Body Recovery at Bear Canyon Lake

Just catching up on some SAR mission stories from the past few weeks, including a call for the technical rescue team at about 7:30 on a Sunday morning for a body recovery—two, unfortunately—at Bear Canyon Lake in the Forest Lakes area.  I wasn't able to respond to that call, but a teammate of mine filled me in the next day. This is what he said...

"Six Tech Team members showed up, and because there was rain in the forecast, we loaded all the gear in the back of the Suburban instead of the pickup to ensure the rope stayed dry. We were told that an ATV had gone over a cliff, but as with most rescues, the initial information is often unreliable so we weren't sure how this one would unfold.

"We finally turned toward Bear Canyon Lake on a what was initially a decent dirt road, but it deteriorated quickly. When we arrived at the scene, we found a group of Forest Service and fire hotshot personnel and the Medical Examiner vehicle.

"Below us was an approximately 15-foot-deep ravine with a wrecked ATV and the bodies of two young men in their early 20s lying near it. It's always tragic to see young lives ended much too soon, and I could only imagine the pain the families were feeling.

"We realized we could walk to the scene from the edges of the ravine, so with the help of the hotshots, we  transported them up to the road. The Forest Service folks told us this was the 6th fatal ATV accident this year in the Forest Lakes area.

"With our mission complete, we headed back on the dirt road where  the suburban suddenly stopped running. We ended up having to load all the gear into the pickup and left the disabled suburban with [our Coordinator and one team member], who waited for the tow truck. When we arrived back at the building, we were all stiff—not from the mission but from the five-and-a-half-hour drive.

"For us, the mission was complete. For the families of the victims, the agony of their loss was just beginning."

A Training Hike & Abandoned Camp in West Fork Canyon

There are certain places within the county that our team is called to time and time again, and over time, patterns begin to emerge. People tend to get into pickles often in the same places and under similar circumstances. So it's a good idea for those in search and rescue to familiarize themselves with these popular "people-in-pickles" spots, so when we're called upon to go find the lost and assist the injured, we know what we're getting into and where we're going.

I'd never hiked into West Fork Canyon from the top, so this training hike was a good opportunity for me to check it out. Four of us, led by assistant SAR coordinator Dave, who's very familiar with the area from many years of exploring by foot and flying over it as a helicopter medic, would hike and boulder at least 2.5 miles to the junction of West Fork Canyon and Casner Cabin Draw.

This is a place where hikers often go astray when thru-hiking West Fork from below. Many of those hikers don't carry maps and end up going up Casner Cabin Draw instead of West Fork. In Casner Cabin Draw, they come to a choke stone and can go no further. Then they're confused, tired, and darkness overtakes them in the rugged canyon. Eventually, they're reported overdue by a friend or family member when they fail to show up by the expected time (and often much later), and then SAR gets a call-out.

In addition to familiarizing ourselves with the canyon, we had another job to do on this training mission: We'd be investigating an abandoned campsite that had been spotted first by air during an earlier mission and then briefly checked by two SAR volunteers who'd later hiked in that same night to locate five overdue hikers (with no connection to that campsite).

It was a warm morning, but I resisted the urge to zip off the bottom halves of my convertible pants. I knew the canyon would be thick with vegetation, and there would be plenty of blowdowns to crawl under and over. And I was right. Had I been wearing just the shorts, I would have gotten even more scratched up.

The going was slow, not only because of the absence of trail, the countless opportunities to sprain or break an ankle, and the heat, but also because the canyon is so beautiful. We kept stopping to look around and appreciate how pretty it is.

As we hiked further, the canyon narrowed and the walls went higher. Wildflowers were blooming, hummingbirds were buzzing, and one pretty snake (non-poisonous) slithered past us after we disturbed its snooze in the shade of a rock. We saw bear scat but no bear. Dave told us about hiking this canyon with his dad when he was a boy. He also told us how he and a friend carried out (without a litter, so literally carried) another friend who became seriously ill on their hike.

Some pics and then more story...

As we went, we'd periodically pause to guess where on our topographic maps we were. We'd all look around at the terrain and compare it to the contours on the map, then point out our guesses to Dave, who'd guess as well. Then I'd map the coordinates from my GPS and see who'd come closest. It was a good exercise and a fun challenge. It was also fun to get it right!

After maneuvering our way through a section of large boulders, we came to the junction of the two canyons, also the location of the abandoned campsite. To me, it looked as if a party of as many as three people had decided, hey, let's try this backpacking thing, gone to Walmart and bought tents, sleeping pads, and other not-so-pricy gear, some of which was more suited for car-camping than backpacking, and set off on their first overnight hike. Then, after struggling through that rugged canyon with all that stuff on their backs, including some new clothes and new shoes, decided the next morning that all that schlepping wasn't as fun as they'd expected. So, they took only the bare minimum for the hike out and left the rest in the canyon. They'd left yucky garbage, deodorant, and cologne behind, too.

We interrupt this story for more pics...

We packed out their trash, usable and not.

At that point, we considered whether to add about 2.5 more miles to our already five-mile round-trip hike to go up Casner Cabin Draw to the choke stone. But the thunder was rumbling loudly by then, and it was already later than we'd anticipated, so we decided to head back.

It was a great day and a useful reconnaissance mission. The next time we get a call for overdue hikers in West Fork, I'll know more than just the first few easy miles from the bottom.

And in other Coconino County Search and Rescue news...

I received a mission report from my teammate, who responded to the call for a litter evacuation of an injured hiker on the Humphreys Trail. He wrote:

"I left at 6:30 am this morning to get a backpacking permit at the Grand Canyon, then proceeded to do a 5-mile day hike on the Hermit trail. About 30 minutes after I got back, there was the call-out for the Humphreys litter carry. I responded directly to Snow Bowl [with another team member], and we both were transported by the Snow Bowl UTV to the trailhead. By this time, [a second call-out was made]. We arrived at the patient, and eight rescuers including a young hiker who volunteered to help, and Flag Fire and Guardian personnel 200 yards beyond the sign-in box. [The patient] was already packaged in their litter and was in obvious pain with an injured arm and ankle due to a fall. I called [our coordinator], who had not yet arrived on scene, and let him know we had it covered, and we slowly brought [the patient] down, stopping to administer Morphine 3 times. We loaded her on the back of the Snowbowl UTV and steadied the litter as it drove down slowly. When we got back to the parking lot, there were more than 6 SAR members waiting.  Fortunately it was a short rescue, because I was pretty worn out."

An Out-of-County Search: Coco SAR Assists Apache County

It was late on the night of our monthly general SAR meeting when our coordinator announced that Apache County was requesting our team's assistance with the search for a missing hiker. They were asking us to respond to their Incident Command the next morning for a two-day stay.

I looked across the room at Cindy, our K9 handler, with the "ya wanna?" question on my face. We'd talked about this search a few days earlier, when she'd gotten a call about it—a little advance notice that Apache County would probably be asking for her to bring her dogs, all four of which are NASAR-certified and cross-trained in area search (for live subjects) and human remains detection.

I needed to make sure I had someone to watch my own (non-SAR) dog, and I'd had other things I was planning to do in the next couple of days, but I was willing to go if she was. I'd go along as Cindy's backer.

So, we decided to do it. The two of us, four rather large dogs (at least, they seem large when they're all in the same vehicle), and a bunch of gear piled into Cindy's SUV the next morning and headed southeast. This was an area Cindy knew well from her childhood, but I'd only passed through a couple of times.

******

Helping with a SAR mission in a different county is an interesting experience. It's difficult, if not altogether impossible, to go without expectations of how a search will be carried out based on your experience with your own team and the norms you're used to. (Coconino County is fortunate, by the way, to have a full-time SAR coordinator. Most counties do not.) As a searcher, though, you report to whomever is in charge. If asked for, you give your two cents—your ideas and suggestions—and you get your assignment. Then you carry out that assignment to the best of your ability. And that's what Cindy and I and four hard-working air-scenting golden retrievers did.

It was a stormy day, and our assignment took us up to 11,400 feet on the open summit of Mt. Baldy, Arizona's second highest peak, and into the thick trees on the extremely steep slopes surrounding the ridge. I felt the adrenaline rush through my veins each time the thunder seemed to be coming back our way. The rain fell steadily, and we and the dogs were soon soaked and stayed that way for the duration. It was cold up there.

Cindy and her four search dogs near the summit of Mt. Baldy

Searching for scent along the treeline on the Mt. Baldy ridge

Searching the ridge after the thunderstorm moved off

We were searching for Frank Carl Patane, 60, from Tucson. Mr. Patane had disappeared on August 11th, after signing the Mt. Baldy trailhead register at 7:30 that morning. His vehicle was found at the trailhead a couple of days later by a deputy, when the hotel staff where Mr. Patane had been staying reported that he hadn't returned after saying he was going to hike that mountain.

Family members described Frank as an avid day-hiker who was inexperienced as a camper. He'd had surgery for a detached retina a month before this solo hike. They were concerned that his eyesight may have become an issue.

On the day Mr. Patane signed the register, a severe storm hit the area at roughly 11:30 a.m., an hour after another party signed that same trail register. They'd turned back due to the weather, having seen no sign of the man we were searching for.

The search continued intensely for 17 days, with multiple counties responding—ground-pounders, K9 teams, ATV teams, and mounted units. No clues were found.

The "chow truck," feeding volunteers from many counties during the search

Basic information on the missing person on the side of the Command Trailer

Incident Command / Base Camp

On our second day assisting with the search, Cindy and I were joined by another teammate from Coconino County. We grid-searched a large meadow with a narrow, muddy creek running through it, as well as a wooded area and some unoccupied buildings (one of which was heavily guarded by wasps) as thunder continued to rumble.

We search again the next day.

Cindy and the dogs and another backer (I couldn't go) returned to Apache County a second time the following weekend. They searched for two days during the final big push to locate Mr. Patane. Last I heard—and I've found nothing online to indicate otherwise—no clues have yet to be found.

Here's another news article about the search, with a photos of Frank Carl Patane: Authorities Continue Search for Missing Hiker; More K9 Search Teams Join the Effort

An Extreme, Multi-Agency Technical Rescue

Photo courtesy of R. Marlatt

First an overview and then some personal comments about this mission, which may be one of the most technically difficult rescues our team has ever faced...

On Saturday, August 13t, 36-year-old Mike from Payson, Arizona, was canyoneering with several friends in Insomnia Canyon, a tributary of West Fork near Sedona. Mike was on the final 150 feet of a 350-foot rappel when he lost control, picking up speed, and fell about 100 feet. He struck a rock on the way down and then fell another 40 feet, ending up a total of 1,800 feet below the rim with multiple injuries. Two of his friends continued down canyon and made the long trip out to get help, while two others remained behind with Mike.

Once emergency services were notified of the accident, more than 25 rescuers from multiple agencies responded, including Coconino County Sheriff's Search and Rescue, Sedona Fire District, Flagstaff Fire Department, Guardian Medical Transport, Department of Public Safety helicopters out of Kingman and Phoenix, and Native Air.

Two of the volunteers from search and rescue had to make eight rappels and three swims to reach the patient late Saturday night and remained with him, rendering medical care while other rescuers rappelled with the Stokes litter, additional medical equipment, and gear for setting up lowering and raising systems and main and belay lines. About 2,600 feet of rope was needed.

An attempt by a DPS helicopter crew was made at first light on Sunday to short haul the patient from his original location, but the slot canyon was too tight for the aircraft. So the patient was then raised by rescuers 800 feet to a ledge where he could be accessed for the short haul, which took place at 1 p.m. at Sunday, at least 24-hours after he'd fallen. Two rescuers accompanied the patient on the raise, while two others continued down canyon with the patient's uninjured friends. They had at least a couple more rappels ahead of them and then a lengthy hike out. They were met en route by fire personnel, who'd hiked in from the Call of the Canyon trailhead to assist them with carrying gear after their exhausting time in the canyon.

After the patient was removed from the canyon and flown to a hospital in Phoenix, where he's since been upgraded from critical to serious condition, came the arduous task for the rescuers of getting themselves and their gear out of the canyon, with a 1,000-foot elevation difference between their location and the rim. This involved ascending ropes one by one, hauling up both their own body weight and heavy gear with their spent muscles.

Several rescuers were able to make the difficult climb, but given the stormy monsoon weather that was moving in, the time of day, and their extreme exhaustion, six of the remaining rescuers were short hauled to the rim by DPS. DPS also assisted with this rescue by lowering a cargo net full of fluids to the rescuers and hauling off two nets full of gear.

Rescue personnel were also assisted by volunteer members of Coconino County C.E.R.T. (Community Emergency Response Team), who drove our weary group back to Flagstaff. Their help was much needed and appreciated.

Regarding the patient...

In a comment on a Hiking Examiner article, Mike's mother writes, "He did break both his heels, and his pelvis in six places. He also fractured his spine and had internal bleeding. The internal bleeding seems to have stopped. He will need to have more surgeries and procedures and it will be at least 3 months before he is able to walk again."

And now for some personal comments...

I'm so proud to be a member of this team and so proud of my teammates, who went all out on this mission at significant personal risk. Controlled risk, yes, and with as much attention to safety as possible, but no tech rescue is without risk, of course. And this one was a doozy.

Yes, I was on this mission, and I did assist, but my role was minimal compared to my teammates. I say that because, after descending approximately 500 feet below the rim on a handline (using a Prusik), when I came to the ledge at the start of the next 500-foot rappel, I made the decision that that's where I needed to stop. It wasn't an easy decision, and I agonized about it throughout the night as each of my teammates loaded up with gear in addition to their own packs, attached their self-belays to the second rope and their rappel devices, and one-by-one descended through the thick manzanita, their headlamps soon disappearing from my view. It seemed to take a very long time until the one on rappel would announce over the radio that he was off rappel and off belay. One said this was the nastiest rappel he'd ever experienced.

A 500-foot rappel. With heavy gear. With a self-belay. Through the brush and other difficulties. Was I ready for that? What would happen if I ran into trouble partway down? On my own. I didn't really have enough rope time under my belt—not with all that gear, all that distance—I thought to myself.  And if things didn't go right, I was putting not only myself but my team and, ultimately, the man we were there to rescue at even greater risk. No, I decided, I wasn't going down any further.

So, the best I could do to help was go up and down the hand line with equipment and help with communication and whatever else might be called for up near the top.

Of course, this mission wasn't about me whatsoever, and I'm sure no one was really thinking about me but me. And I had to make a decision about my own limitations, regardless of the fact that more hands were sorely needed far below. Like I said, it was a very tough call for me. But I'll be continuing to gain experience on the rope, rappelling and ascending with my pack and extra gear, passing knots in both directions... and with someone else belaying me, at least at first. Eventually, I'll be ready.

And in the interest of not ending on a note about me, I want to reiterate what an awesome job Coconino County Sheriff's Search and Rescue technical team did, along with all other responding agencies. You saved a life in really difficult conditions. You rock!

A Vision Quest Gone Bad?

That's what the note said that 43-year-old Michael Snarski of Thornton, Colorado, had left on his dashboard—that he was not lost; he was on a vision quest. The note was dated 7/24.

Two weeks later, someone reported to the Sheriff's office that the car was still there, parked at a pull-out about 20 miles south of Williams, AZ. That's when detectives asked for our K9 team, trained in human remains (HR) detection, to come to the site and check the vehicle. They'd smelled what could have been an intermittent, faint "odor of death," they said. Our dog handler, Cindy, then contacted me and another team member, often her backers on other missions, to accompany her and her four NASAR-certified golden retrievers.

All four dogs independently alerted on the trunk, but my teammates and I didn't smell anything in the air or coming from the car. Still, each dog gave an enthusiastic, distinct alert, a couple of them becoming what I'd call frustrated at not being able to get to the source of the smell, digging at the ground by the trunk and jumping up on the vehicle with their front legs.

A deputy called his boss for permission to have the vehicle unlocked and the trunk opened. Permission was granted, and we all waited, wondering what we'd find inside.

Once the trunk was opened, however, there was no visible evidence of human decomposition and no odor—or at least none detectable by our human noses. The dogs were again brought back to the car, one by one, and each now alerted on a specific area of the trunk.

"Show me," Cindy would say when they each alerted. And each dog jumped back up and touched the same spot inside the trunk with their paws and noses. Something related to human decomposition was there, but whatever it was, we couldn't see it, and we were not allowed to touch the numerous items in the trunk to look beneath them.

Later, after the vehicle was towed and law enforcement searched it, it was discovered that the dogs had indeed found something: a spot of blood about the size of nickel on a pair of pants.

Following more investigation, an extensive area search was planned. SAR volunteers from both Coconino and Yavapai Counties were called, including K9, ground, and mounted units. I'm sure everyone was expecting this would likely be a long, tedious search through difficult terrain. Even the command trailer was being brought out to the site.

K9 units arrived at the search area at first light, to begin while the air was still cool and the light winds would still be coming up out of nearby Bear Canyon. That way, the cross-trained dogs would be able to detect human scent if the missing person were down in that canyon. The wind would (and did) soon change direction as the sun rose, so we wanted to search the rim as soon as possible.

But the search didn't last long. As Cindy and I slowly made our way along the rim with two of her dogs, picking through thick manzanita over rocks and other pinion–juniper forest debris and one lethargic snake, another K9 team discovered Michael Snarski's body not far from the road.

He was sitting on a blanket, up against a tree, with full water bottles and a couple of uneaten, by then blackened bananas at his side. Facing west toward what may have been the sinking sun on his final day, he still had his sunglasses on. This is the last view Michael would have seen but without all of the SAR vehicles. His car had been parked where ours now were: