Cold Powder and Avalanche Rescue Training

After a big warming event earlier this week it quickly cooled off and snowed, bringing 6-9 inches of unusually dry powder snow to the cascades.  Friday evening Molly and I skied with a friend at Stevens Pass. We primary stayed to the groomed runs but we could tell the snow was dry and light.

Today I met up with five other Seattle Mountain Rescue folks at Snoqualmie Pass for some backcountry skiing and avalanche rescue refresher training.  It was one of those remarkable winter days that doesn't come often to the cascades: fresh powder, blue skies, and a stable snow pack. Our ski tour took us up to the base of Chair Peak and then down rolling slopes to Snow Lake where we looped back to Alpental Valley.  What a great tour!

Skiing At Stevens Pass

Beacon search practice

 

Alpental Valley

Chair Peak

Heading back across Snow Lake

Ski season is here!

The ski resorts are not yet open but there is plenty of new snow to be found in Washington. Today I spent the day with other volunteers from Seattle Mountain Rescue looking for two missing snowboards in Mount Rainier National Park. It was a great day to be on Mount Rainier, especially because the snowboarders were found and were okay after spending two nights in a snow cave.

While the skiing was nothing great, in fact if was fairly wet and awful, it WAS skiing. I never took my ski skins off all day, partially because the conditions were so bad, but also because I had a heavy pack with half a litter and a climbing rope in addition to my personal gear.

Packing in rescue equipment

We all fell down a lot

Despite the challenging conditions there was a lot of laughs and smiles as we enjoyed the first skiing of the season.  This was especially true on way back to camp knowing that the two snowboards were alive and healthy.

Mountain Rescue Prime Time

Molly wrote about our camping trip last weekend, but what she didn't mention was my bonus hike on the way home. For Seattle Mountain Rescue, Saturday and Sunday afternoons during the summer are by far the most common time for injuries in the mountains. The most common type of injury being a lower leg and the most common location being the I-90 corridor.
 
Sure enough as we drove west towards Snoqualmie Pass on Sunday afternoon I got a message about a hiker with a broken leg on Bandera Mountain. I was only about a half hour from the trail head and had all my hiking gear with me. The girls dropped me off at the trail just as another SMR volunteer arrived with the rescue truck. I strapped half the litter to by pack and headed up the trail.  I was with two other SMR folks and there was one more already 10 minutes up the trail.

It took us a little over an hour to hike the 2.5 miles. The trail climbed a few thousand feet but was in good condition for the most part. Only the last three hundred feet to the injured hiker were steep and rocky.

Once onsite I assisted with splinting the woman's leg using a sleeping pad. It was quite obvious that it was broken but she was handling it quite well and had good circulation to her foot.

We used some large boulders nearby to build anchors and then used ropes to lower the patient in the litter a few hundred feet to where the trail leveled out. At that point a wheel was attached to the litter so we move down the trail at a steady pace. About twelve volunteers showed up to help, it was just about the right number of people. I think we had the woman to the trail head about 5 hours after we got the message.

The woman and her husband were extremely grateful for our help. I was glad I could be there and that I could be on site early and help with all aspects of the rescue. Thanks to my fellow SMR volunteers who took these photos.

Lower the patent down the steep section

Working the belay line

Alpine Climbing and Happenstance Rescues in the Cascade Mountains

North Cascade National Park with Mt Triumph in the distance

Liberty Bell Mountain, Washington Pass

Ryan W. on the first pitch of The Tooth

View from the summit of The Tooth

Last weekend my friend Ryan and I enjoyed some amazing weather while hiking and climbing in the Cascades. We drove to the north cascades on Friday, slept at the trail head, and had big plans for climbing Mt Triumph. Unfortunately because of a permit issues in the North Cascades National Park we ended up changing plans, but not before we had hiked five miles in and climbed 3000ft.  After returning to the car we headed for Washington pass and climbed a short alpine rock. But we were further delayed after we came across a 60 year old hiker who was traveling alone and suffering from asthma. He was not too bad off but definitely a little scared, so after hiking in 1.5 miles we turned around and walked with him back to the trail head.  

On Sunday we headed out again to climb a local peak called The Tooth near Snoqualmie Pass. The climbing was great and we were treated to hot sunny weather while lower elevations were clouded in. On our descent from the peak we came across of pair of climbers were were clearly having trouble. The second climbing couldn't make it up the climb and the rope was in such a way the she could not be lowered back down. Again Ryan and I jumped into action placing both members of the other team on belay and safely lowering the woman back to the bottom on the climb.  

After two unoffical mountain resue missions in two days, we got a message for an official Seattle Mountain Rescue mission while on our hike out from The Tooth. Ryan and I hurried back to the car and drove down from Snoqualmie Pass to the base of Mt. Si where we joined other people from Seattle Mountain Rescue and Explore Search and Rescue.  We were part of the sixth team to head in but after hiking about two miles in we found the subject was doing fine and everyone hiked out again.

While enjoying an a large helping of Mexican food with our SMR friends that evening I added up our miles and elevation - 25 miles and approximately 8000ft of elevation in two days.  It is no wonder I could hardly get out of bed Monday morning!

Rigging for Resuce Training

This weekend was the annual Rigging for Rescue (RFR) training for Seattle Mountain Rescue (SMR).  As members this is biggest chance to review our technical rigging skills before we have to put them to use.  I have yet to be on a mission that requires technical rigging but after a year with SMR and my second time through RFR I now feel ready.  Rigging in a rescue scenario is quite different from your average day rock climbing. It is very important to be familiar with the methods and equipment so your team can operate as safely and effectively as possible.

In a mountain rescue situation our goal is usually to get the subject off the mountain and deliver them to definitive medical care a quickly as possible.  This means we do a lot of lowering using gravity to our advantage.  Mountain rescue has an extremely good safety record.  This it largely do to the way we operate out systems, redundancy and safety factors are key.  It takes quite a few people to operate a rigging system; for most systems more than five rescuers is ideal.

I don't want to bestow any bad luck on anyone out there but I am hoping I will have a chance participate in a technical rigging mission this year.  I really enjoy the nerdy physic part of it and also just want to put my skill set to use.

Eagerly leaving the parking lot under clear skies

Rescuer practicing loading a subject into a little while on a cliff face.

Rigging a little to be lowered

A passengers prospective

A lowering device called a SCARB anchored to a tree

Mountain Rescue at Mt. Rainier National Park

Mount Rainier National Park has had more than its fair share of trouble this winter.  First the tragic shooting of a park ranger and then a huge storm system which resulted in seven missing people from four separate groups in one weekend.

The first person to be reported missing was a snowshoer who got separated from his group and ended up spending two nights out but was found alive and OK in a nearby canyon.  Search and rescue (SAR) groups from all over the state were called into help with this search.  By the time I went down to the park on Monday there were over 90 SAR personnel including nine from Seattle Mountain Rescue.

It was amazing that the snowshoer was found alive but it was just as amazing that during the search two additional lost hikers were found that had not been reported missing. They had been caught in the storm and spent two nights in a snow cave before hearing the whistles and calls of SAR personnel and being guided to safety.

Our satisfaction in finding three people is somewhat overshadowed that the fact that there are four additional overdue campers and climbers higher up on the mountain.  Weather conditions have make it very difficult to search for the missing people.  On Wednesday the Park requested a small team of strong and skilled skiers from SMR to join a small group of mountain guides.   We packed up and drove to the park in an SMR vehicle Tuesday night.  After a 6am briefing we followed the snow plow from the Longmire ranger station to the top of the road at Paradise.  It took us about four and half hours to climb the 5000ft up to Camp Muir at 10,100 ft.  It was raining at Paradise but most of the way up it was snowing sideways with winds around 30mph near camp Muir.  We highly suspected we would find someone or some sign of the people at camp Muir, but instead we found nothing.  After warming up in one of the shelters, most of us headed back down to Paradise.  Two of the mountain guides spent the night in the shelter at Camp Muir. During a short break in the weather yesterday morning they searched, but conditions didn't permit them to go far. The weather has also been too dangerous for any helicopter searches (Seattle Times article here).

If it is safe to do so, the search may continue this weekend but warm weather, wind, and additional snowfall has resulted in continuously high avalanche danger.

Mountain Rescue Effors Revitalized

Fall colors

When I joined Seattle Mountain Rescue last spring, I was expecting to participate in many of the search and rescue missions that happen during the peak summer season.  However, my work and travel in southeast Asia left me unavailable.  As a new member I am asked to participate in at least five missions with in the first year of membership.  As of fall I had only been on one mission and was concerned about meeting the minimum requirements by next spring.  I have also discovered that it can be difficult for me to respond to missions that happen during the work week.  This is not because I have an inflexible schedule but rather because I usually ride the bus or bike to work resulting in a rather slow response time.  There are many other SMR members who live closer to the mountains and are readily available to respond to missions.

Fortunately there are more ways to volunteer with SMR than responding to emergency missions.  The last two Saturdays SMR has been asked to assist the Bellevue police department and King County Search and Rescue search for a missing child.  I have been there both weekends, happy to volunteer my time.

With winter rapidly approaching I am looking forward to some great winter training opportunities with SMR and perhaps a few interesting search and rescue missions.  Last spring a got a pair of used skies put together with some bindings that I think will be ideal for wintertime missions.  They are light enough to not be overly burdening but tough enough to handle most terrain.  The skis have full metal edges, fish scales in the kick zone but are also fitted with light weight ski skins.  With snow falling in the mountains it won't be long before we are out enjoying winter.

First Search and Rescue Mission

At around noon on Sunday my phone starting buzzing with messages about an injured hiker on Mailbox Peak. The county was requesting assistance from all the search and rescue groups including Seattle Mountain Rescue (SMR). I have been receiving messages from SMR for a few weeks now but have been unable to respond to missions because the county had not yet issued my Department of Emergency Management (DEM) number. I was a little bummed I could not help out because I didn't have any other plans and it wasn't a bad day to be in the mountains.

Amazingly later that afternoon I got an email from one of our chairmen with my DEM number. At that point they were no longer requesting more people although the rescue was still ongoing. At 7 pm with the sun setting and a few thousand more feet of elevation to go down, additional people were requested to assist with the rescue. I rushed out the door and was at the trail head within an hour of the request. I met up with other responders and we headed up the trail.

Mailbox peak is a notoriously steep and treacherous trail. Rescues on this trail are correspondingly grueling. Despite the full moon, the thick forest was compeetly devoid of light. We used out headlamps to follow the narrow trail through the woods. Soon we could hear the rescue party above and before long we could see dozens of headlamps as rescuers guided the subject in the litter down the trail.

It takes an amazing number of people to get one person out of the mountains safely. The litter rides along on a single bicycle wheel while four people guide it and ropes are used to slowly lower the litter down the steep sections of the trail. It is tiring work and with all the trees and rough terrain many people are needed to pass the litter along and keep things moving. It is a constant game of leap frog. It might seem chaotic if it wasn't for the fact that it works. I have to say that this was an excellent first rescue mission for me. It was very satisfying to see the ambulance leave the trailhead with the victim knowing that it if wasn't for the dozens of search and rescue volunteers things could have turned out very differently.