Randy is in trouble.
He’s not moving. He’s weirdly wedged into the bottom of a 150-foot gorge, near the edge of boiling, constricted whitewater.
Luckily, there are more than 60 search-and-rescue experts from across the globe on the rim of the minicanyon on Black Gore Creek east of Vail. And they are all working to rescue Randy, a 200-pound dummy.
The gear-laden men and women, in town for the country’s first international mountain rescue symposium, labor diligently as a team to rig a super-safe system across the canyon. Together they weave suspension ropes and taut backup safety ropes through a complex maze of pulleys and knots to create the new Kootenay Highline rigging and hoist system. The innovative design allows rescue teams to hoist and dangle two men and an emergency litter into the center of the canyon, without stressing any rope within a 10th of its breaking point.
“Oh, wow. Wow,” says Tom Clemants, a Vail Mountain Rescue volunteer, leaning around a tree and into the canyon to watch the complicated system absorb its load. “We’ve done this a bunch of different ways, but this is the sweetest. What a cool system.”
It’s rare that a search-and-rescue team would use such a complicated, labor-intensive rescue rigging. But since the Kootenay system uses just about every piece of rescue gear and every knot and safety precaution in the book, it’s the ultimate in technical training.
That’s why nearly 200 volunteer mountain searchers and rescuers from around the world gathered in Vail last weekend. The rescuers from Poland, Romania, China, Israel, Sweden and across North America spent four days exploring the art of mountain search and rescue.
“The chance for us to observe and learn from other teams is invaluable,” says Bob Armour, a 17-year rescue buff with the Vail Mountain Rescue, whose 60 members logged 60 missions last year totaling 2,000 man hours and 1,400 man hours training for those missions. “When you arrive at an incident, it is not the time to learn how to set up a rescue.”
With swollen backpacks and gear belts clanging with dozens of shiny toys and tools, the benevolent rescuers scoured a massive cave for lost spelunkers. They searched through the night for lost mountain bikers on Vail Mountain. They saved Randy the dummy from certain saturation. They competed in a multidiscipline adventure race that included staged rescues. They practiced nearly every type of rescue situation, swapping techniques and strategies for saving endangered lives in the hills.
“Sometimes you can get tunnel vision working with one group,” says Scott Erickson, with the Alaska Mountain Rescue Group in Anchorage. “There is a ton of experience right here, and we’re seeing different ways to do things,” he says as he studies the knots used in the Kootenay rigging system.
“I have three books that will tell me how to do this, but to come here and touch it and see it in action is the best,” says Erickson’s colleague Doug Wessen, with Alaska’s Juneau Mountain Rescue.
Savior story hour
During downtime between rescue scenarios, the family of saviors swapped tales. Erickson and Wessen stunned their counterparts with a story of three helicopters – one ferrying tourists and two with would-be rescuers – crashing on the Juneau ice field. The Vail team regaled colleagues with their efforts during the infamous A-10 Thunderbolt crash in the Holy Cross Wilderness in 1997. Dozens recounted perilous searches for lost or injured snowmobilers, hunters and skiers in the deepest corners of the world’s most remote mountain ranges. Many, with their heads shaking, tell of foresight-challenged hikers, skiers and inner-tubers who get themselves into easily predictable trouble.
“There are lots of people who you might question their judgment, but accidents do happen, and that’s why we are here,” says Armour, noting a single precaution could often deter the need for a rescue: “Don’t go out by yourself.”
Sometimes their stories ended brightly, such as the time Vail rescue team members with the worst news were at the door of a despondent family when jubilant searchers cackled over the radio that the 68-year-old mother and grandmother had just been spotted from a helicopter after a fruitless five-day search.
“That was an incredible search, one of the best we’ve ever had,” says a proud George Feinman with Vail Mountain Rescue.
Their adventure stories always included complex technical-speak heavy with acronyms, much like banter between grizzled war veterans.
“We get to do stuff no one else gets to do,” says Chuck Clover, a 17-year veteran with the Central Arizona Mountain Rescue Association in Tempe. “We go in caves and play in swiftwater and swing from mountains. And best of all, you get a chance to make a significant impact on someone’s life – and let me tell you, that is the greatest feeling in the world.”
Staff writer Jason Blevins can be reached at 303-820-1374 or jblevins@denverpost.com.
