48 Hours and Counting

This is an ongoing mission, from which I just returned after 25 hours in the field. I arrived on Saturday, January 3, as several of my teammates were finishing up their own 20-plus-hour shifts, still with a long drive ahead of them back to Flagstaff. I'll fill you in on more of the story once the mission is concluded, hopefully with a find, but in the meantime, this is who we're looking for, reprinted from the Coconino County Sheriff's Office press release:

Missing Person

"Mark Russell Irby is described as a white man, 51 years of age, 5/10, 175 pounds, brown hair, brown eyes, and wearing prescription glasses. He was last seen wearing a denim shirt, blue jeans and 'Croc' style shoes, and riding a red Bombardier ATV with AZ license plate 36B-175. Irby is on medication for high blood pressure. There are no other known medical conditions. Irby was not dressed for the extreme weather or an extended trip away from home.

"Mr. Irby had been known to travel out of the Forest Lakes Subdivision to the west and travel trails between the subdivision and Forest Service Rd. 237. He was last seen when he left the home in the Forest Lakes area at about 10:00 AM Friday, January, 2nd.

"Anyone with information regarding the welfare or whereabouts of Mark Russell Irby is urged to call the Coconino County Sheriff's Office at (928)774-4523 or (800)338-7888."

When I left incident command today, Sunday, January 4, just after 10 a.m., there were at least 30 volunteers from three county SAR teams in the field, and another call-out has since been made for more volunteers to relieve them in the morning, to continue the search if Mr. Irby hasn't been located. I'll be rejoining the mission at 6 a.m. on Monday.

Also, a DPS helicopter has been flying, searching areas around the Forest Lakes subdivision.

It's now snowing heavily, complicating matters because any ATV tracks that may have been visible on Saturday are now much more difficult to detect. This is becoming a very frustrating mission, as search teams have checked and rechecked all logical areas and then some without locating any clues, which is unusual.

Today, Sunday, teams are literally going door to door in the subdivision, walking around each and every house. Many of them are seasonal homes. Searchers will also be checking snow and ice slides that have come off the roofs, some of which are large enough to potentially bury both a man and his quad. That is, if the quad could even have made it up to the houses. It would have been nearly impossible for the ATV to have crossed the huge berms along the sides of the roads and made it through deep snow on the unplowed driveways of unoccupied homes without getting stuck in the attempt. But there's been no sign of the red quad or the man who was driving it.

Let's hope this turns out well.

Same Subject, Different Day

Déjà vu set in—see Once Was Not Enough from 3/31—as I listened to our coordinator's message even before my pager had finished playing its song. (I'm a fast hand when it comes to grabbing the phone to call in for a SAR mission. Like lightnin'.) Sergeant D said this would be a search for the same man who'd been rescued the night before.

Night before? I checked my pager. Nope, no old pages that I'd missed. Must have been a direct call to certain team members, I figured. Which turned out to be the case. They needed volunteers certified to drive the snowcat and snowmobiles, and, though I'm able to operate both, at least to some extent, I haven't been properly trained or certified by the team. Hopefully, I'll have the opportunity to get that done in the near future.

Anyhow, this man had gotten his vehicle stuck on a Forest Service road on Christmas Day. And what a day that was, with heavy snow and wind gusts texceeding 40 miles per hour. As much as I get all revved up when there's a SAR call, I do admit I wasn't thrilled at the idea of going out in that weather. (But I woulda.)

So, from what I understand, people in three other vehicles had attempted to help the stranded motorist, and they too became stuck. According to the article in the Arizona Daily Sun, search and rescue crews spent much of Christmas rescuing a large group, including children and dogs. Then on Friday, one of the former rescue-ees attempted to hike back to his vehicle and hadn't been seen for two hours. I gather from the article that the subject must have had a cellphone and informed members of his party he could no longer continue hiking. So a call for a second round of help was made.

When I arrived at The 105 building after a slow drive across town, concerned about icy roads, a few of my teammates were already there, readying the snowcat for another run and hooking up the trailers loaded with snowmobiles. As I tossed my personal gear into one of the vehicles, the house phone rang. It was our coordinator, asking if everyone had snowshoes. All shouted affirmatives.

Have I mentioned yet how much I love my new snowshoes? I bought them just after returning from the last mission in Forest Lakes and have been using them every day since. Not only is it great exercise—I've heard you can burn 600 calories per hour on those things—but I really enjoy being out amongst the ponderosa pines on virgin snow, untouched except for all the critter prints crisscrossing my path. I walk out my door, 'shoe into the forest, and immediately see that elk, mule deer, jackrabbits, Abert squirrels, a fox, and even a bobcat have recently been out and about. As far as I'm concerned, all this snow can stick around until at least March. I looove my snowshoes.

Anyhow, where was I? Oh, the mission...

As it turns out, it was a pretty dynamic situation, and plans changed rapidly. No longer were snowshoers needed, just the snowcat and snowmobile drivers again. So off went several of my certified teammates, and the rest of us reorganized the SAR building to make room for the trailers when the others eventually returned, and then we headed home.

As I learned from the morning paper, the cold and disoriented man was picked up by an Arizona Department of Public Safety helicopter at 8 p.m. and flown to Flagstaff Medical Center.

Well, it's past my bedtime—unless my pager goes off again, that is—but maybe I'll just take the trash out on my beloved snowshoes before I hit the sack.

But the Volvo Wasn't so Lucky

It was mesmerizing, the falling snow coming right at us, illuminated by the snowcat's bright headlights. This was my first mission in the midst of a full-on blizzard.

My hands were cramping as I held the 'cat's steering and braking levers too tightly. Maneuvering the tank-like machine was easy enough, especially given our top speed of about 10 miles per hour, but adrenaline was making me lean forward, stiff-backed, gripping the controls as if the extra effort on my part would help the beast push through the fresh, deep snow on the long incline. Over the din of the engine, I could hear bits and pieces of radio traffic as we followed the tracks of our two teammates on snowmobiles, who'd gone ahead to locate the subjects' vehicle.

We were looking for two overdue hikers from Tucson, a male and female ages 26 and 21. They'd set out for a multi-day backpack on Thursday, due to return on Sunday. When they began their hike, the skies were sunny and clear and the temperature seasonably warm. On Saturday, the mercury plunged and the snow began. By Sunday, the storm was in full swing with a thickening white blanket on the ground. On the afternoon of Tuesday, December 16, the call came for search teams from both Coconino and Gila counties to look for the missing couple.

The Mogollon Rim is a rugged escarpment that forms the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau, dropping as much as 2,000 feet in some areas. The twosome's intended route would have taken them in a loop both above and below the rim, a trip of about 50 miles in the Forest Lakes area of Northern Arizona. A forest ranger had seen the couple at the beginning of their hike above the rim and knew the location of their vehicle, which they'd parked at a primitive campground near Bear Lake about 12 miles from the nearest paved road. As of Sunday, that vehicle was still there, but the hikers were not.

With Coconino County being over 18,000 square miles and much of it very remote and accessible only by Forest Service roads and rough two-tracks (if by vehicle at all), our team sometimes has to travel several hours to reach the staging area for a search or rescue. Today, the weather and driving conditions slowed us down even more, so, by midnight, we were still trying to reach the missing hikers' Volvo, the first place our coordinator decided we should check.

Earlier in the evening, Gila County SAR had been searching below the rim when they came to a swollen, fast-moving creek they were unable to cross—a creek which likely had been easily crossed before the storm. Our snowmobilers were having some difficulty locating their turn in the current whiteout, as the four of us in the snowcat made our way in that direction. We'd be continuing further along the Rim Road, the hikers' intended return route to their vehicle. After checking the car, part of our team would then search a nearby power line.

We had a lot of ground to cover, and a call-out for more volunteers and other resources had already been made for the morning. Also, two members of our group stayed behind at the staging area to rest; they'd be going out on snowshoes if the hikers were not soon found by the snowmobilers or those of us in the cat. I wondered if I too might end up snowshoeing, which I was more than ready to do.

I glanced at the gauges often as I drove, mostly checking the RPMs as I'd been instructed. I was also watching our fuel level. Wow, that machine was really eats up the gas.

We noticed a fire tower just off the road and backed up to check it out. It was difficult to see much of anything not directly in the path of our headlights, so we'd almost missed it. As we pulled up to the small outbuilding near the tower, Art decided to jump out to take a closer look and immediately sunk to his waist in the snow. I can't imagine anyone walking very far without snowshoes, which we know the two hikers didn't have with them. We were quite sure they were not on the move.

And that assumption proved correct. Just as Art signaled that no one was inside or behind the outbuilding or around the tower, the snowmobilers announced they'd located the vehicle and the subjects with it, code 4. Phew!

Turns out, the hikers had taken a shortcut when the weather started to turn, but that shortcut had proven more difficult to locate and hike than expected. They'd arrived back at the Volvo on Monday after 10 hours of hiking that day, but due to the depth of the snow, could no longer drive out. They'd been at the car for 36 hours by the time our team located them, passing time playing cards, strumming their ukulele and making up songs, and staring out the window at the falling snow, waiting and hoping someone would eventually rescue them.

The couple had some things in their favor despite their predicament. For one, they'd left an itinerary with a roommate, so search and rescue teams had a good idea where to look right from the beginning. Even if hikers leave their planned route, either on purpose or unintentionally, having the itinerary means SAR personnel are able to make educated guesses on the most likely places they may have gone off course.

Also, the couple did have some essentials, including a backpacking stove, a pot, fuel, and fire starter to melt snow for drinking water. They had warm sleeping bags, pads, a tent, and light sources (not to mention the ukulele, of course.) They had brought a map, which, though printed from the internet and somewhat lacking in detail, did help them locate a shortcut to their vehicle. There was no cellphone reception, but had they turned on their phone at some point, special equipment requested by our coordinator could have helped determine their location, if I understood that correctly. I also understood that that equipment would be available sometime on Wednesday.

In addition to gear, the hikers made the right decision in staying at their vehicle and waiting rather than attempting to walk out. If they'd tried to walk in what was about three feet of snow, fatigue and cold could have—would have—really put them at risk despite being young and fit.

Althooough... parking about 12 miles from the nearest paved road when there's a major winter storm coming in wasn't exactly the best decision. But I sorta think they won't do that again. That is, after they eventually get the car back. Their poor little Volvo is probably going to spend a long, lonely winter on the Mogollon Rim.

****

On this rather rare occasion, we have a chance to read about the mission from a subject's perspective. Read hiker John's firsthand account of getting stranded then rescued on his blog.

Read the articles from the Arizona Daily Sun for the media's perspective:

Overdue Hikers Missing Near Forest Lakes

"Overdue Hikers Found Safe in Waist-Deep Snow

Checking the SAR Line

I thought I'd do a test to see if the trend will continue. Ready? Drum roll, please...

Gee, it's been REALLY QUIET LATELY!

Ten... nine... eight...

I called the SAR phone number today, to be sure the most recent message about a call-out was the last one I heard when my pager went off at 2:30 a.m. on November 24. That mission was 10-22'd (cancelled) pretty quickly as I was en route to The 105 building. So I called to be sure my pager was working. Yep, I haven't missed anything. Still the same message from the 24th, about a lady missing near Williams.

Seven... six... five...

Before that was the plane crash in Sedona. So it's been over two weeks since we've had a call-out. Wow, I'm getting used to sleeping through the night.

Four...

Read some good search and rescue books lately, during all these quiet evenings at home (with my pager next to me on the nightstand, of course). The first was Lost In the Yellowstone: Truman Everts's Thirty Seven Days of Peril written by Truman Everts himself, who was—you guessed it—lost in Yellowstone (before it was a National Park). That was back in the late 1800s and apparently is still the longest anyone has gone missing in that area and been found alive... though not far from death in Evert's case. A thin book and a good read but a little challenging with all of the side notes, some of which are about the concurrent movements by the rest of Evert's party and others who went looking for him.

Three...

Then I read Coming Home from Devil Mountain by Eleanor Dart O'Bryon, who became separated from her fiance while climbing Picacho del Diablo in Baja, Mexico, and both were stranded without food for nearly three weeks. Another quick read, composed mostly of interlocking journals kept by Eleanor while alone on the mountain, starving, and her father, who mounted a search effort with the Sierra Madre SAR team.

TWO...

And my definite favorite of the three is Coming Back Alive: The True Story of the Most Harrowing Search and Rescue Mission Ever Attempted on Alaska's High Seas by Spike Walker. For me, it was one of those "I don't care how tired I'll be at work tomorrow, I've gotta keep reading" books. Totally distant from any experience I'll ever have, I found it fascinating.

One and a HALF...

So, no Coconino County SAR news (that I know of) to report for now. There's probably been plenty going on that just hasn't required volunteers or at least nothing that necessitated paging the whole team. Sometimes, certain team members with a lot of experience or specific skills are called directly to help with specialized missions. We usually hear about that stuff at our monthly general meetings.

One and a QUARTER...

But I'll be back as soon as I have something SAR to share.

ONE!

Hm.

Recent SAR Happenings

No call-outs since the Sedona plane crash, but some other news and events to share...

We had an Alternative Navigation class on Saturday, November 15. By "alternative navigation," I'm referring to navigation without the use of gadgets such as a compass, GPS, or altimeter. Skills we learned and practiced in the field included navigating by the sun, celestial navigation, and using terrain to our advantage with techniques like aiming off, safety baselines, funneling, catch features, pacing, and more. Let me just say, this stuff takes practice!

I took this course, taught by one of our team's navigation experts, last year and intend to take it every time it's offered. These are skills that definitely require time and repetition to master and continued use to keep sharp. I find celestial navigation fascinating, and I was so impressed by our instructor's knowledge. And a little jealous, too.

Anyhow, I wrote an article about Alternative Navigation on my SARstories blog. Click here if you're interested in taking a look.

A writer from the Arizona Daily Sun took the classroom portion of the Alt. Nav. training and, that afternoon, a photographer accompanied us for a short time in the field, so a newspaper article is in the works. I'll let you know when it appears.

In other news, several specially selected team members went out to the Little Colorado River in the area of Hopi Salt Canyon to collect some evidence located by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. The evidence was potentially connected to the case of Reinhard Kirchner, a German national who went missing in early spring 2007. In April of last year, after 61 year-old Kirchner failed to meet his fiancee in Las Vegas as planned, his abandoned vehicle was found near the north rim of the Little Colorado River gorge. A large ground and air search involving multiple agencies and counties followed, but after six days of searching about 56 square miles of rugged terrain, the SAR mission was called off.

At our general meeting last night, Sergeant D said the items Fish & Game found could just be a river runner's stash. Still, investigation continues, including the potential for DNA testing on the items.

Also at last night's meeting, we were told that the pilot from the downed Piper near Sedona, 51-year-old Rockney Mark Herring, is still alive and has been stabilized. Apparently, he's also been awake. Boy, is that great news!

And with that, I'm off to the uniform shop to pick up my new, very yellow winter coat (it's one of our team colors, you see) that now has search and rescue patches on it. That way, people will know why I'm wearing a bright yellow winter coat and won't just assume I'm either color blind or unfashionable.

A Plane Crash in Sedona

Al and I stood along the fire line, staring at the smoldering wreckage.

"Is that part of a wing?" I asked.

"No, that's a stabilizer," he said. "That's part of a wing over there. I think this was a Piper, but I can't tell for sure."

It was a little after 8 a.m. How different the crash site looked now that the sun was up. During the night, the wreckage had been illuminated by the light of the full moon and the orange glow of flames, making it seem almost surreal. But now, in the stark light of day, it was all too vivid and all too real.

At about 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, November 13, my pager had gone off. It was a 300 code for a rescue, so I was surprised to hear our captain's message that this was an airplane disaster. At the time, he didn't know if it was a private or commercial plane, how many people were involved, or the status of the victims. He did know the location, near Schnebly Hill Road in Sedona.

At least a dozen volunteers had responded to the SAR building by the time the call-out was cancelled, but that didn't mean the mission was over. As more information came in, Lieutenant Christian told us that only four of us would be needed for the night, two to station themselves at the intersection of Schnebly Hill Rd. and the rough two-track that led relatively close to the crash site and two to spend the night watching over the wreckage. Al and I were the two who'd spend the night with what was left of the plane. And the two men who hadn't survived.

And that's what was foremost in my mind as I lay on the ground nearby, inside my bivy bag with my head on my backpack. I had forgotten my ground pad, and there wasn't a clear spot anywhere to be found that was free of rocks, but my own discomfort was nothing. All I could think about were the people affected by this crash: the two men who'd died, the pilot who'd somehow crawled from the wreckage with second- and third-degree burns over half his body, and the rest of their families. It's one thing to hear about tragedies in the news—it's quite another to be so... well, up close and personal.

As it turned out, the three victims were related: two brothers, Michael and Tommy Johnson, and their cousin, Rockney Mark Herring. I saw their picture when Michael's son, Micah, held up his cellphone to show Al and me the photo the morning following the crash, when we returned to the intersection at Schnebly Hill Rd. after being relieved by two other SAR members. He and other family members were there, waiting to be taken to the scene. Seeing the pictures of the men whose remains we'd watched over during the night really had an impact on me.

Micah said that his dad, Michael from Phoenix, and his uncle Tommy of Texas hadn't seen one another in nearly 10 years. They'd been enjoying a sightseeing flight with their cousin Rockney, the pilot, when, after refueling at the Sedona Airport, their Piper PA 32-260 fixed-wing, single-engine aircraft lost power and went down in that rugged, heavily treed area about eight miles east of Sedona.

A vacationing New York firefighter camping nearby had been the first on the scene. He found the injured pilot lying next to a tree and rendered first aid until a DPS rescue helicopter was able to land and transport the patient. Arriving in the darkness a few hours after the crash, the first thing I'd seen in the firelight was what turned out to be the pilot's mangled headset on the ground next to a tree, marked with evidence tape.

When we hiked up to the crash site, a lieutenant, a deputy, and numerous Forest Service personnel were there. The Forest Service folks had cut a fire line around the wreckage and were finishing up their work for the time being. Al and I would keep tabs on the fire during the night to be sure the flames didn't kick up again or cross the fire line.

As the others prepared to leave, the deputy asked if Al and I would be comfortable up there on our own. The deputy would remain at the intersection on Schnebly Hill Rd. where he had provisions in his patrol car, and we could call him by cellphone or radio if we needed him at the site. We were also given numbers to call if there were an issue with the fire.

It was a long night, with the moon so bright I could read small print without my headlamp. Unfortunately, the only thing I did have to read was the info sheet that came with my brand new bivy bag. Which, by the way, I found out isn't quite adequate for mid-November, particularly between 2 and 4 a.m. With the rocks, the cold, the radio traffic I monitored throughout the night, and frequent fire checks, especially when the breeze picked up, there wasn't much sleep happening.

"You awake?" I heard Al ask sometime around 1:30.

"Yeeeaaahhh," I groaned.

"I'm going to take a walk around the crash site to make sure everything's okay."

From my location upwind of the fire, I watched Al disappear behind illuminated smoke. Looking at my moonlit surroundings, I was struck by how quiet it was, except for the occasional crack or pop from the embers or some shifting piece of plane or smoldering tree limb.

Al returned to his own spot amongst the rocks, and we both lay there for another six hours or so, my bivy and his space blanket crinkling intermittently as we both tried to find comfortable positions for a few minutes at a time. I was relieved when the sun came up and things would soon be happening. At some point, the National Transportation Safety Board  and Medical Examiner would arrive, then Michael and Tommy's remains would be removed from beneath the wreckage.

But before that happened, media helicopters were on the scene, flying in slow circles above our heads. I thought about how different it was here on the ground, standing only feet from what I'd normally just see on the news.

From the Arizona Daily Sun: Family Mourns Brothers Killed in Plane Crash