By Maisie Ramsay
Chaffee County Times reporter, July 3, 2014
No man left behind.
It’s an expression Chaffee County Search and Rescue-North takes to heart, though not always as visibly as during last fall’s search for missing hiker Gene George.
The hunt’s base camp looked like an impromptu military setup, minus the barbed wire and guns.
Men in uniform spoke clipped sentences over hand-held radios. A helicopter was preparing to land in an empty field, touching down just long enough to take on passengers. Nearby, a fleet of emergency and civilian vehicles lined the road, their drivers ready for action. Men pored over maps inside a mobile command center.
This was the fourth day of searching for George, a 64-year-old man who went missing during a hike near Mount Harvard.
By this point, crews had scoured 70-square miles of rugged backcountry terrain with every tool at their disposal.
They brought in helicopters, dog teams, men on horseback. More than a hundred volunteers from six counties participated in the search.
Still, no sign of George.
The mission was still ongoing when a massive rockslide at Agnes Vaille Falls killed five people and seriously injured a teenage girl. Chaffee County Search and Rescue diverted resources to recover the slide’s lone survivor and its five victims, three of whom were members of a local family known to many of the rescue volunteers.
This was just one week in the lives of Buena Vista’s local search and rescue team, a week that took a heavy emotional toll.
“The rockslide was the hardest thing I’ve done in my 30 years of law enforcement,” said undersheriff John Spezze, who directed the search and rescue operations as overall incident commander. “I still think about it a lot … it’s a huge responsibility to make sure we get those victims back to the family members.”
Search and rescue missions take not only dedication and physical strength, but compassion for the survivor, the victims and the victims’ families.
These aspects are part of every mission, no matter how large or how small.
Introducing the SAR team
Chaffee County Search and Rescue has two separate divisions for each end of the county. Chaffee County Search and Rescue-North handles missions in the Buena Vista area, while Chaffee County Search and Rescue-South handles missions around Salida.
The groups work under the umbrella of the Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office, but don’t get much in the way of county funding. The county covers some of their bills, local businesses make contributions, the Department of Local Affairs reimburses some costs, fundraising adds more money to the pot and the rest comes out of volunteers’ pockets. Search and rescue does not charge for missions.
“We don’t want people not calling, so we don’t bill for services,” Spezze said.
The work can be time-consuming, exhausting and dangerous. Volunteers climb mountains, brave blizzards, ply the waters of the Arkansas River.
CCSAR-North already dispatched teams to more than 15 missions this year before its busy season even started.
Backcountry missions are hard but enjoyable work for CCSAR-North volunteers.
“It was kind of a natural fit to be on search and rescue because I love being in the outdoors so much,” CCSAR-North treasurer Clinton Bellingar said.
The 35-year-old Buena Vista native says CCSAR-North merges his outdoorsmanship with his desire to contribute to the community, a common sentiment among CCSAR-North members.
“If you don’t like it, it’s not going to work for you,” Bellingar said.
Bellignar has been with CCSAR-North for about 15 years. The best part, he says, is “knowing that you’re doing something to give back to the community, and the people who visit the community.”
Search and rescue volunteers give back in spades.
Their missions range from straightforward walk-outs of hikers with sprained ankles to technical recoveries of injured victims, such as the January rescue of a man who fell 800 feet off Mount Princeton.
CCSAR-North president Dave Noltensmeyer estimates the group goes on between 40 and 60 missions each year, with the “busy season” starting Fourth of July weekend.
More visitors, more victims
Chaffee County has become an increasingly popular destination for visitors seeking to summit the area’s 14 fourteeners, paddle the Arkansas River and go on off-road adventures.
The tourism industry’s growth has been a boon for the local economy. It’s also meant more business for search and rescue.
“Every year it’s getting busier. We’re doing missions in the middle of winter,” Spezze said, speaking from a county-wide perspective.
The missions have not just grown in quantity, they’ve grown in complexity.
Difficult missions involving helicopters, dozens of volunteers and dangerous terrain are becoming more common. The January rescue on Mount Princeton took 30 people, and the May rescue of a backcountry skier on Mount Huron also used substantial resources. Both required Flight for Life helicopters.
CCSAR-North vice president Hans Albrecht reports that while the organization is “seeing an increase in wannabe mountaineers,” they’re also responding to accidents where the victims have significant experience.
“They’re pushing themselves. They don’t want to take the normal, easy way up,” he said.
Take the rescue on Mount Huron, for instance.
The two backcountry skiers knew what they were doing. Both were Army Rangers, one was retired and the other was still on active duty. “They had done everything we want people do to. Their fiancés knew where they were going, they had the right gear, they had a plan. Unfortunately, accidents can still happen,” Albrecht said. Robert Burns and Kyle Brengel had hiked to the summit of Huron, planning to take advantage of stable spring snow for a ski descent. The pair was skiing down when they were blinded by the sun. Unable to see a fast-approaching dropoff, Burns skied off a 25-foot cliff.
Burns “basically landed on flat ice and pancaked. He was in critical condition, unconscious,” Albrecht said. Brengel activated a SPOT device to call for help.
CCSAR-North got the call.
“It was a bad weather day, the snow conditions were horrible. We couldn’t use an ATV, we couldn’t use a snowmobile,” Albrecht said.
A Flight for Life helicopter was launched from Frisco, but flying Burns to the hospital wasn’t a simple matter.
The helicopter first had to wait for a break in the weather. When one finally came, the pilot had only a “small” window of time to land and get Burns to safety.
“When I’m talking small, I mean minutes,” Albrecht said.
The pilot successfully retrieved Burns, who was transported to Saint Anthony’s Hospital in Denver. His condition was listed as critical.
Making ends meet
Difficult, highly technical missions like the Mount Huron rescue have become more frequent. The volume of visitors is rising, and among them are more experienced outdoorsmen seeking new challenges in Chaffee County.
“The missions we’re going on, compared to years past, our older members don’t remember the technically challenging rescues we’re doing now,” Albrecht said.
In response, CCSAR-North has stepped up its training.
“The biggest reason is safety,” Albrecht said. “We want to make sure our volunteers are as safe as possible. We’re asking these folks, who do not get paid, to put their lives on the line.”
Team members are trained in the National Incident Management System, basic first aid, CPR and mission-specific areas such as tracking. CCSAR-North also has specialized teams to handle swift water rescue, avalanche zones and vertical rock.
CCSAR-North is also pursuing accreditation through the Mountain Rescue Association, an important credential for training purposes.
CCSAR-North’s 50 volunteers handle missions throughout northern Chaffee County, and its swiftwater rescue team covers the Arkansas River between Hecla Junction and the Numbers.
Between missions and training, it’s a lot of work to handle on an extremely limited budget.
“We are one of the busier search and rescue teams in the state, but we are also one of the least funded search and rescue teams in the state,” Bellingar said.
CCSAR-North has an operating budget of about $20,000 a year from donations and fundraising. That money is stretched to cover vehicle costs, training and equipment. What doesn’t get covered by the budget comes out of volunteers’ own pockets, and CCSAR-North members regularly use their own gear and pay for their own training. CCSAR-North is stepping up its efforts to cover the shortfall, and is hosting its first-annual fundraiser on Saturday, July 26 at South Main.
“We do a great deal of work without a lot of money,” Bellingar said.
Key to it all are dedicated volunteers.
“We couldn’t do any of it without all the volunteers on our roster,” Bellingar said. “They put in countless hours.”
Giving closure, seeking answers
On every mission, search and rescue teams want to find the victim alive and return them to safety. Sometimes, a fatality is the more likely scenario.
With those situations, “you want to give the family closure,” Albrecht said.
In the case of Gene George, that closure came six months after his September 2013 disappearance.
“I never thought we weren’t going to find him, I just wish we would have found him a lot sooner so the family could have had closure,” Albrecht said.
Remains believed to be those of George were found by a hiker on March 24. The body was just a quarter-mile off the trail to Mount Harvard and Mount Yale, in what the sheriff’s office described as “very rugged terrain marked by thick underbrush.”
The amount of time it took to find George still rankles CCSAR-North.
“You never get used to it. That’s one of the things people don’t realize. They think we go on,” Bellingar said. “That’s one of the hardest parts of a mission, to have to call it off or not find them.”
In the weeks following the initial search, the group poured over its recovery effort, trying to figure out where George could be located and how they could have operated a more successful mission.
Even now, there’s still some disbelief that such an extensive search effort failed to find George.
Regardless of the outcome, the search effort was still met with gratitude from George’s family.
George’s sister, Linda Petrigac, donated $5,000 to CCSAR-North last November.
In a letter accompanying the funds, Petrigac wrote, “I truly appreciate all that you did in searching for Gene George and admire your dedication to your work.”
