Shhhh.....

 Be vewwwy quiiiet. My pager has been, anyway.

Just a shout out to let ya'll know I'm still here, in case you were wondering. It's just that my SAR pager hasn't made a peep in... hm, what's it been? At least a couple of weeks.

And that's a good thing. I mean, as much as I love being on the team and going on missions, I don't WISH for people to get hurt, stranded, or lost, especially in the very wintry weather we've had lately.

Not to mention that it certainly is nice to be warm and cozy inside when it's snowing like crazy and c-c-cold outside.

Anyhow, in the meantime, I've been reading away. More SAR stuff, of course, including Heart of the Storm: My Adventures as a Helicopter Rescue Pilot and Commander by Colonel Edward Fleming. I wrote a little review on my other SAR blog, SARstoriesNews, if you're interested.

Now, though, as I take a break from books about helicopters, which I seem to have developed a bit of a fascination with over the past year or so, I'm reading a piece of fiction for a change, called The Wall by Jeff Long. It's a thriller that takes place on Yosemite's El Capitan. (I'm giving you the Amazon links, but I've found these books at our local library, so you probably can, too.)

Anyhow, I'll be back to babbling about search and rescue when something babble-worthy happens.

Winter Training for Winter Searching and Rescuing

I have band-aids on six toes. I didn't realize the tops were rubbed raw until I stepped into the shower and yowee! I looked down at my feet and realized I'd left some skin somewhere.

It was snowshoeing down the mountain that did it. Today, a teammate and I enjoyed some fitness training on Mt. Agassiz at the Arizona Snowbowl for the second time this week. It's not uncommon for missions to take place on the peaks, and some extra time and effort at altitude can definitely pay off when the pager goes off. So I'm glad my teammate invited me to drag myself out of bed before dawn to huff and puff up a couple thousand feet on the hard-packed snow and ice, only to go right back down that steeply angled snow and ice. We've had two great days on the mountain in perfect weather, and I feel better prepared as a result.

Before these two climbs, I'd never really tested my MSR snowshoes on ice or very steep slopes. And now I have a better idea of what they can do. There were times today on the ascent when the angle was so steep, I had to dig in with the spikes on the toes of my snowshoes and keep my momentum going as my calves screamed, so I wouldn't end up careening down the mountain on my back.

On the descents, I followed my teammate's instructions and took small, slow steps, and, to my relief, the snowshoes did the job. I had Jell-o legs by the time we reached the lodge, but at least I stayed upright.

Also on the training front, our team had that snowmobile class I'd been waiting for. I'm still uncomfortable with loading the machines onto the trailers, afraid I'll shoot right off the back, but, otherwise, I'm now team certified to drive. (At least, I think I am.) So I bought a collapsible backcountry shovel for digging myself out whenever I get the thing stuck, which I now know firsthand isn't hard to do, even in ideal conditions.

Oh, I almost forgot...

We did have another call-out recently. It was a pretty straightforward mission involving an out-of-town family who'd gotten their vehicle stuck on a snow-covered Forest Service road and weren't quite sure of their location. Luckily, the DPS helicopter was available to do a fly-over, and they spotted the vehicle and, therefore, expedited the mission. The vacationing family was retrieved and taken to a motel for the night, to deal with their stranded vehicle the next day.

Missed Missions and Being Missed

That was nice! A teammate called to check up on me because I've not been able to respond to the last two missions. You could say that's a bit unusual for me—missing two SAR missions in a row—and not something I prefer. But how cool it is to be missed.

Following the recent search for a 12-year-old girl, which thankfully ended well, my pager was silent until 7:15 on Friday morning, January 23. I knew I couldn't respond, but by habit, I had to call in anyway to hear what the call-out was for. The short message simply stated there was a possible downed aircraft.

Oh man, I thought, and I'm gonna be stuck in a hair salon? I take care of my mom, you see, and she doesn't drive. And she had scheduled her monthly hair appointment, which I had to take her to, as always. Needless to say, I fidgeted and paced for two hours, waiting for her dye-and-set to be finished, reluctantly listening to salon-style chatter, all the while knowing my teammates were "out there" somewhere. Every time the hairdresser would stop working in order to make hand gestures to help prove the point she was making, my knee would start bouncing and my foot tapping, and I could feel my blood pressure rise.

When I finally got home after dropping my mom off back at her own house, I thought about calling our SAR captain to tell him I'd be available to join the team in the field if need be, but first I went online and found two breaking news updates. When I refreshed the webpage, a third appeared. And before long, as I continued reading, my phone rang and I heard from a teammate who'd talked to another teammate who'd been on scene, and I knew I need not call.

Read all four breaking news updates from that day (in descending order) here. Two Flagstaff men died in the crash.

Only minutes after concluding the call with my teammate, I turned on the television and immediately saw news of the crash, including an interview with the deputy who was dealing with a traffic stop at the very moment the small aircraft flew right over his head and heard the impact moments later.

A couple of days later, on the snowy, windy, very cold evening of January 25, my pager went off again. Steve and I were in a restaurant at the time (that favorite sushi place of ours I mentioned in my last post), and I called in to find out what was going on. A technical rescue on Mt. Elden. I thought for a moment, knowing that non-technical team members were welcome to respond and go along in case we could be of help carrying gear or performing any other non-technical tasks that might arise.

On the other hand, Steve and I had driven to the restaurant in one vehicle (we sometimes take separate cars, just in case there's a call-out), and I'd first have to drop him off at home before responding. This would take at least 20 minutes, and then I'd have the drive across town. I didn't want to hold the team up and wasn't sure I'd actually be needed anyway... so I decided not to respond.

As Steve and I drove home after dinner, I looked over at the mountain, mostly hidden in the clouds, and shivered. I knew my teammates were probably still up there on that wet and wintry night and felt a pang of remorse at not being out there, too.

But such is life as a SAR volunteer. Sometimes you just have to pass.
Read Stranded Hikers Rescued from Elden Cliffs from the Arizona Daily Sun.

A Tribute To My SAR Spouse

In this case, SAR stands for "supportive and reassuring," referring to my husband of almost 11 years. Steve has always been supportive of my endeavors and adventures, not the least of which was my six-month Appalachian Trail thru-hike.

During that time nine years ago, he took care of the farm—the critters and the property—that we were employed to live on and tend to for the absentee owners. Over the course of the 185 days I was away, I saw Steve only once. That five-hour visit took place in a dump of a trail town (which shall remain unnamed) before my husband had to drive back, to make it home in time to do the evening chores. And he never once complained during any of our phone calls or when I returned home after I'd completed my hike, about all of the extra work he'd had to shoulder in my absence.

And Steve has held true to form when it's come to me being part of search and rescue. As anyone involved with SAR knows, our pagers (or phones) can and do go off at all times of the day and night. Our gadgets have no consideration for mealtimes, holidays, great movies or dates, or a good night's sleep during a snowstorm. People sometimes—often—need help when it's not very convenient for SAR personnel or volunteers. Not to mention for their families. So I wanted to publicly thank Steve for being such a great sport, not to mention bolstering my confidence when it wavers.

I recently read a book called Mountain High, Mountain Rescue by SAR volunteer Peggy Parr, in which she writes, "The patience of a husband or wife at home is often forgotten, yet this is a vital ingredient to the team's accomplishments in the field."

She goes on to say, "Sleeping spouses, unmoved by adrenaline, are awakened in the depth of night by a pager's piercing tone giving an emergency message ... and subjected to the noise of frantic dressing and departure. If the spouse wants the car, chauffeuring is necessary. During the day the tone shatters silence at the sermon, the movie and the restaurant. Dinners turn cold, picnics are cancelled, guests are left waiting. Bachelors should contemplate this neglect a spouse suffers.

"After a mission, the spouse is forced to listen to endless phone calls from other members, where details are dissected like a frog. Gear is spread across the floor as in a garage sale. Two-hundred-foot nylon ropes are cleaned in the washing machine, and hang for days drying in spaghetti coils from the basement ceiling.

"The spouse tolerates these annoyances with a patience worthy of sainthood. Members are aware of these qualities, for we take their spirit with us always."

How true. And Steve even gets up when those middle-of-the-night call-outs happen, to make sure I don't leave anything behind as I stumble about for my clothing and gear on the way to the door.

Just today, as Steve and I were in the middle of stuffing our faces with raw fish by candlelight at our favorite sushi restaurant, my pager went off. Immediately, I said, "Oh, it's okay, I'll skip it this time," but my husband knows me all too well. "No, no," he said, "It's totally okay. Go help."

As we've done in the past, we'd have had the rest of our dinner doggie-bagged and then driven home, where I'd drop Steve off, quickly change clothes, and head to the SAR building. But, as it turned out, that wasn't necessary this time, and we finished our dinner date. Our coordinator's message, which I listened to with a face full of maki roll, said this was a call for the technical team. If, in the spring, I qualify for that subset of our general SAR team, those kinds of calls will then include me, and more doggie-bags may be necessary.

Putting SAR Skills to the Test

 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!