What is SAR (Search and Rescue) and how to not become a customer - part 1

A Mountain Rescue Story

SAR overview

Let's talk about search and rescue, and how to not become a "customer". This discussion is going to take a few posts and I'll try my best to do this over the next few days. Essentially, it's about how we can reduce the risk of bad things happening. Unfortunately, bad things happen to good people and the risk cannot be eliminated. Even the most prepared and experienced can have a bad day, however, being well experienced and properly equipped will drastically reduce the likelihood of having this bad day. No one plans on spending the night waiting for help until they do.

Perhaps the best place to start this is by walking through the "typical" reasons why folks get into trouble on the trail. Yeah, there are outliers and crazy situations, but these are the most common. Here we go and in no particular order:

-No map/getting lost: This is true whether you are going to a new destination or your regular hike. Have a map. Not your phone, as phone batteries die and service fails, but an actual paper map. USGS quads are ideal, but even one printed from your computer that shows the trails and surrounding area is better than no map.

Put a copy of the map in your car, under your floormat or in the glove box with your route marked. If we need to look for you we will get into your car and see what information we can gather. Knowing where you may be helps you out a lot.

After rescuing hundreds of hikers who got sideways I always asked them to show me, on their map, where they became misoriented. Maybe one person had a map and was able to point out what happened. The others just looked at me like I had two heads, as they had no map to show.

-Injury: This is typically in the form of a lower extremity musculoskeletal injury and most common is the sprained ankle or knee. We'll get in to first aid in a future post. How do we prevent this? Proper footwear helps. Fitness helps. Unfortunately, gravity sucks and folks can just roll an ankle.

-Biting off more than they can chew: How do get good judgement? Experience. How do we gain experience? Bad judgement.

To get more experience you need to push limits. Just do it in a reasonable, rational way. Fitness matters. Make a plan, stick to your plan. Be honest when you say that you know your limits.

-Starting too late: Whether it's heat or dark, starting too late and running a bit off schedule can lead to an unexpected night out. Plan your trip, stick to the plan. Have an understanding of what your actual pace is and build in stops, problems, and such.

-Not having the 10/12 essentials. This will be broken down in a future post.

-Not checking the weather. A few years ago we responded to a group of Boy Scouts snowed in out in the Supes (The Superstition Mountains, east of Phoenix). Their leader, a "Navy Seal" (don't let titles like this translate to experience) didn't check the forecast yet the rest of the world knew we were in for a monumental storm. We were called out after they were reported overdue and another SAR organization wasn’t able to locate them. Fortunately, the DPS helicopter spotted their tents and and we snowshoed/skied in (yes, skis in the Supes) and found nine boys, their adult leaders, soaked and hypothermic in broken tents (the tents weren't four season and couldn't hold up to the snow and wind loading). We fed them, got them dryish, and hiked them out.

-Water: more on this later. If you are half way through your hike and you have half of your water left, it's time to go home. Don't get "go fever" and press on. Just turn around, go home and come back another day.

-Groups not being on the same page. If you are going out in a group, choose a leader. Make decisions as a group and stay together. If members of the group hike at different paces, you get to hike at the pace of the slowest member. Put the slowest towards the front and don't let the rabbits run out ahead.

We responded to a mission to search for an older man who went on a hike with an organized group. All were "experienced" hikers yet half of the group was faster and half was slower. The faster half went ahead to the destination, the slower half dragged behind. Our customer was somewhere in the middle so was hiking, essentially, alone, between the groups. When the slow group met up with the fast group, at the destination, the customer was nowhere to be found. After a day of searching we discovered that he had taken a wrong turn and his body was found by members of our team the next day. Yeah, people can die in the backcountry. Nature is a strict teacher.

-Terrain: This can include tougher terrain than expected leading to being on the trail longer than planned or being trapped by terrain. Heading down a dead end canyon, getting cliffed out or crossing a stream only to find that the water has risen since you last crossed. This happens more often than one would think and even to "experienced" adventurers.

A father and adult daughter hiked Vulture Peak, just outside of Wickenburg, Arizona. They reach the top to watch the sunset and then, in the dark they start heading down what they think is the trail. They zigged when they should have zagged and found themselves on a 3 foot wide ledge that dead ended and it started to rain and grew dark. They tried to reverse course but couldn't find a way up and the rock was getting slick from the rain. With no headlamps or rain gear they hunkered down and were able to get a call to 911. We responded a couple of hours later and performed a technical rescue, getting them to the top. They were hypothermic, soaked and hungry, but alive. A quick snack, some warm drink and makeshift rain coats (Large Hefty bags with holes cut for their faces) we hiked them to the trailhead as the sun rose.

Nearly all problems are preventable. Some aren't.

I hope this is helpful as the main objective is to provide knowledge through other people’s (including my own) mistakes. There seem to be a LOT of new outdoor adventurers and Mountain Rescue does not need new customers.

More to come....

Oh, the main rules of hiking:

1-Have fun

2-Have fun

3- Be safe

The author spent twenty four years as a Rescue Mountaineer with Central Arizona Mountain Rescue/Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office Mountain Rescue. He served as Recruit Training Officer, Team Training Officer, Chair of several operational committees and about a dozen years as Team Commander. He participated in about 1,500 missions over the course of his career. All volunteer. All unpaid.