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Guest Article
Decision It was Friday afternoon and we had just come back from a week of camping on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. We had decided to come home early, as the week proved to be a wet one, soaking every bit of our equipment as well as ourselves. We got up early Saturday morning to begin the process of drying our wares. By mid-morning, we had laid out our tent, bed roles, and various packing gear for the sun to dry. We were right in the middle of everything, when a fellow-friend called to invite us for a hike up to Indian Point. After a week of wet camping, and a morning of setting out our gear, we declined. The fellow was persistent, telling us how he had been to Indian Point a couple of weeks before, and described how beautiful it was. After the third plea, we decided to join him. Early Sunday morning we headed out and arrived at Indian Ridge just a little before daylight. We drove the jeep down Indian Ridge into Indian Canyon, then up to Rose Quartz Mine where we parked. My buddy and I decided to hike to Little Grand Canyon, while the other fellow decided to go on his own up to Indian Point. It was not unusual for him to go on his own, as he was very familiar with the country and well adapted to do so. As we started on our hike the sky was clear with beautiful sunshine. Everything was sweet. After a couple of hours, clouds started to roll in a bit. We stopped and contemplated about returning to base or continuing on to Little Grand Canyon. With only about one mile before reaching our destination, we decided to continue on. When we got to the edge of the canyon we saw all the bright green trees, the various formations, the multitude of color. As we stood at the canyon’s edge we noticed big clouds rolling in, so we decided to head back to base. About ½ mile into our return hike, we came into fine mist rain. A short distance more, the mist turned into light snow. Soon winds picked up a bit and shortly after that the wind chill factor began to increase. Light snow became heavier snow; becoming so heavy that we couldn’t see much more than ten feet in front of us. We knew this country well and knew if we stayed on the ridge we would drop into Indian Canyon. Traveling in the heavy snows made us disoriented to distance. At one point we thought we had reached the point of dissension into the canyon, but soon realized that we were coming off the ridge so we had to climb back up. We would make this mistake a number of times before recognizing the outcropping of rocks that marked the beginning of the dissension trail into the canyon. As we started down into canyon we could smell smoke from base. Our other fellow had built a fire under a monstrous cottonwood tree. He had found an old automobile hood from the Rose Quartz Mine and was using it to deflect the heat from the fire. As all of our camping equipment was laid out on the lawn drying, we did not have any extra clothing or supplies. We visited for a while as we warmed ourselves. We asked the fellow about his hike, but he remained very quiet, which was not his nature. He just sat there with his hand under his arm. After more questioning, he revealed his hand, which was wrapped in a blood-soaked bandana. He explained how he had slipped on the snow and skimmed his hand across a piece of quartz. The center of his palm looked as though a razor blade had sliced it from the base of his fingers down to the base of his wrist. After looking at his cut and surmising the problem we knew that we had to wrap the wound to stop it from bleeding. We ripped our own clothing to make the desperately needed bandages and tied off the wound the best we could. Again, we sat next to fire to warm ourselves. By this time, however, the fellow was becoming somewhat aggravated as he insisted he must get out. The pain from his hand, and the blood-soaked bandage was making him almost hysterical. We tried to calm him by telling him that we must stay be the fire to keep warm. We tried to convince him that by doing this we would not experience any problems. He kept on insisting on getting out, wanting to get to the jeep. We told him that there was no point in getting to the jeep because it would be of no use, as it would just get stuck. He became very anxious and adamant. To appease him we agreed to hike to the jeep. Once we reached the jeep, we pointed out to him that the road had a 40- degree grade with a 15-degree tilt towards the canyon. We tried to reason with him that we would surely slide off the road that was now covered with two inches of snow. He became very agitated so we got into the jeep and began our ascension. Sure enough, after driving about 100 feet, we slide off the hill into the canyon. Again we tried to reason with him that the best option for us was to return to our base camp, where our fire would surely still be burning. He adamantly refused. We then suggested that we camp under a huge Mountain Loral that we had come upon. It would offer us heat and protection. No doing. We decided to continue walking on. The wind picked up to 20-25 miles per hour, bringing heavy snows with it. It was becoming blizzard conditions. With every step we tried to convince him that it would be in our best interest to return to base camp. There was no reasoning with him so we continued on. The snow made us slip on the rocks. We began losing the feeling of our ears, our noses, our fingers. Frostbite was setting in. Four to five miles down canyon I knew the road was close. I told the boys to keep walking and I would walk on ahead to get to the road and attempt to flag someone down. I warned them not to leave the base of the canyon, or they could be lost. When I reached the road, I found that it was covered by two feet of snow. I was determined to stand in the middle of the road and stop the first car that was to come my way. Meanwhile, the boys had made it to the road and we all rested under a bridge. When I heard a car coming I made my way up to the road. I knew that the car would be traveling slowly due to the snow. I also decided that I was going to stop that car or it was going to run over me. I knew that I was either going to get hit or freeze to death. I thought it was better for one to die being hit by a car, than by freezing to death. As the car approached, I was not certain if it was going to stop. But again, I was not going to move. The car did stop and the driver asked if we needed help. I told him that we needed help on it, as one man was injured and all of us were very cold as hypothermia was setting in. We crawled into the back of the station wagon, thinking all was well. You can well imagine how we felt when the car started down the road and the cold wind began blowing into the windowless wagon. But, we still welcomed the ride home. Upon our arrival, we were shivering beyond control. It took a good six to eight hours before we came back into being normal human beings again. To think, this all took place in the lower desert of Arizona where snows are rare, and the events were results of the decisions we made.
John Avery
January 2007 Training & Events Schedule
Planned Training
Sessions ( Coming this Year)
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10-Feb (Sat) Tracking Exercise – Time: 0900 – Place: Corrals on Houston Mesa Road – Les Hulse in charge |
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Apr (Sat-Sun)
SAR Academy – This is a mandatory classes for the ones
who haven’t taken it – any member |
| Planned Navigation Training – Compass and GPS |
Requested Training
Sessions
If you would
like to volunteer to run a training session, or if you have a
training session request contact
any Board Member or Don Johnson.
Italics = Sign-up required to attend this training
* See following notes:
To reserve use of squad ATV, contact Don Johnson at 928-474-5335
Jacket, gloves, boots, helmet, and eye protection required to
operate Squad ATV
Comments From the Board
Even the Best Don’t Always Come Home
Extreme temperatures – either hot or cold can be very unforgiving if you are not prepared. Growing up in the Valley of the Sun, there were always stories every year of people expiring out in the desert – lost or stranded without proper provisions or knowledge. My mother, a Canadian, learned from a young age to “go prepared” for any trip AND have extra for an emergency. Our trunk always had emergency supplies just in case we broke down on our numerous adventures across the Southwest. She applied the idea of extreme cold temperature survival skills to the desert she was transplanted to in her twenties – only it was now heat, not cold, that would pose danger.
My siblings and I grew up learning the ways of the desert with occasional cold weather tips and practice on short vacations to snowy northern Arizona. My mother was much more wary of taking 3 children to snow country alone than she was of venturing across the desert – “shade and plenty of water can keep you alive for quite awhile”. In cold weather the body needs a lot of calories just to generate the heat needed to keep body functions working. More provisions were needed to safely navigate cold country – she found it less forgiving. It made sense, but I never did the research to prove individuals passing due to cold exposure versus those passing due to heat exposure. I would imagine they really aren’t all that different.
Staying together and a means for signaling help were discussed on every adventure. I think we were more careful before all the technological advances (cell phones, satellite phones, personal ELTs, helicopters etc) improved communications and rescues if we did run into trouble. Maybe we place too much confidence in these items to be there before our resources run out.
As we know, though, even going prepared may not be enough to survive Mother Nature’s beautiful “off the pavement” adventures. The recent Mt. Hood tragedy brought one thing very loudly once more to me that I always reiterate to my students as well as my own children – go prepared as if you may get injured and can’t hike out as expected. We rescue so many individuals that have not prepared for nightfall or more than the day or two hike they were on. The mountaineers on Mt. Hood were very knowledgeable and most likely capable of self-rescue – but the weather proved too powerful and hampered rescue efforts. Even those who know how to do it right don’t always make it home. Mother Nature’s forces can prove to be just too powerful. The best and most beautiful challenges are sometimes our last.
My prayers go out to the
families of those individuals who spent their final hours doing what
all of us with adventurous spirits just have to do. I think we all
felt the frustrations and sadness of the rescuers unable to go out
because of storm conditions. Unfortunately, we are only human.
Margaret Bullard #545
Board Member - Secretary
Don’t forget; the meetings this month are January 9th for the Board and January 11th for the General Meeting.
Commanders Corner
Another year has gone by in the world of Search and Rescue. Les Hulse’s database shows we had 22 missions this year. Although it started out fairly busy with several tough missions, it has been uncharacteristically quiet for the last several months. It could be an anomaly. It could be that with more widespread usage of cell phones and GPS’s, folks are less likely to get into trouble, and more likely to be able to get help on their own if they need it. But a slow period is no reason to let our guard down, or let our training lapse – we will be out again, and we will have tough missions again.
We did have one last mission this year. An airplane went missing Monday, December 19, somewhere between Winslow, Chandler, and Henderson, Nevada. No ELT was detected. CAP, DPS Ranger, and some federal assets (Blackhawk helicopter) searched until late Friday, Dec 23rd, when the plane was discovered on the side of a steep canyon east of Rock House (southeast of Young). Since it was difficult access, Terry requested two rope team members (Bill Pitterle and Roger Miotto) to fly to the site and protect it overnight until GCSO could get a detective out there. We went out Friday night, then assisted GCSO most of Saturday in documentation and recovery.
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The newspapers have covered a couple of high-profile searches recently – and there are good lessons to be learned from these missions. A very high-profile mission was the Kim search in Oregon. It would appear there was some lack of coordination and lack of communications throughout that operation. Of course, hindsight is always 20-20, and the media unfortunately will sometimes gloss over some facts, and highlight other facts, in the interest of making a more interesting story – so you have to read between the lines to guess what really happened during the search. I have driven through that country several times. It is full of winding, twisting, logging roads, and in a snowstorm, it would be easy to make a number of wrong turns and get completely twisted up. Most folks would not have any idea how harsh winter can be in the coast range of Oregon, where many feet of snow can fall from a single storm. When the Kim’s were first reported missing, there was at least a 4 county area where they could have been. That would be tough there, that would be tough here. Where do you start? Especially since they have now been trapped for several days during bad weather, with more bad weather holding down search planes, helicopters, etc. It is easy to cherry pick through the dozens of mission debriefs (as one newspaper seems to have done) and find a couple of clues that ultimately were the “right” ones to have followed. How many “wrong” clues, wrong tire tracks, etc were also reported by search teams?
A couple of key items I gleaned from the various news reports about this search:
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Oregon does not appear to have a State coordinator for Search and Rescue like we do here in AZ. That alone would have helped with the communications and coordination issues. |
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Training, observing clues and mission debriefs are important – especially if you have a central coordinator responsible for analyzing and connecting the dots. |
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It is very easy for data to be misunderstood and misconstrued and cause embarrassing credibility issues. This shows the importance of good training and professional execution whenever we are on a mission. |
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Our own state search coordinator, James Langston, received some public backlash during the December airplane search – very possibly due to the widespread embarrassing publicity caused by this search. The family, during a news interview, claimed he wasn’t doing enough to find the plane. The problem is that there was no ELT signal from the plane, and where it was ultimately found was very rugged terrain with few roads and limited access. |
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Another high-profile case occurred on Mt Hood. Those were really tough conditions for the rescuers. Some will say the climbers should not have been there. That’s a tough call. Mt Hood is the most climbed glaciated peak in the world, and it is a training ground for challenging peaks all over the world. Some climbers seek it out during the winter, and in particular during rough weather, for training for much tougher climbs in other parts of the world. In this case, even though the climbers were competent, the odds stacked up against them and eventually beat them. The lesson from this one is that the hard training required of the various Mt Hood rescue teams involved in this search kept the rescuers safe despite incredibly difficult conditions on the mountain.
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I would like to thank all of the squad members who have contributed in so many ways to the success of the squad this year.
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The missions are always the visible part, the part many of us join for. |
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Participation in trainings helps all of us. |
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Success of fundraisers this year was due to tremendous efforts by many squad members. But a special thanks goes to those members who do the lions share of the behind the scenes logistics – making sure the booths are set up, tickets are printed, funds are counted, thank you cards are sent out, etc, etc, etc. |
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And then there are those who contribute with little fanfare in so many of the day to day mundane but necessary maintenance, yardwork, cleanup, construction, fixing, etc… |
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Publishing this newsletter! |
It wouldn’t work without all of
you.
THANK YOU!
Stay safe and stay ready.
Bill Pitterle - 500
Computer Tips, Techniques, Rants, Raves, and Netiquette
submitted by Jack Quinn and Les Hulse
Last month we mentioned that every computer user should have an up-to-date anti-virus program and a firewall on his PC for the basic protection. Most people know what an anti-virus program is, but quite a few users do not know what a firewall is.
Well, let’s see if we can explain it in easy terms. This is a very simple analogy.
Let’s pretend that your house is your PC and that there are burglars (think virus, Trojan horse, malware, identity stealers, etc.) operating in the area.
If you leave home and do not lock the doors and windows, this is what your PC is like connected to the Internet without a firewall. Anybody, or anything, can easily get in using many different ways and will probably leave no signs of entry.
Putting a basic firewall program on your PC is like putting security doors and windows on your house and locking them. Yes, an intruder can still get in, but it will take a good bit of work to do so without leaving evidence. All the doors and windows are what the firewall considers “ports” – any way to gain entry.
So what about you, your family, friends, and anyone else you give a key to your house? This is your “good guy” list, and these people should be able to get into and out of your house if they have a key.
When your PC is connected to the Internet, the firewall allows “good” programs access to the world and your PC. Examples of good programs are your Internet browser, anti-virus update programs, and Email programs.
So, let’s take this one step further. Suppose someone you do not know comes calling on your front doorstep. Do you immediately let him in for a nice talk in your living room? Most people will not take this step until they have at least talked with the person for a few minutes at the door and then judge whether the person is a good risk.
This is what a firewall does with Internet communications – it looks things over to make sure that something bad is not coming in with anything entering your PC – and a good firewall will block the bad stuff (think malicious software, spyware, etc.).
Does this make things a bit clearer?
Now, no matter how we try to prevent it, sometimes a bad program gets on your PC. Maybe you got a diskette or CD from a “friend” and it contains malicious software. When you put it on your PC, the PC becomes infected. Normal firewalls do not check your CDs or anything you use inside your house – they just monitor connections.
The next time you connect to the Internet, the malicious software on your PC tries to send your personal information to a “bad guy” somewhere out there. A good firewall prevents this information from being sent – unless you authorize it – and also prevents bad software from sending copies of itself to other PCs.
The reason we suggested using a different firewall than the default Windows XP firewall last month was due to this example. The current Windows firewall only checks things coming into your PC – it does not check anything going out!
We hope that this very simple explanation of a firewall helps you to understand how it works and why you should be running one on your PC. If you have any questions, please send them to the editor and we will answer them in a future issue.
Question: Do any of you find this section useful?
We can rant and rave about many topics, but do not know if it is appreciated. Also, we will most likely choose topics that “tick us off” and ignore the ones that you may be interested in. We can give you our opinion on just about anything (opinions are cheap).
So let us know if this section is useful, and if you would like us to tear into some topic, just tell us.
Send any comments and/or suggestions to the editor; Mike – address at bottom of newsletter.
Website
Tonto Rim SAR Members can now have your very own email address through our site. Just contact our Webmaster at jack@jackswebs.com 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
Un-Related SAR info
Suspected Bomb Turns Out to Be GPS
Nov 17, 2006
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) - A small black object that was found attached to the bottom of a woman's Jeep and prompted an evacuation of a three-square block area on Friday wasn't a bomb after all. It was a tracking device planted by the woman's husband.
A temporary shelter was set up at the Queen of Peace Church to house the 45 people who had been evacuated, while authorities investigated for more than two hours.
After learning the woman and her husband were going through a divorce, detectives learned that the woman's husband had hired a private investigator. He admitted attaching the tracking device to the woman's Jeep, Maynard said.
Bomb technicians used a robot to confirm the box was indeed a Global Positioning System device, Alachua County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Stephen Maynard said.
The names of the woman and her husband were not released.
Thanks to those who contributed to this issue of the newsletter.
Mike 502 editor@trsar.org
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