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