning a bit about the book, the area, and the SAR teams that participated. See: Book Review And Some Minnesota & Ontario SAR.

Those North Woods are pretty darn thick, and the trails aren't always too clear, making it pretty easy to get turned around. Here's a photo of my husband ON the Border Route Trail...

Back In SAR Action After The Boundary Waters

After two weeks in northern Minnesota, paddling and portaging in the Boundary Waters Wilderness and exploring, I'm back in Flagstaff and ready for more searching and rescuing.

Sounds like there's been some activity while I was away, which I know because as soon as I was in cellphone range again, I received all of the call-out messages there had been: searches for missing hikers, litter-carries, a downed plane. There were messages about technical rescue practice, too. And some of my teammates helped with road blocks at the Grand Canyon during President Obama's visit. There was also another death from dehydration at the Canyon—another young man, 18 years of age. So sad. And so avoidable.

Last night, I got back to practicing my technical skills and I'll be doing more practicing tonight and tomorrow night... if there's no call-out for a mission. The proficiency testing is going to be starting soon, possibly this weekend I heard. Two weeks feels like a long time to be away from practice, especially when many of the skills still aren't well-ingrained in my body or brain. But if last night's practice was any indication, they'll come back pretty quickly.

And now I leave you with some photos from our Boundary Waters trip. If you'd like to read a bit about it, I wrote an article with some more pictures here: A Trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

A Lot Of SAR Lately

Between the extra technical rescue practices and two missions, it's been pretty constant SAR activity for the past few days. But that's okay; I really do enjoy it... if you hadn't already noticed.

So, there was the call-out on Sunday at about 8:30a.m. I was dressed for Jazzercise and quickly changed into my nylon, convertible pants and the SAR tee I prefer to wear in the summer instead of my long-sleeved uniform shirt. I switched from aerobics sneakers to hiking shoes just before heading out the door. But there was no hiking to be done this time, just lots of driving. And for a change, I was behind the wheel instead of co-piloting.

We were searching for two men who'd rolled a jeep the day before and, with at least one of them injured (a possible broken arm), they'd called a family member and given some sketchy information about their location before the cellphone had gone kaput. The son of one of the men had spent the night driving unpaved roads, many of them not on the map in a very sparsely populated area around Ashfork, Arizona, consisting mostly of ranch land. But he had no luck finding the men or their overturned vehicle.

Enter SAR.

Given the ambiguous information we received, our search area started out rather large. A subsequent cellphone ping from the last call gave us a vector (if that's the right term—or wedge, I guess), narrowing the search area some. With DPS Ranger, the helicopter, in the air, those of us on the ground relocated and spread out as the information changed.

Ultimately, one of our field teams came across the men, hobbling along near a cattle tank. Ranger landed and administered some initial medical care, then the victims chose to ride in a private family vehicle to the hospital rather than accept transport by ambulance (which wouldn't be free, of course).

For me, driving for hours is much more tiring than hiking for hours, so I was glad to get out of the vehicle and shake off the sleepies back at the SAR building later that day, as we waited for word about a second possible mission. But that one was resolved before we went into the field again.


The next day, as I was doing some work on the computer and listening to the Sheriff's scanner online before heading out for more tech practice (I'm getting the hang of some of this stuff, by George), I overheard the initial stages of some SAR activity and knew there was a good chance of another call-out.

Ranger was in the air with one of our SAR coordinators, looking for six overdue hikers in West Fork Canyon. I called a teammate who was supposed to meet me for tech team practice and gave him a heads-up. We proceeded with our plan and went to the building to work on anchors, belay, and pick-off set-ups and all that good stuff, only to be called minutes later about the mission. So, we headed right over to the coordinator's office, a short walk from the SAR building to the main law enforcement complex, for a briefing.

For a while there, it looked like four of us would be inserted by helicopter into the canyon. They'd spotted three people believed to be from the party of six, and they'd been waving their arms at Ranger. But whether they were in distress or not was unknown. What was known was that they were already a day overdue, one of the women was three months pregnant, and one of the men was allergic to bees and had no Epipen with him, so said the reporting party, a couple who had left the group the day before and hiked out the way they'd gone in.

As I understand it, the group's original plan was to thru-hike the canyon from bottom to top, so they'd done a shuttle and left vehicles at both ends. But the other six didn't show up at the top, and the two hikers who'd come out early became concerned.

While we were in our coordinator's office, he put the reporting party on speaker phone so we could all hear the information firsthand. Then we headed back to the SAR building to get our gear ready and then head over to the airport to meet Ranger.

Then a plan was carried out that changed our mission from a possible all-nighter to an early morning hike. A radio was lowered from the helicopter to the three people in the canyon, along with instructions on how to use it. Ranger was then able to talk to the hikers and find out the situation, including the fact that they were tired but generally fine. Three of the six had gone ahead to hike out with their four dogs, while the other half of the group, including the pregnant woman and the man allergic to bees, stayed behind, too exhausted and not fast enough to make the rest of the distance that night.

So three of us SAR folks volunteered to meet at 4 a.m. and hike in at first light to locate the three remaining hikers, make sure they were still okay, and hike out with them. Then we resumed tech practice for the rest of the evening.


My alarm went off far too soon at 3 a.m., but I never mind an early morning walk up West Fork. It's really neat to be in there at dawn, when the birds start singing along with the sound of the creek, and the red canyon walls are illuminated by the rising sun.

Oh, sorry, I started to slip into waxing poetic-mode there.

So anyhow... as we hiked, we periodically tried to contact the hikers on the radio, unsure if they'd left it on all night or if they were still asleep or had started walking toward us. At one point, when we'd gone about five miles up canyon, we started to wonder if we'd missed them somehow and passed one another. It would have been unlikely but possible. We got no response to our repeated, loud whistle blasts, either.

Just as we began hiking back to recheck the parking lot where their car had been when we'd started out, I heard static on my radio. I called again: "West Fork, party of three, this is search and rescue. Do you copy?" After more static, I heard a reply. At 7:15, they were just waking up and getting ready to hike out. And they were still all fine.


In a short time, the three of them and the three of us were together, and after a brief conversation about what had happened—they'd taken a wrong turn and gone up Casner Cabin Draw instead of continuing in West Fork—we turned back toward the parking lot. The weary and appreciative hikers were happy to be on trail again after all their bush-whacking, wading, and swimming.

So, all ended well, and by noon, still in my SAR clothes, I was asleep on the couch with my cellphone on the coffee table, just in case something else SAR came up.

The Search Is Over

For those of you who haven't been following updates on the search for missing NAU student, 20-year-old Bryce Gillies, in Grand Canyon, I wanted to let you know that, sadly, his body was found this morning in the Bonita Creek drainage on the north side of the Canyon following yesterday's discovery of some personal items, including a backpack, nearby.

You can read the breaking news story from the Arizona Daily Sun here: Body of missing backpacker found

I'd been hoping there was some way this mission would have a happy ending, listening to radio traffic daily from the Grand Canyon for any hint of what was happening, but that happy ending wasn't to be. As someone said to me today when I told them the news, "We can love the Canyon, but the Canyon is indifferent."

Young Hiker Missing In Grand Canyon

Yesterday, a news release was put out by Grand Canyon National Park regarding possibly as many as four missing hikers. Last I heard, technical rescue personnel were en route, some from Zion National Park, possibly to be inserted by helicopter into a remote and rugged area.

The news from 7/22 release begins:

Grand Canyon, Ariz. – At approximately 7:20 p.m. on Tuesday, July 21, the Grand Canyon Regional Communications Center received a report that at least one young man, and possibly as many as three, were overdue from a backpacking trip at Grand Canyon National Park.

The young men are reported to have left on a trip to the Deer Creek/Thunder River area on Saturday after reading about the trip in a magazine. According to the reporting party, the father of one of the young men, his son had stated that he would be back on Monday but did not return. Further investigation revealed that there were as many as four young men in the hiking party. All are in their early 20s, and all are believed to be students at Northern Arizona University. It was also determined that this group did not have a backcountry permit." Read more....

Update 2 p.m. on 7/23: According to more breaking news from the Arizona Daily Sun, it appears there's one hiker missing, not three or four. The friends thought to possibly be missing also have been contacted. Read more here: Overdue Canyon Hiker An NAU Student

This is the young man they're looking for, NAU student Bryce Gillies:


Anyone who believes they have seen Gillies since Saturday is encouraged to contact the National Park Service at 928-638-7805.

And More Practice

Just thought I'd share some photos my husband took while a few of my teammates and I were practicing "hot changeovers" on the ropes in the SAR building. My husband, by the way, has decided to apply to be on the team. Seeing all this tech stuff lately and constantly hearing my stories over the past couple of years has finally gotten to him.

Here, I've rigged myself up for the ascent with my rappel rack attached to my harness, ready for the changeover, and a Prusik for a self-belay. My teammate Marty then does a safety check before I go up the rope.


But we don't have to go up very far to practice the changeover.




Next, I've rigged up my rappel rack and tied it off. Now I have to transfer my weight off my ascenders and onto the rack before I can descend. Sometimes that's easier said than done. Can you see I've been sweating on this attempt?




See the reflection on this one? My husband was getting creative with our point-and-shoot.



This coming weekend, we have another field session where we'll learn how to do pick-offs. That is, how to pick someone off a cliff or wall and bring them to the ground (or back up, I suppose) without the use of a litter, in the event their injuries aren't serious or they're stranded somehow.

I'm also ordering some gear, including an actual rescue harness rather than the recreational climbing harness I've been using (which just doesn't cut it for rescue work), a commercially sewn chest harness rather than the improvised one I'd made of webbing, a couple of Prusik sets, a helmet, and some locking carabiners. It was okay to use team gear for the Academy, but we need to have some of our own equipment for the proficiency test and beyond if we want to be active members of the tech team. Which I want to be.

Losing One Of Our Own

One our our teammates lost his young life in a motor vehicle accident this past Tuesday, July 14th.

Joe Rommel, 22, joined the Coconino County Search & Rescue Team in 2005 when he was just 18 years of age and, since then, earned his Wilderness Search Tech 1, Technical Rescue Tech, Snow and Ice Rescue Tech, and EMT certifications.

Joe was also an experienced Grand Canyon guide and worked at a local outdoor store, where I'd often see him smiling and chatting with customers and friends. I'll think of Joe whenever I take out my snowshoes; he sold them to me this past winter, and we had a really nice talk while I was in the store. He definitely lived well and was a great example for us all.

Even those on the team who didn't know Joe well are feeling his loss, and we'll miss and remember him always.

He Tweeted While He Waited

Kinda funny. Today on Twitter, when I mentioned that I'd been up most of last night on Mt. Humphreys on a SAR call-out, one of my followers responded and gave me the Twitter user name of the young man we'd fetched off the mountain. So I took a peak at his profile page and saw that our subject had been tweeting while waiting for us to arrive. Which is why his cellphone battery just about pooped out, I guess.

But if I were stuck up there at 11,000-some-odd feet in the dark, shivvering in my shorts and t-shirt and without a light, I'd be nervous and wish I could tweet away, too, I suppose. 

Anyhow, I spent most of last night on that same mountain I was up and down, up and down... and up... and down the last time I posted, which was what? Saturday? This time, I drove up in the dark at about 11 p.m. Heck, I could just about do it with my eyes closed now.

On the way, one of my teammates said, "In SAR, we all have our thing. And THIS is your thing." He was referring to me being the UTV driver. Hmm... can I change my thing to something else?

So okay, where was I? Oh, the mission.

Well, it turned out fine. We drove "my little red car" up the ski run and parked it at the bottom of our extremely steep shortcut to intersect with the trail at around 11,400 feet, slipping on the scree. I was grabbing at tree branches, trying not to tip over backwards—boy, would that have been embarrassing—and to our surprise, made voice contact with the young man as soon as we reached the trail. We'd thought he was beyond the saddle as far as the first false summit and then on a scree slope about 800 to 1,000 feet down. In fact, he was just a short distance off the trail, having missed a switchback in the dark and ended up on a boulder field. Well, good. The would be much easier, relatively-speaking, than we'd expected.

After we handed over some Gatorade and extra clothing to the cold hiker, then explained that we wanted to descend, not down the trail but down our steeper but shorter route to the parked UTV, and our subject quickly agreed, the three of us SAR members and one relieved hiker made our way back down the mountain.

The end. (For now.)

Arizona Daily Sun article: Hiker Rescued Off Of Humphreys Peak Early Monday

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My latest SAR Stories News post: Search & Rescue and Social Media

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.

Overdue Hikers, Party Of Eight

At noon on Monday, my phone rang. It was our team captain, calling to say thank you for my help on the mission early that same morning and to tell me I did a good job. He said, "Eight is a big group to bring out, and you (meaning, the three of us who responded) went right in there and got the job done. The family was very appreciative."

Well, that sure was nice to hear. The part-time coordinator in charge of the mission also had let us know how much he appreciated our help. All in all, it was an easy mission with a good outcome, so I really hadn't expected the extra thank yous. Regardless if anyone says it, though, I know what we do as volunteers is definitely not taken for granted by the Sheriff's Department, and I'm as glad as ever to be part of the team.

Anyhow, on Sunday afternoon I had returned from a four-day trip to La Quinta, California, where I'd gone for a Jazzercise event. (No, we don't wear leg-warmers like they did back in the day. 😏) I'd worked out for three hours on Friday and six on Saturday, and all that exercise, the 110-degree heat, and the six-hour drive home had me feeling pretty beat. So, I was really tired when my pager went off just after midnight on Monday, after only two hours of sleep.

But I was fully awake when I got to the SAR building, where I met up with a teammate and waited for a third, who had been called directly. The two of us who'd initially responded to the page would have been comfortable going up the West Fork Trail alone—we were both familiar with it and knew it was pretty easy hiking for the first few miles—but our Captain wanted a third person to go along. As he explained, with three, if one of us had to stay behind with the subjects in case of a medical issue (one of the kids was asthmatic) or an injury, the other two could hike out together to get additional help. Radio communication from the canyon would likely not be possible and a cell phone wouldn't work out there, so it made sense that three of us go in.

The situation involved a family group including five juveniles, the youngest being 11, who'd set out to thru-hike West Fork, which is about 14 miles long. The route involves wading and some unavoidable swimming. They'd started out with 12 people (contrary to the newspaper report, which states there had been 10), two of whom had turned back about two miles in. Two of the faster hikers had gone ahead as agreed and hiked out by around six pm. But the eight others didn't appear at the lower trailhead, where their rides were waiting, before dark. The mother of three of the kids agonized about calling SAR, she said, but finally made the decision to do it.

As my two teammates and I were en route to the staging area at the lower end of West Fork, a helicopter spotted a campfire in the canyon, about two miles from our location. With the coordinates of the light source programmed into my GPS, the three of us headed up the trail in the dark, crossing the creek (West Fork) no less than five times, calling the names of a few of the subjects and sniffing the air for any hint of campfire smoke.

As we hiked, I ran through possible scenarios in my head. Many missions have not gone as I'd expected, either one way or the other—better or worse—so I wondered if this one would be as straightforward as I'd been thinking on the drive to the staging area. Could the child with asthma have had a serious problem? Was one of them hurt? Had they gotten separated?

There was no response to our frequent calls or whistles. Not until we got within yards of the coordinates, when I finally heard a shout. Within moments, I saw several people—adults and kids—standing on a rise on the opposite side of the creek. As we made our way over to them, I called, "Are you all together? Are all of you okay?" And they answered that, yes, they were all fine and accounted for. So I guess this was going to be as straightforward as I'd guessed.

After the three of us SAR members offered extra clothing, drinks, and snacks, accepted by only a couple of the kids, we turned around and slowly hiked back out with me in the lead, one in the middle of the group, and the other taking up the rear.

Turns out, the group had simply been slower and taken longer than expected, apparently because of the younger kids. They'd also gotten "a bit lost" at one point, they said. Then they just ran out of time and decided to stop until daybreak. They'd seen the helicopter fly over and figured it wasn't a coincidence, so they knew someone would probably come along.

Just before we'd found them, just after first light when we'd been able to turn off our headlamps, the group had put out their campfire and gotten ready to hike the rest of the way out. They said they'd had water filters with them and space blankets for everyone, so they were all in pretty decent shape other than one scraped leg and a couple of chilly kids, whose clothing hadn't completely dried.

Once we'd deposited the eight of them back at the trailhead with their waiting family and friends, the three of us headed back to the SAR building. Not long after, I was in Jazzercise class again and, later Monday evening, at tech team practice where I really started to feel the lack of sleep. My brain was sluggish, and I was having trouble getting the hang of what we were being taught (how to change from ascending to rappelling while on the rope). So when I got home at 10 p.m., I decided to turn my pager off for the night. I wouldn't be of much help to the team or anyone else until I'd gotten some good sleep.

You can read the Arizona Daily Sun article, Search Team Aids Overdue Hikers, Stranded Climbers, about this and other recent SAR calls.

The SAR I Missed While On Vacation

Not that I'm sorry we went. Heck no! We had a great time hiking and taking a scenic train ride in Colorado (all of which you can read about here... and here... and here if interested), but I'm always curious to know what goes on with the search and rescue team while I'm away. Yes, I'm a nosy girl.

So, when I got back to Flagstaff late Saturday night, June 20th, I couldn't resist calling the SAR line and listening to the most recent recorded message. It was from Friday evening around 8:00: a call-out for an overdue juvenile mountain biker. But I didn't read anything in the newspaper about that search in the days that followed and haven't heard anything from my teammates, so I'm wondering if that situation quickly resolved itself.

I did, however, see a couple of other SAR-related news stories in previous issues of the Arizona Daily Sun, including Body Recovered From Oak Creek Canyon (which I'm assuming some of our tech team members were involved with) and Searching Dangerous Depths, the latter about the special new (and expensive) camera the Sheriff's Department recently acquired that can be lowered into deep, confined spaces. In this case, it was used to continue the search for German physicist Reinhard Kirchner, who disappeared in the Hell Hole Bend area of the Little Colorado River back a couple of years ago. But nothing but rattlesnakes were found in the particular sink hole that was searched last week.

I know I also missed some Rock Rescue Academy training while I was away, but I don't know exactly what or how much. Kindly, one of my experienced teammates emailed me and offered to get together with me next week for some rope work, so that should help refresh my memory of what I've already learned and maybe even catch up a little. He tells me the next tech training will be on July 25th, so I'll have a little time to practice before then... which is right before I go away again for two weeks and three weekends, when Steve and I will be canoe-camping in Minnesota's Boundary Waters and hiking in the North Country, too.

Found

Now that this is in the news, I can tell you that the remains of a man our team and others searched for for 10 days in January and again in March of this year have been located.

I'm referring to the case of Mark Russell Irby, who disappeared from his home in rural Forest Lakes, Arizona, during what was supposed to be a short ATV ride on "The Loop" around the subdivision—something he often did—before he and his wife would return to their home in the city later that morning.

Mr. Irby, last seen wearing a denim shirt, jeans, and plastic Croc shoes, was not dressed for an extended ride in those winter conditions, and there was no less than three feet of snow in the area at the time.

The initial search involved 1,800 hours of manpower on foot and 20 hours by air. No tracks or clues were found at that time.

I wrote about the ongoing, extensive search in January:

1/4: 48 Hours And Counting

1/11: Where Is Mark?

And again in March, when his ATV was located about 10 miles from his home:

3/17: Three Ongoing Searches

And this is one of the latest news reports:

From the Arizona Daily Sun: Body Of Missing ATV Rider From Valley Found

His remains were found along the shore of Chevelon Canyon Lake, about 12 miles northwest of his cabin in Forest Lakes.

I'm waiting to see if more information is released to the public about this case. If I see anything new, I'll post it here. In the meantime, I'm thinking back on the whole thing—what I know of it, anyway—and thinking, I just don't get it. How did he get so far from home in those conditions?

I feel really sad for Mr. Irby and for his family and friends. I met some of them during the search and really wanted this to somehow have a positive outcome. But I'm glad that at least no one has to wonder "Where is Mark?" any longer.

11 Hours Of Sleep And I'm Back On Track

Eleven hours. That's what it took to make me feel human again. I've been running on fumes lately.

First, it was the 3 a.m. page on Saturday morning. I'd been asleep, to some degree at least, for three hours. When the pager went off, I was jolted awake but just lay there, pondering what to do. I was supposed to meet some of my teammates at 8:00 for the next phase of the Rock Rescue Academy, so maybe I'd skip this call-out.

But, of course, I had to phone in to see what was going on: four overdue hikers who'd left at 4 p.m. yesterday to walk a moderate, three-mile trail. I'd say they were overdue.

And I was still lying there in the dark when the pager went off a second time about 10 minutes later. I checked the code, thinking perhaps it was a 10-22 (a cancellation), but no, it was another try. Must not be getting much of a response.

Sure enough, when I called the SAR number again, I heard the identical message and, this time, left a message of my own. After testing my voice, which doesn't always work well when I'm awakened suddenly in the middle of the night, I think I mumbled something like, "This is Deb. I'm not sure what to do because of tech practice later today, but I'm responding." And as I was getting dressed for the mission, the pager went off for a third time. I called in yet again and heard a modified message from our Coordinator, stating that this mission "superseded" the technical rescue training.

About an hour and a half later, six of us were en route to the Blue Ridge area when a deputy located the four overdue hikers. So we made our U-turn and headed back to town, taking it easy so as to avoid a collision with an elk. The big creatures were everywhere in the early morning hours—hundreds of them grazing on the huge meadow that is Lower Lake Mary (unless it happens to have water in it, which is rather rare). They were also grazing along the road, sometimes standing in the road and running across it. I double-checked my seat belt and, from the back seat, kept my eyes peeled for large mammals.

So, Rock Rescue Academy (tech training) was back on. By the time I got home, I had just over two hours until I'd have to return to the SAR building. I figured it would be less painful to go without sleep than try to take a short nap, so I walked my dog and then played around on the computer until it was time to go. Soon, I was loading my gear into a SAR vehicle for the ride to the area where we'd be practicing.

At 5:30 p.m., I was home again after eight hours of training. During the field session, we put together what we'd learned about lowering, raising, and belaying into a working system, each of us rotating between stations, including command, main line, belay, edge, safety and attendant, with the attendant being the one who went over the edge. We practiced both "cold changeovers," when a lowering system is changed to a raising system while the attendant is securely on the ground below, and "hot changeovers," where the attendant is mid-face and must be raised back up. These skills took a lot of concentration on my part, especially being so sleepy, and needless to say, I was pretty well spent by the time training was over.

So, that was Saturday. On Sunday, we had another call-out, this one for a rescue on Mt. Humphreys.

Back to the SAR building I went and then up a mountain, helping carry the wheel for the litter up an off-trail route. We accidentally went a bit out of our way when we headed too far east and missed the intersection with the Humphreys Trail.

After correcting for our mistake and just as we were getting close to the patient's location at around 11,000 feet, we saw that the short-haul attempt was successful. Which was a very good thing. Given the subject's location on a steep, boulder-covered slope at the site of an old plane crash, and with the limited number of people we had between SAR personnel and Guardian medics, it would have been a very long and difficult litter carry. We all breathed a sigh of relief as we watched the helicopter fly off with the patient and our short haul- certified coordinator at the end of a long rope. Following a brief break, we turned around to bushwhack our way back down.

When the mission was over, my day was not. Not until about 11 p.m. when I finally crawled into bed and pulled the blankets over my head. I didn't budge until my dog insisted on going outside at 10:00 the next morning.

Our New SAR Building

We've finally moved. And that's a good thing.

For me, personally, I now have no more than a 10-minute drive (less if it's in the middle of the night and there's no traffic) from home to the building compared to The 105 across down. That's not the case for some team members who live on the far east side of Flagstaff, but I think the new location is better for more of us than not.

Also, we now have a lot more space, which will make moving things around and getting ready to head out for a mission much easier. And I'll be interested to see if our response time gets better, too.

For one thing, the new building is right behind the Sheriff's office and the rest of the law enforcement complex, so we'll no longer have the equipment and SAR vehicles at one end of town and our coordinators at the other. There's also much more room for training and practicing, like we did a few nights ago for the Rock Rescue Academy.

There's still much needed for the new building, not to mention the funds to pay for it, like a bay door (or is it two?), some interior block walls, plumbing and a bathroom, the completion of the offices and meeting room, etc. But at least we're now able to occupy the facility.

And here are a few photos:





If you look at the photos in my last entry, taken in our old SAR building (aka The 105 or SAR garage) while my teammates and I were practicing ascending, you can get a sense of the difference.

Rock Rescue Practice

Well, our last mission on Friday night through Saturday morning took precedence over Saturday's Rock Rescue Academy field session, but a few of my teammates and I have been practicing. A time or two each week, some of us have been getting together at the SAR garage to rig up anchors and practice ascending. Here are a few photos from our last get-together:

Robert gets ready to go up the rope, while Bob performs a safety check.



Up goes Robert. Ascending is hard work, and each person has to figure out the technique that works best for them.



Bob goes next.



What? Who, me? Oh, sorry, I have no pictures of myself.😉 (Yes, Robert, I know you do... but I'm sure no one wants to see 'em!)
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In the news: Body, Thought To Be Missing Hiker, Found In Grand Canyon

Looking For The Boy Who Wasn't Lost

My keester is sore. (I know: thanks for sharing, Deb.) I just spent about eight hours on a quad, which felt like riding a bucking bronco. The Cinder Lakes OTV area is covered with big wave-like bumpety-bumps. Yeee-haaa! Ouch.

So, have I mentioned that I don't like riding quads? They're great tools for SAR, but I'd never ride one for... fun? No offense 'r' nothin' to those who do enjoy them, but it's just not my thing.

Anyhow, we were looking for a 10-year-old boy who'd disappeared from his family's campsite. At least, his mom didn't know where he was. Neither did the other relatives, friends, or caring strangers, both SAR and other campers, who were helping with the search throughout the night and early morning hours. The child had last been seen at about 7 p.m. Friday, running after two vehicles driven by extended family.

So, okay, does this sound odd to you? Part of a family group decides to go camp somewhere else. They leave for who-knows-where. A child from the group trails their vehicles as they drive off. Mom sees her son doing this but apparently turns and walks away. Next thing she knows, both the vehicles and her boy are gone. But did the boy get in one of the vehicles, or did he disappear on foot? And where did those vehicles go?

The answers to those questions weren't known for more than 12 hours, during which time numerous ground units and a DPS helicopter searched the area extensively. Finally, a few hours after sunrise, the helicopter spots two SUVs matching the description of those driven by the aunt and a cousin, a short way off one of a crazy network of cinder-covered roads. They land and confirm, thankfully, that the boy is with them.

But did those he was with ever turn on their cell phones and let anyone know they had the boy?

No, although there was coverage in the area.

Did they think to turn around and let Mom know her son was with them?

No.

Did they tell anyone where they were going? No, and they probably didn't even know, either.

Does any of this make sense?

Not to me.

I'm just glad the boy was with them. It would have been a whole different story had those vehicles been located but the child wasn't there.

Here's the brief newspaper story: Flagstaff Boy Found After 13 Hours Missing
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In other news:
Search For Missing Grand Canyon Hiker Scaled Back

Supai Reopens Monday (Things have changed since the August 2008 floods.)