This is a reminder that the last big weekend for raffle ticket sales is this weekend.  Thanks to the awesome job Dave Pirtle has done with the raffle this year, we’re actually pretty close to selling out of tickets prior to the drawing on Sunday.  Speaking of the drawing Sunday, it would be nice to have a nice showing of orange at the time of the raffle around 3:00PM.

I would like to thank all of those who made the time to get out to the squad building and work on the yard.  Rain has been a very good thing this year, but it brought on a lot of growth around the yard that needed to be taken care of.  Special thanks to Cliff who has done a lot of mowing in the yard due to extra growth this year.

Various hunting seasons are upon us now through the rest of fall, and with cooler weather we’re liable to see an uptick in missions.  There have been a couple incidents on the radio but GCSO has handled them.  Keep in mind that even though the days are still pretty hot, it can get pretty cool at night especially at higher elevations.  Some of us were surprised a few years ago at just how cool it could get on a mission that turned into an overnight in the field.  It is always a good idea to check your gear frequently.  It wouldn’t hurt to make sure you have an extra fleece handy to throw into the pack – something to take the edge off in case a mission went overnight.

September has been a somewhat slow month for missions.  There have been a number of calls for our latest recipient of a Project Lifesaver tracking band in Strawberry, but in most cases he was found by neighbors and brought home before GCSO could respond.  Sgt Hudgens did respond once with the tracking gear and found him very quickly.

We were called out one night to assist with a hiker who got beyond his abilities on a hot day in Salome Canyon (North of Roosevelt Lake).  Sgt Hudgens hasn’t admitted this, but I suspect he informed the hiker that we would strap him to a metal litter and wheel him out – and with the ferocious lightning bouncing all over that night in that canyon, it provided him with enough motivation to hike out under his own power.  We staged at Punkin Center while Sgt Hudgens went to the trailhead to assess, and the hiker made it out shortly after he arrived.

This mission helped us further debug the OneCallNow system and their timezone issues.  I made a callout earlier in the evening that worked fine (Strawberry, Alzheimer’s guy before the tracker was put on him).  This one failed to go out, and I realized that it was 9:30PM AZ time, but 12:30AM Ohio time where the system is based – and sure enough, they still have a timezone bug in the system.  Fortunately, the mission was called off quickly and I was able to get back into the system to cancel the call – I have no idea what time that call would have gone out – either 12:30AM or 3:30AM AZ time.

Stay safe and stay ready.

Bill Pitterle - 500

Don’t forget; the meetings this month are September 12^th for the Board and
September 14^th for the General Meeting.

As volunteers, we sometimes allow our enthusiasm to overshadow our preparedness. Such was the case of my very first search; a lost hiker on the Barnhart-Shaketree trails loop.

I had only been a member for a few weeks when the call came to assist GCSO with a search for an overdue hiker in the Mazatzal Wilderness. I had my 16 year old son with me and we had not had any training but that is not an excuse for not using our heads or not being responsible for our own safety.

When we arrived at the trailhead at 7:00 AM, the only other SAR member present was our Commander plus the GCSO Coordinator. Now this was in March 1988 and our membership was less than 20, training was a sometimes thing, and equipment was pretty much non-existent. The Coordinator briefed us on the situation; a hiker had become separated from his companions on the west side of the mountain the previous day and they had all been back at the trailhead by dark. He had still not shown up at dawn so they called for a search. We were asked to hike up the Shaketree Trail, follow the Divide Trail to the Barnhart and then down it back to Base Camp. A simple enough plan and on the map looked to be easy to accomplish. This was my first time in the Mazatzals and I was looking forward to the experience.

The Commander handed us two radios and asked us to call in our location periodically. He asked if we had food and when we informed him not, he gave us some granola bars that were kept in the Squad vehicle for just such a time. Being fully prepared, we thought, we embarked on our trek. We knew we had to keep moving but we also needed to watch for signs along the trail of places the subject may have slipped, fallen or otherwise walked off the trail.

Now, if you are not familiar with the Shaketree trail, let me digress; this trail takes you from the trailhead of about 3500 feet to an elevation of over 6000 feet in approximately 5 miles. There are no downhill sections and few that are close to level. The views are fantastic and the mountain is magnificent. This was the middle of the week and we had the trail to ourselves, other than one helicopter that checked us out, we were all alone. It was assisting in the search and was making sure that we were searchers, not the subject. That is one of the main reasons we wear bright orange. When the Shaketree meets the Divide Trail, we are nearly on the top of the mountain and can see all the way to Phoenix and that trail is relatively level as it follows the top of the Mazatzal Range from one end to the other.

By the time we got to that junction we had lost radio contact as we had the bulk of the mountain between us and Base Camp. We also had tried the granola bars and found them to be stale and we realized the most critical item that we had overlooked when we headed out; water! Neither of us had a container of water so we were reduced to drinking the snow melt that was running in some washes. Now the recommendation for all water in the wilderness is to not use it without purifying it in some way. Well, I can tell you we drank a lot of it on that mountain and had absolutely no problem, not that I would advise it but we were blessed that day.

When we reached the junction of the Barnhart Trail we had dead batteries in one radio and weak ones in the second. We finally made contact with Base and were directed to head down the Barnhart to them, still no sign of the subject but it was late in the day and we would be running out of daylight soon. It was nearly dark when we arrived and the second radio was dead so we did not find out until then that the subject walked out to a ranch in Rye. He had followed the Divide trail north until he saw the ranch below in the valley and then hiked down off the mountain. He was OK, just hungry and dehydrated.

The lesson learned here was to prepare and double check your supplies prior to hitting the trail. We hiked 17 miles that day in 11 hours and it could have been a disaster had the weather turned bad or if one of us was injured. We weren’t and we were blessed, but you should not allow yourself to be placed in the same situation.

Mike Taylor 502L

 

Tonto Rim SAR Members can now have your very own email address through our site. Just contact our Webmaster at Mail for the TRSAR Webmaster  to arrange for it, no cost to you or us.

We are promoted and you’ll also find our newsletter on the Rim Country Volunteer site;
http://www.inpayson.com/TRSAR-Payson-Rim-Country-Area.htm