Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
Vegasclimber
Trad climber
Las Vegas, NV.
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 29, 2014 - 02:11pm PT
|
Thanks for the link Clint!
As I said, I know there are other resources available for rescue information, this thread is for people to share those links as well as personal stories and information.
|
|
Vegasclimber
Trad climber
Las Vegas, NV.
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 29, 2014 - 11:21pm PT
|
That's a pretty gnarly crash Ron. I'm confused though, someone made it out of that and went another 4.5 miles before expiring?
What was the cause of the crash, did you ever see the final report on it?
|
|
Vegasclimber
Trad climber
Las Vegas, NV.
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 31, 2014 - 09:05am PT
|
I remember that crash, Chief. Can't imagine how bad that one was, an ugly scene for sure.
So we have been covering a lot of the bad so far, and it's true that there is often more bad then good. Any positive outcome tales would be welcome as well!
|
|
Seamstress
Trad climber
Yacolt, WA
|
|
|
Oct 31, 2014 - 11:28am PT
|
Always interested in hearing about incidents - and hope to learn from them.
We do a lot of searches and mountaineering accidents. I felt bad a couple of weeks ago when I couldn't go out on an overdue mountain climber. I had been on 2 of the four missions the week before, and there is a limit for how many times you can leave work early or show up late. 12 responded and went out that evening. The following morning, I am on the way to work. The pager goes off. I see that the mission is still going on. The coordinator tracks me down by cell phone. It is much harder to say no to a person. I turned around and went home to change, grab my pack, and took off with my husband to join the mission.
We met Incident Command on the forest road, set up to maximize communications. I see the plots of the team's work from the night before - nice new GPS tracking devices that work off the radio mikes. THey have run all the ususal search patterns. Hmmmm. We are briefed and held at the command post. This drives me crazy as it is a glorously nice day, and I took a day off from work (that I can't afford), and now I am just sitting here. A family member is nearby, so I am on my best behavior on the outside, screaming on the inside.
Brother is exchanging some text messages with the missing subject. Missing subject reports he is East of the route and standing near a cell tower high above treeline. There are no cell towers on the mountain. There are seismometers. All of them are above treeline, and four are close to the climbing route. A team in the field is redirected, and the young mountain goats confidently run to the site. He isn't there. Brother's last text says there is vegetation near the tower. My intuition is screaming at me, and I know where he is. I finally convince the command to deploy the next two teams to look at two seismic stations. (Command intended to hold us until the next site on the climbing route was searched again, then decide to deploy). I volunteer for the one West of the climbing route - there is more vegetation there, and the guy is lost - of course he doesn't truly know if he is East or West of the route.
My husband and I fly up the trail. We cover 4.5 miles in 1 hour 15 minutes, not too shabby. As I break out of the trees, I see the seismometer gleaming in the sun above the end of the trail and footsteps in the sandy wash leaving the trail, going up to the station. I holler, and a man jumps up next to the station. The subject is very happy to see us, and we give him food and water. It has been 22 hours since the young, inexperienced man was "lost" from his party.
Amazingly enough the searchers during the evening came very close to his position. Also, he passed over a trail twice, within 100 feet of a trail junction sign. Yet he spent the evening undetected. Why? As night fell, the winds picked up, and he took shelter in the trees. He crossed over a rugged trail and went down a wash, followed a trail, and slept near a water source. The hill and running water blocked the voices of the rescuers who passed over the round-the-mountain trail directly above his sleeping camp and directly below where he was found. As morning approached, he returned the way he came, not noticing that he trail actually crossed the wash instead of going up the wash. The trail junction sign was just out of sight of the wash and the seismic station.
It is always nice to get the "find". Our standard search patterns for our high frequency areas give us a very high degree of success in a short period. When a subject does something different, the find takes a lot longer. One common denominator of these longer missions is the proximity to water. Voices were traveling quite well all night, but not in that zone given the terrain and water. We have updated our search protocols for that area to extend the side trip to that trail junction to continue down the trail and search near the stream. Adding 30 minutes to that search pattern would have saved hours. Fortunately the night was warm - 45 degrees, dry. The subject had a sweatshirt, extra food, and no medical conditions.
Lost subject says he is east of the route next to a cell tower high above treeline near bushes = subject is 3 miles west of the route next to a seismometer a couple hundred feet above treeline surrounded by beargrass.
|
|
stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
|
|
|
Oct 31, 2014 - 12:52pm PT
|
10 or so years ago had a couple of 18-19 yr old guys that we knew from Seattle come down to visit us in SLC to climb.
I think it was late fall, about this time of year, and a halfway decent day, and they decided to do the Thumb up in LCC. Pretty easy multipitch, and these guys were 5.12 sport climbers and decent trad climbers, so should have been no problem.
They left mid-day wearing shorts and T-Shirts, as far as I knew, they were just planning to blast up and down.
Nightfall rolled around they hadn't returned. As it gets cold at night this time of year, I figured I should go look for them. Drove up to the parking area, saw their car was still there, but they weren't. Then hiked up to the base of the climb yelling for them. No sign of them and no answer.
About 11PM or so, and still no sign of them, started to figure this might be a real problem, so we called SAR. A little after midnight, the whole posse rolled up. Cops, FD, and SAR in their big staging RV. And they called out the AirMed helicopter with the big searchlight.
After another 30 minutes or so of searching on ground and via the chopper, my 2 friends wander out of the woods a couple hundred yards up the road. They were basically like "Dude, is this for us? We didn't hear you yelling." And by the generally stoned voice, and the smell on their clothes, it pretty quickly became apparent that the had gotten a little off track on the descent. Instead of continuing down, they just stopped, broke out the weed and got baked for a couple hours.
So all ended up OK, except for a small amount of embarrassment for me for calling out SAR on the two idiots, and a larger amount of embarrassment on their part, along with a major lecture from the authorities.
|
|
DI
climber
|
|
I was on YOSAR in the early 90's
Here's a picture of the rope system and man power to raise someone up El cap
|
|
Vegasclimber
Trad climber
Las Vegas, NV.
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 5, 2014 - 01:08pm PT
|
DI that is an awesome share! Thanks very much. Would love to hear any tales you would like to share of your time with YOSAR.
I was kind of surprised to see this thread make the ST newsletter, I think that's a first for me. Hope to see it continue with more tales and lessons.
|
|
climbingcoastie
Ice climber
Sacramento, CA
|
|
Had four construction workers stranded on top of a mountain after their camp blew away during a winter storm. Got the call about noon so I left work, grabbed my pack, and headed to the Troopers. It was decided that they would fly four of us up as high as possible in a civilian helo while a Coast Guard helo tried to get to them and bring them down.
We got dropped off about halfway up the mountain while the CG helo decided the winds and lack of visibility prevented them from continuing. We hiked for about three hours in a white out with winds gusting to 60+MPH. Once near the top we seen this huge glow about 200ft away. Turns out they were using a torch to heat a cement mixer to stay warm. Good idea except they din't have a vent. When we opened their tarp we almost passed out. Three were in there and the other was found alone in a tent buried in the snow a short distance away. Once we dug him out we decided we were going to walk down. It was a long, cold, wet walk! They started hallucinating and saying the funniest sh*t. We finally made it out about 6:00 or 7:00 am.
I received a call from one of their wives later that day. She was thinking me profusely when I told her "it was no big deal. I was having fun until about 3 o'clock" then silence. Oops, guess we viewed it differently. Cool part was the CG helo pilot stopped by to thank me and called us crazy for heading up there in those conditions. Again, it's funny how different people view things.
|
|
DI
climber
|
|
Vegas,
Thanks; Ya, it's nice to see this thread, because I think are good stories from both sides, the SAR team and people that have been rescued. I was on YOSAR 91-93 and intermittently after that until ~ 98 or 99...looking at this old pictures, what i remember the most is Werner and Mary Brawn, John Dill and Mike Ray taking me under their wings and really mentoring me in all aspects of rescue and climbing...I'll write more later when i have some time but attaching some more "back in the day SAR photos" [photo[photoid=385042]id=385043]
|
|
DI
climber
|
|
sorry don't know how to add more then one photo at a time
here's another
|
|
DI
climber
|
|
[photoid=385043]
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!