Local Search and Rescue teams having busy summer

“Most people know it could be them”

If you’re ever lost or stranded in the backcountry, rest assured Search and Rescue is ready to help. That doesn’t mean that you should take unnecessary risks; these guys are busy volunteers who have real jobs. But some of the best in the business are just a phone call away. You just need to get to a phone.

This season, the Gunnison Valley’s two Search and Rescue teams are getting a lot of phone calls, with the number of responses reminiscent of years past. “Oddly enough, 2010 was a below-normal year for us,” Crested Butte Search and Rescue (CBSAR) president Nicholas Kempin says. “This is more back to what we’re used to. But it was a busy ten days.”
In just over a week, mountain rescue teams from Crested Butte and Western State College have been called out to a high-angle response on the cliffs of Crested Butte Mountain to rescue a fellow team member, and searched for a man missing in the Taylor River. CBSAR even helped a group that allegedly included a U.S. Navy SEAL cross a swollen East River.
“They were at Rustler’s Gulch and the water really wasn’t that bad. There’s probably been plenty of people that have crossed it at the height it was,” Kempin says, chuckling. “Even though we kind of laugh a little bit at it, we don’t want people to cross a river if they’re not comfortable. It’s often when people have a lack of confidence that something happens. So we always take that seriously.”
Everything turned out for the best in Rustler’s Gulch, but the team was ready for the worst, and that takes time and practice. For the most committed team members, a place in mountain rescue is, as Kempin put it, “my other job—that I don’t get paid for.”
In Crested Butte, CBSAR roster numbers in the 40s and at Western State, where the Search and Rescue team is technically a college club involving members from the community, there are 35 active members who can commit several hours each month to training and potentially more time helping those in need.
Time is what it takes to gain the skills and knowledge necessary to do the job of mountain rescue and, according to Kempin and Western State College Mountain Rescue Team (WSCMRT) leader Chip Lamar, having small, dedicated teams helps them know who has what skills and how they can help.
“One of the advantages of having a small team is that we all know each other really well,” Kempin says. “There’s very little of ‘Who are you?’. We know everybody, so our team leaders know who can do what. Some of the bigger teams probably have a tough time doing that.”
Some of the bigger teams also don’t have the human-power CBSAR has, especially in the number of team members that are trained in some sort of medicine, from Wilderness First Responders to physicians.
“We are a bit more stacked on the medical end of things,” Kempin says, listing the team’s long list of credentials. “Everybody has a basic level of medical training, but our level of medical training is really high compared to other teams.”
The WSCMRT also has a super-human sense of smell on its side: Louis, a black Labrador retriever, is trained to track. Western State’s team, which covers an area nearly the size of Gunnison County including Powderhorn and the Black Canyon, has also found themselves being called on from out of county. “We just helped out with two different missions in Chaffee County,” Lamar says.
Cooperation is key in such a large area where so many people come to get out in the wilds. While both teams use similar techniques, as members of the Mountain Rescue Association, CBSAR and WSCMRT have found cell phones stepping in to fill a gap in the old way of communicating.
Now leaders from both teams can get text messages anytime a call for Search and Rescue goes out from dispatch. It’s an improvement from the pagers, Kempin says, although nothing can replace the people willing to answer the call.
While some of those people will have the skills necessary to do the job, training is always required and it’s often expensive. “Part of the [team’s] budget goes to training folks, so if someone wants to get a WFR [Wilderness First Responder certification, which can cost $600 and up], we can try to help them out,” he says.
Locally, Search and Rescue is a volunteer effort run on a lean budget. Donations from some of the people they’ve helped and others who understand the value of a capable mountain rescue team, along with a few local grants, make up CBSAR’s budget. With the money, the teams’ leaders have to administer and operate a non-profit organization.
“We’re a screaming deal for taxpayers,” Kempin says. “All of the money donated or granted to our organization goes to our core mission, and that is pretty much gas and equipment. There’s very little fluff in our budget and none of it goes to payroll.”
But since the 1960s for the WSCMRT and since the 1980s in Crested Butte, Search and Rescue has been dedicated to using the skills inherent in a mountain community to help others like them, who take to the hills and rivers looking for adventure, when they need it.
“Anybody that recreates in the outdoors out here should know that even for the most experienced outdoors person, there’s always something that can go wrong,” Kempin says. “Most people know it could be them.”