“We should have brought snowshoes,” I gasped as I climbed over another deadfall and plunged into the snow on the other side. “Yeah, I know,” said Mark, sheepishly. SJ had just let us out of the General, a sheriff’s office UTV, that we had thought would shuttle us, warmly and comfortably, all the way up to the top of Miner’s Creek Road. We believed we would be about 300 yards from our subject at that point, according to her GPS coordinates. A cardinal rule of search and rescue is to plan for the unexpected, and we hadn’t done that. There was a tree across the road and that was the end of our warm, comfortable ride. I was too embarrassed to tell Mark the rest of my story at the time. I wasn’t just lacking snowshoes. I was wearing lightweight trail shoes that weren’t even waterproof. We’d been post holing…
The piercing tone of a cell phone text message woke me from a dead sleep. I peered at the clock; 3:15 am. That could only be a rescue…
On Monday, two hikers from Michigan went missing on Mount Holy Cross, near Vail Resort. They were last seen at an altitude of 13,300 feet, close to the…
I stood in the deep, untracked snow between the edge of the snowmobile road and Turkey Creek ravine, because from there I could see everything: the crew on…
Last Friday, a man named Kevin was hiking Quandary Peak with his fiance. Just as he approached the summit of the 14,000 foot Colorado peak, he collapsed and died…
I sat in Rescue 3, pouring over maps with Mark Svenson for perhaps the third time that morning, frustrated that I couldn’t seem to find a job for…
Published by the Summit Daily in 2008 You could call Dan and Glen the odd couple, if you were so inclined. One of them always approached things analytically,…
Published by Summit Daily News, 2006 I looked at my watch for the third time in fifteen minutes. Four o’clock. My toes hurt from gripping the narrow ledge…
We could see the Flight for Life helicopter circling above, looking for a landing spot. There’s always something more exciting about a rescue when the chopper shows up;…
When I arrived, it seemed like the entire county was there; Sheriff’s Office deputies, Red White & Blue Fire Department, the ambulance service. No one seemed to want…
Published by the Summit Daily in 2007 I had never been so cold in my life. After a couple hours of riding, getting stuck, digging out and riding…
Published by Summit Daily News on 10-14-2008 My hair was half cut when the pager went off. “All available search and rescue members, report to the Peru Creek…
It was Matt’s first mission, and all things considered, I thought he was hanging pretty tough. He and Mike James and I stood in a football huddle, bent…
“Is your name Kenneth?” I asked, kneeling beside a stupefied-looking man sprawled across the trail. I was careful to keep a certain distance; we’d been told that the…
We were standing at the bottom of the American Flyer lift, chattering excitedly about our end-of-season party, when the call went out. A few of the women from…
When Shawn got up and went out for more food, I nabbed his seat. I’d been eyeing it for a while—it had a small heater underneath it. We…
When we arrived in Rescue Three, lights still flashing, the crowd of Chaffee County rescuers and Sheriff’s Office personnel standing in clusters on the dirt road looked up…
Everyone was too busy to talk to me when I arrived, but it was easy to piece together the chain of events. The woman they were working on…