Commander’s Corner

The relative quiet of the previous month was replaced with a very active month for TRSAR with eight missions total.  Yet, we are probably very lucky in that the weather has been very pleasant for most of the month, with quite a bit of rainfall.  That has eliminated some of the early dehydration and heat related missions we frequently see in May, where folks are caught off guard by the suddenness and intensity of the heat.  We’ll still see some of this, I’m sure – but other missions have made up the difference in the meantime.

 Ira and his wife Roz hosted a great potluck get together for TRSAR.  Unfortunately, it was interrupted by a rescue in lower Fossil Creek.  For the ones who made it, the food and company were great – Thanks Ira and Roz!

  Recent Mission Summaries: 

 05/03/09 – Houston Loop trail – Mom, Dad, and 5 yr old son hiked the Houston Loop trail network.  They did not realize that it did not loop right back to the Houston trailhead on the 199 rd, so they got caught out far from their vehicle late in the afternoon, low on water and food.  Several quads ran the trails until we found them and returned them to their vehicle.

 05/09/09 – Lower Fossil Creek – Backpacker hit in the head by rocks kicked down from mountain sheep.  They were in a remote location – 6.5 miles in on the 591 road, then 5 miles and 2000 feet elevation down the 17 trail at lower Fossil Creek.  Fortunately, DPS Ranger was able to land nearby and evacuate the injured subject.

 05/09/09 – Chaparral Pines – Woman suffering from Alzheimer disappeared from her home in Chaparral Pines.  PD searched for a while, and then we were called in along with DPS Ranger (the same DPS Ranger crew that helped earlier in the day at lower Fossil Creek).  We dispatched teams to search around homes and vacant lots in a radiating pattern from her house.  A search team found her about 3 blocks from her home on the back porch of a home.

 05/20/09 – Deer Creek Trail – Subject hiked out on the Deer Creek trail, intending to return on one of the other trails after joining it near Mt Peeley.  The subject lost the trail and ran out of food and water trying to locate it.  He called when he felt the odds stacking up against him.  We were called and met at the Deer Creek trailhead.  Our plan was to dispatch teams to hike the trails from each direction.  DPS Ranger arrived on scene as we were about to dispatch, and was able to locate the subject several miles off trail and west of our search area.  DPS Ranger was able to extract the subject.

 05/24/09 – Fossil Creek – Subject suffered leg injury near Irving Power Plant.  Pine-Strawberry Fire was on scene, but requested our help either moving subject across the river, or by rope haul up the almost vertical stream bank.  We elected to do rope haul up about a 30 foot embankment to the road.

 05/25/09 – Hellsgate Trail – Female hiker accosted by bears several miles in on the Hellsgate trail.  Game and Fish went out initially on quads, and after a hasty search called for TRSAR for assistance.  Just as we were about to dispatch teams onto the trail network, the female hiker showed up at the trailhead.

05/25/09 – Tonto Natural Bridge – Subject fell and reportedly had a back injury.  Pine Strawberry Fire requested our assistance in getting her out on the litter.

 05/26/09 – Arizona Trail, Oak Spring – Backpacking subjects were reported overdue at Pine Trailhead.  We dispatched teams in to Oak Springs on 4 different trails that all meet there.  Most teams arrived at about the same time to find the subjects not planning to be out until the next day – a miscommunication with their pickup.

Stay safe and stay prepared.

Bill Pitterle – Commander, #500

STAY TUNED:

We are preparing a web page for Rod Cronk on the website so we could more easily share some pics Rod has sent. 

 Don’t forget; the meetings this month are June 9th for the Board and June 11th for the General Meeting.

Be sure to read the Rants and Raves article this issue.

June 2009 Training & Events Schedule

13 – Jun (Sat) Tracking Certification CANCELLED – enjoy the Strawberry Festival

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17 – Jun (Wed)           First Aid – Time: 1700 – 2100

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20 – Jun (Sat) Rope Training – Time: 0800 – Place: TBA – Instructor: Roger Miotto

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2 – Jul (Thu)   YES Program – Time: 0930 – Place: Community Child Learning Center (800 W. Main – Payson)

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Planned Training Sessions ( Coming this Year)

11 – Jul (Sat)  Night Tracking – Time: TBA – Location: TBA

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15 – Jul (Wed)   CPR – Time: 1700 -2100

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16 – Sept (Wed.)  CPR – Time: 1700 – 2100

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Planned           Navigation Training – Compass and GPS

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Planned               Mock Mission

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Planned               ATV over night ride   120 miles

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?       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:

P        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

Active: Members wishing to remain on active status must attend at least three official Squad functions per quarter of the calendar year, as well as two training exercises per six months of the calendar year.

Reserve: Members who wish to remain on reserve status must attend at least one official Squad function per quarter of the calendar year as well as one training exercise per six months of the calendar yea

Squad Web Site:  www.trsar.org

Laws that are still on the books

No person is allowed to chew tobacco without an M.D.’s permission in Connecticut.

While Fishing in Berkley, California, it is illegal to smoke.

It is illegal to smoke a pipe after sunset in Newport. Rhode Island.

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Business Cards for Active Members

All active members are permitted to have business cards with your SAR info on them. If you do not have them yet, or if you have used up the ones you had, contact Mike Taylor to place your order. They are nice to have when you are doing any Squad activities, and the best part is they are free. A common use for them is to hand out to family members of the search/rescue subject.

Email miket@trsar.org or call 978-8009.

Computer Tips, Techniques, Rants, Raves, and Netiquette

Submitted by Les Hulse

This is the last regularly scheduled column for the Computer Rants and Raves section. There may be an occasional article at times in the future, but the monthly article is now history.

So, why is this happening?

My current PC operating system is Windows XP patched to the Service Pack 2 (SP2) level. Technical support for XP from Microsoft ended in April of 2009. Current scuttlebutt says that security patches will still be available until 2014.

I am currently using Windows XP Pro and have no intention of “upgrading” (Microsoft’s terminology) to the Vista operating system. In fact, over 65% of computer users running XP have not moved to Vista. When it was released, the Vista system was notorious for running slower than XP, taking considerably more space on the PC, not allowing many peripherals (printers, scanners, etc.) to operate correctly, and imposing a user authentication system that was just plain bad. Although some of these problems have been fixed, the general attitude is to just ignore Vista and see what comes next.

 When I purchased my last PC (January of 2008), I paid a little more to have XP installed on the computer rather than Vista. This is still a valid purchase option with many computer makers (as of May of 2009), so this in itself is a telling comment on Vista.

 The next version of Windows – called “Windows 7” at this writing – has now been released to selected users for beta testing. This means that they get to work with a new system, do some evaluating, and help to uncover things that might be wrong. However, there is no guarantee what the final release from Microsoft will look like as yet, or if they will even respond to user comments. The scheduled release time is projected to be early in 2010.

 I know many of you already have Vista PCs. Hopefully you did not encounter major problems and hopefully you are happy with your systems.

 However, after doing a little research this last week, I noted that the PowerToys I mentioned in the last article are not available for Vista – and installing the XP version on a Vista PC may cause problems. There is a free program for download called TweakVI for Vista users, but it was not written by Microsoft (maybe a plus) and I have no idea if it works correctly.

 I have also learned that Vista does many tasks differently from the way XP does things. So any instructions I might give on “how to do it” may not work at all for Vista users – and will probably not work with Windows 7 when it is released either.

 So I have decided to stop writing regular computer articles (based on Windows XP) for the newsletter - since they will get more out of date with each passing month. This decision can be changed to an occasional "topic on demand" for the future (articles on topics suggested by readers à no suggestions = no articles) provided there is feedback from readers.

 So … it has been fun and I hope you have gotten a little something out of these columns.

 Stay safe out there … Les

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.

 Other SAR items

Another Lesson Learned

Seems like every rescue we go on, there is another lesson to be learned.  The last rescue we went on was to look for a couple of hikers on the Arizona trail outside of Pine.  The father of one of the two hikers called in reporting that they had not returned by their 1000 Tuesday deadline.  The search was started around 1500 on Tuesday.  A good response by the squad allowed Sgt. Hudgens to send teams into the area via 4 different directions.  Teams 1 and 2 went in via the Walnut trail off of Hardscrabble Road.   Team 1 included Hal and I with Claudia and Karen making up Team 2.  As we were hiking in, we used our whistle every 300-500 yards.  Periodically we also called out the subject’s names though not as often.  After getting to the intersection with the Arizona Trail, the teams split up with Hal and Claudia heading to Oak Springs and Kathy and Karen heading up the Arizona Trail.   Hal and I were talking by radio.  Bill found the subjects in Oak Springs very close to where Claudia and Hal had been.  Apparently Hal and Claudia had been so close to the subjects that the subjects could hear Hal talking on his radio but were just out of view.

In this case we were looking for someone who did not know they were the subject of a search.  So they had no need to alert anyone of their presence.  Apparently the subjects had told their father that they planned to return by 1000 on Wednesday, not Tuesday.  If anything they may have felt the need to keep their presence hidden from all of the whacky folks blowing whistles in the woods that afternoon.

So the lesson learned is to call out the subject’s name as you are hiking thru the area while on a search.  We used the whistle with the reasoning that the sound carried further and the subjects who wanted to be found could hear us better.  But in this case where you may be looking for someone who does not know they are being looked for, calling out their name is also helpful.  So in the future, I will use both the whistle and calling the subjects names with more frequency.  What will I learn at the next mission?  Can hardly wait to find out.

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

Humor me

A young boy enters a barber shop and the barber whispers to his customer, 'This is the dumbest kid in the world.   Watch while I prove it to you.'

The barber puts a dollar bill in one hand and two quarters in the other, then calls the boy over and asks, 'Which do you want, son?'

The boy takes the quarters and leaves the dollar.    

'What did I tell you?' said the barber.  'That kid never learns!'

Later, when the customer leaves, he sees the same young boy coming out of the ice cream store & says: 'Hey, son!  May I ask you a question?   Why did you take the quarters instead of the dollar bill?'

The boy licked his cone and replied, 'Because the day I take the dollar, the game's over!'

Thanks to those who contributed to this issue of the newsletter. 

Mike 502L 

miket@trsar.org