We've been searching for over a month now for an elderly gentleman who went on a day hike up above Oakhurst, CA in the Iron Lakes area. The staging area is only 21 miles from Oakhurst but it takes 1.5 hours to drive it. Needless to say the road is a little rough.
I'm taking Terran and Tioga (the dog) up there again tomorrow, not really to search but to search. It's really frustrating when a search turns out bad but even more so when one turns out with no real resolution.
Updates later this weekend ...
Friday, August 29, 2008
Friday, May 9, 2008
Survivorman
I've been watching the show Survivorman on The Science Channel for some time now. It's got an interesting premise. The host, Les Stroud, spends 7 days/nights in remote areas around the world taking with him just a bare minimum of equipment.
While watching a Fresno Grizzlies baseball game recently, I received a call from Search and Rescue saying that Survivorman would be filming an episode and had requested our participation. I thought to myself - Why Not?
I fully expected that the job of Search and Rescue would be to provide some eye candy to the camera. Little did I know.
After having a killer breakfast with my dad at Pete's in Oakhurst I headed to the S.O. There I found that we were actually going to be doing a "mock" search for Les. The scenario was that he had gone on a short hike, spent the night and not returned in the morning.
Before beginning the actual exercise, the producer of the show briefed us on what the film crew would be doing and thanked us for all coming out. Now I've gotta say that if you want to get a large turnout for a search, being famous will help immensely, there were more searchers at this mock SAR than I've ever seen on a real one. But I digress.
I was placed on a team that included a dog handler, a dog and myself. We were given our assignment and headed out to begin searching. Working on a dog team is quite different than working with just foot searchers. You have to be conscious not to get in front of the dog, you let the dog lead you, you end up going up and down hills quite a bit.
We made our way from Chilkoot campground down to Willow creek in about an hour. When we got to the creek a helicopter began to circle around us. Over the radio I heard that the pilot had detected a mirror flash and he was going to check it out. At this point I figured that Les had likely been "found". I radioed into Command to let them know that the helo was circling about 500 yards from where we were but that to get to it we would need to cross Willow creek. Now it's springtime right now and the babbling brook that is Willow creek in the summer is more like a raging river so crossing it was not really an option. Command responded that we should hike back up to the road and a vehicle would take us to a drop off point on the other side of the creek after which we were to make our way to the coordinates of the flash.
Great. We had just finished hiking down a pretty steep canyon, now we had to go back up. Once we finally got back up to the road we were picked up by the Sergeant in charge of the search and taken to a drop off point on the other side of Willow creek.
One of the things that I've learned in SAR is how to use a compass, map and GPS. Thank goodness for that skill. We plotted the position of the coordinates given by the helo onto a map and started out. For the first 1/2 mile it was very straight forward, just walking along an abandoned lumber road. Once we got to a certain spot on the road we headed off cross country. The dog was working back and forth but did not pick up a strong scent. I continued to yell "Les" and whistle. After coming up over a small rise we came into a large open area. I yelled again and this time there was a response. Since we were actually a dog team we decided that we'd let the dog make the actual initial contact so we approached Les in a manner that would let the dog pick up the scent and be "rewarded" with a find.
Once we "found" him he turned on his camera and asked a number of questions about SAR and dog handling. A short time later one of the other teams met up with us and we all headed back out. When we finally got back to the road the producer of the show as well as the camera crew was there. They did some more interviewing and then we all packed into the support vehicles and headed back to base.
I was really impressed with Les and the entire crew. They were very professional but also very friendly and willing to answer any questions we had. I think I've probably exhausted my 15 minutes of proverbial fame now but I did get a cool baseball hat and T-Shirt out of it.
While watching a Fresno Grizzlies baseball game recently, I received a call from Search and Rescue saying that Survivorman would be filming an episode and had requested our participation. I thought to myself - Why Not?
I fully expected that the job of Search and Rescue would be to provide some eye candy to the camera. Little did I know.
After having a killer breakfast with my dad at Pete's in Oakhurst I headed to the S.O. There I found that we were actually going to be doing a "mock" search for Les. The scenario was that he had gone on a short hike, spent the night and not returned in the morning.
Before beginning the actual exercise, the producer of the show briefed us on what the film crew would be doing and thanked us for all coming out. Now I've gotta say that if you want to get a large turnout for a search, being famous will help immensely, there were more searchers at this mock SAR than I've ever seen on a real one. But I digress.
I was placed on a team that included a dog handler, a dog and myself. We were given our assignment and headed out to begin searching. Working on a dog team is quite different than working with just foot searchers. You have to be conscious not to get in front of the dog, you let the dog lead you, you end up going up and down hills quite a bit.
We made our way from Chilkoot campground down to Willow creek in about an hour. When we got to the creek a helicopter began to circle around us. Over the radio I heard that the pilot had detected a mirror flash and he was going to check it out. At this point I figured that Les had likely been "found". I radioed into Command to let them know that the helo was circling about 500 yards from where we were but that to get to it we would need to cross Willow creek. Now it's springtime right now and the babbling brook that is Willow creek in the summer is more like a raging river so crossing it was not really an option. Command responded that we should hike back up to the road and a vehicle would take us to a drop off point on the other side of the creek after which we were to make our way to the coordinates of the flash.
Great. We had just finished hiking down a pretty steep canyon, now we had to go back up. Once we finally got back up to the road we were picked up by the Sergeant in charge of the search and taken to a drop off point on the other side of Willow creek.
One of the things that I've learned in SAR is how to use a compass, map and GPS. Thank goodness for that skill. We plotted the position of the coordinates given by the helo onto a map and started out. For the first 1/2 mile it was very straight forward, just walking along an abandoned lumber road. Once we got to a certain spot on the road we headed off cross country. The dog was working back and forth but did not pick up a strong scent. I continued to yell "Les" and whistle. After coming up over a small rise we came into a large open area. I yelled again and this time there was a response. Since we were actually a dog team we decided that we'd let the dog make the actual initial contact so we approached Les in a manner that would let the dog pick up the scent and be "rewarded" with a find.
Once we "found" him he turned on his camera and asked a number of questions about SAR and dog handling. A short time later one of the other teams met up with us and we all headed back out. When we finally got back to the road the producer of the show as well as the camera crew was there. They did some more interviewing and then we all packed into the support vehicles and headed back to base.
I was really impressed with Les and the entire crew. They were very professional but also very friendly and willing to answer any questions we had. I think I've probably exhausted my 15 minutes of proverbial fame now but I did get a cool baseball hat and T-Shirt out of it.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Lost in the snow
OK, short story long ...
So I got a call on Friday morning requesting 4x4 searchers, the only info we had was that a family had gone up to the snow on Thursday and didn't come back. No one knew where they had gone. It could've been Yosemite, Shaver Lake, Bass Lake or Fish Camp. No one knew for sure. There was a suspicion that they had gone up near Fresno Dome ( above Oakhurst ) since this was a place the father liked.
I didn't make it to the Sheriff's Office (SO) in time for a decent 4x4 assignment so I drove the perimeter of Bass lake looking in campgrounds talking with anyone I saw but nothing came of it. Oh, and it was raining; really really really hard.
Came back to the SO and hung out waiting to be reassigned. Just happened that I came back just as the camera crews were showing up. This lead to my 5 seconds of fame (http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/media?id=5872695).
At around 4:00pm the Sheriff basically called the search for the day. We had searched all the roads as far up into the back country as the 4x4s could get and no one was seeing any fresh tracks. We were told to stand down so I headed down the hill towards Fresno. I made it about 10 miles down and then thought to myself, "What if these guys are trying to walk out down one of the 2 roads back into the high country". I turned around and went back to the SO and told the search coordinator that we might want to place vehicles as far up the roads as we could get and just spend the night. I had all the gear I needed so this seemed like a pretty good idea. She spoke with the deputy in charge and he said to hold off for a bit because there were some new developments. Apparently a couple of snow mobiler's had come across a vehicle matching the description of the subjects vehicle but they did not see anyone. We needed to confirm this new information so the deputy sent a team of 3 in, including me.
The team, packed into a MONSTER Jeep and headed up Sky Ranch Road towards Fresno Dome where the sighting had occurred. Another team had already been up that road but was unable to make it to the location of the reported sighting. The thought was that with the vehicle we were in we could make it considerably further. We headed up and got into some very nasty snow/slush. 4x4s in snow are one thing but there was 2 feet of snow and it was raining making it very slushy and nasty. At about the point that the previous team had turned around we ran into a couple of snow mobiler's and they told us that there were 6 people stranded about 5 miles from where we were. The description of the vehicle and the people gave us a pretty good feeling that we had located the family. We made it to within 2 miles of Fresno Dome but then hit a wall of snow that was impenetrable. We tried for about 1/2 hour to get further but finally decided it would be best to stay put and call in for snow mobile support.
While we waited for the snow mobiles to come in we walked about 1 mile up the road hoping that we could find the family ( yeah yeah, I'm a glory hog ) but we finally turned back not wanting to become more "subjects".
After about an hour two deputies showed up on snow machines and headed on up the road. The idea was to have them get 2 subjects and bring them down to us then go back and repeat the whole operation until we had all 6 in the Jeep. At this point the rain had turned to very heavy snow so we wanted to get them out ASAP. Unfortunately there was also a tree down across the road that had to be removed in order for the snow machines to get all the way up to the vehicle. Fortunately we had brought a chainsaw with us just in case. When the third snow machine made it to our Jeep we strapped the chainsaw onto it and gave the detective the go ahead. He made it as far up the road as were we got stuck and then sank up to the seat in slush. I didn't realize it originally but the snow was knee deep there and a small creek was underneath. Pretty sad when the rescuers need rescuing. Anyway we finally extricated the stuck machine and he was off to pick up another subject.
When the first 2 snow machines returned they had the twin kids with them. We packed them into the Jeep and headed down to a waiting ambulance at Calvin Crest camp. The kids and puppy were very happy to be in a warm vehicle and heading back to civilization. I'm happy to say that no one was severely injured and everyone is now back home.
Anyway it all turned out great and yet again I find myself really loving Search and Rescue
http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/media?id=5872695
http://www.fresnobee.com/263/story/301115.html
http://www.fresnobee.com/263/story/302014.html
So I got a call on Friday morning requesting 4x4 searchers, the only info we had was that a family had gone up to the snow on Thursday and didn't come back. No one knew where they had gone. It could've been Yosemite, Shaver Lake, Bass Lake or Fish Camp. No one knew for sure. There was a suspicion that they had gone up near Fresno Dome ( above Oakhurst ) since this was a place the father liked.
I didn't make it to the Sheriff's Office (SO) in time for a decent 4x4 assignment so I drove the perimeter of Bass lake looking in campgrounds talking with anyone I saw but nothing came of it. Oh, and it was raining; really really really hard.
Came back to the SO and hung out waiting to be reassigned. Just happened that I came back just as the camera crews were showing up. This lead to my 5 seconds of fame (http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/media?id=5872695).
At around 4:00pm the Sheriff basically called the search for the day. We had searched all the roads as far up into the back country as the 4x4s could get and no one was seeing any fresh tracks. We were told to stand down so I headed down the hill towards Fresno. I made it about 10 miles down and then thought to myself, "What if these guys are trying to walk out down one of the 2 roads back into the high country". I turned around and went back to the SO and told the search coordinator that we might want to place vehicles as far up the roads as we could get and just spend the night. I had all the gear I needed so this seemed like a pretty good idea. She spoke with the deputy in charge and he said to hold off for a bit because there were some new developments. Apparently a couple of snow mobiler's had come across a vehicle matching the description of the subjects vehicle but they did not see anyone. We needed to confirm this new information so the deputy sent a team of 3 in, including me.
The team, packed into a MONSTER Jeep and headed up Sky Ranch Road towards Fresno Dome where the sighting had occurred. Another team had already been up that road but was unable to make it to the location of the reported sighting. The thought was that with the vehicle we were in we could make it considerably further. We headed up and got into some very nasty snow/slush. 4x4s in snow are one thing but there was 2 feet of snow and it was raining making it very slushy and nasty. At about the point that the previous team had turned around we ran into a couple of snow mobiler's and they told us that there were 6 people stranded about 5 miles from where we were. The description of the vehicle and the people gave us a pretty good feeling that we had located the family. We made it to within 2 miles of Fresno Dome but then hit a wall of snow that was impenetrable. We tried for about 1/2 hour to get further but finally decided it would be best to stay put and call in for snow mobile support.
While we waited for the snow mobiles to come in we walked about 1 mile up the road hoping that we could find the family ( yeah yeah, I'm a glory hog ) but we finally turned back not wanting to become more "subjects".
After about an hour two deputies showed up on snow machines and headed on up the road. The idea was to have them get 2 subjects and bring them down to us then go back and repeat the whole operation until we had all 6 in the Jeep. At this point the rain had turned to very heavy snow so we wanted to get them out ASAP. Unfortunately there was also a tree down across the road that had to be removed in order for the snow machines to get all the way up to the vehicle. Fortunately we had brought a chainsaw with us just in case. When the third snow machine made it to our Jeep we strapped the chainsaw onto it and gave the detective the go ahead. He made it as far up the road as were we got stuck and then sank up to the seat in slush. I didn't realize it originally but the snow was knee deep there and a small creek was underneath. Pretty sad when the rescuers need rescuing. Anyway we finally extricated the stuck machine and he was off to pick up another subject.
When the first 2 snow machines returned they had the twin kids with them. We packed them into the Jeep and headed down to a waiting ambulance at Calvin Crest camp. The kids and puppy were very happy to be in a warm vehicle and heading back to civilization. I'm happy to say that no one was severely injured and everyone is now back home.
Anyway it all turned out great and yet again I find myself really loving Search and Rescue
http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/media?id=5872695
http://www.fresnobee.com/263/story/301115.html
http://www.fresnobee.com/263/story/302014.html
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