CMRU Mt. Adams SAR Effort 10-17-08

SAR effort for Derek Mamoyac on Friday 10-17-08.

(Click on photos to enlarge)

Thursday evening Matt and I at the county shops. After dropping-off a set of radios at the fairgrounds for use at the ski swap, we got underway around 8pm with Matt driving the truck and me following in my car. We drove to Portland for the night. Matt had pre-arranged accommodations with his friend, and I stayed the night at Drew’s flat in Portland. After a quick brewski we hit the sack around 10:30pm. Matt was knocking on Drew’s door at 3:30am as he promised. We drove to Troutdale and refueled the Jeep on the way to Hood River. At Hood River we refueled once again and headed up 141 towards Cold Springs Campground.

We had a small moment of excitement when Matt entered a merge in the road from the left and a log Truck came barreling down from the right directly thereafter, horn blaring, seemingly unable to stop. Matt’s quick evasive action into the on-coming lane prevented the Jeep (and Matt) from getting creamed by the log truck. It is also exceedingly fortunate that there was no on-coming traffic because it appeared that there was no room for Matt to take evasive action to the right. Drew and I witnessed the event unfold directly in front of us.

We arrived at Cold Springs Campground before dawn. The camp was just beginning to stir as Mary and the other Corvallis members arrived. Eugene MR was also present. We had a briefing around 7:30am and received an assignment to go up the climbers trail to the Lunch Counter, and then up to the summit if the weather conditions allowed. Apparently no unit had yet made it to the summit. Eugene MR was also dispatched to the Lunch Counter, and then routed to search the slope west of the Counter. Mary ran Ops, and Tim, Jill, and the others received search assignments in the area of the trail around the mountain to the west at an elevation of around 6,000feet.

After packing provisions for an overnight bivy, Matt, Drew, and I headed up the wide gully between Crescent Glacier and South Butte. We spread out wide (around 100 yards apart) as we headed up the gully with Matt in the center, Drew on the far right, and myself running a GPS track on the far left. There were numerous nooks, crannies, and improvised bivy spots sprinkled between the boulders and clusters of small, twisted trees all over the approach to the Lunch Counter - far too numerous to thoroughly investigate without a small army. We did our best to check the more obvious of these on the way up. The quantity of these spots, along with the shadowing effect from the sunlight, made the POD for a subject wearing black very low. At one point I could have sworn I saw a black mummy bag next to a rock, but closer inspection revealed only a shadow. There were also numerous boot prints of varying size, type and age.

We made good time, considering the area we had to cover, and arrived at the Lunch Counter at about 2:00pm. There was a strong chill wind from the west and a large lenticular cloud over the summit.

This was when we heard over the radio that the subject had been found on the trail to the west at about 6,000 feet elevation by a dog team. Derek was reported to be in fair condition despite an ankle injury and his multi-day ordeal. Mary requested use of our unit’s litter and directed us to head down and toward the subject for a possible litter evacuation. In the meantime Ops worked on getting a helicopter evac. We took a break, ate, drank, and then headed down and to the west.

The weather cleared as we descended and Pikers Peak created a bit of a ‘draw’ to the summit. Media helicopter(s) were buzzing overhead in short order. Ops managed to arrange a helicopter evac during our descent, but we continued toward the subject in the event that the weather changed or darkness prevented a helicopter evacuation.

We got within about 1.5 miles of Derek’s location when the rescue helicopter arrived at 5:10pm. At that point we stopped and listened to the evacuation progress over the radio.

Derek was hoisted into the helicopter, and once it was clear that the helicopter evac was successful, we headed back to SAR Base. It turned out to be a 14 mile day with 4,600 feet of elevation gain and a moving average of 2.1 MPH over 6.5 hours time.

We arrived just as darkness fell and slinked into SAR Base. The rescuers that were with Derek arrived back a little over and hour later. The media welcomed them. There was no coffee available, but we did get some Oreos from Tim. (Thanks Tim!) As soon as we got unit’s litter back, we all headed back to Corvallis. Matt and Drew alternated driving the truck back. We took a couple of snack/wake-up breaks along the way back and arrived home about 2:30am.

Many thanks to all who participated, and to Mary King who did a great job directing the search effort and handling an enormous amount of radio traffic.

Mountain Rescue Rock Practice

Click on any photo to enlarge

We had our monthly field training Saturday 8-16-08. We went to the Menagerie Wilderness and practiced high angle pick-offs usig our main systems.
Short video of lowering with litter
The menagerie Wilderness is about 1 hour from Sweet Home and has huge rock spires that abruptly stick-up out of the ground. A very interesting place. Saturday was the hottest day of the year. The temperature was somewhere at or above 100 degrees. It so sooo hot on those rocks...(how hot was it?)... It was so hot that the soles separated from the bottom of my boots. Apparently the adhesive liquified. There were 12 of us that attended the training. We all drank a mountain stream worth of water. I drank over 4 liters of gatorade and water during the 7 hours of the training. I must have drank another 1.5 liters aftre getting home!

Mt Jefferson July 5th & 6th

Click on an image to enlarge the photo.

Went up the SW Ridge of Jeff over the July Holidays with Linday Clunes (left) of CMRU and Iain Morris right) of PMR.

Weather started out crummy on 7/5. Cloudy and misty all day. The good thing was that it kept the temperature cool.

We set-up a bivy at 7,800 feet and just as the sun was going down, the weather cleared.

Video view from Bivy the morning of 7-6-08 - still in my sleeping bag.

The next morning we got up at 5:30am and headed up the SW ridge. (The snow-filled gully 3,000 feet below is the Milk Creek drainage that we went up last June)

Had a great time and great views.

Got back to the truck at 4:30pm exhausted and headed home.

CMRU High Angle Rescue Practice 4-12-08

3FJ from Hayrick Butte (photo by Jonathan Ellinger)

Click on any of the photos to enlarge them.

Finally getting caught-up on the Blog. On the weekend of April 12th CMRU held an overnight high angle rescue practice. We met at Hayrick Butte on Santiam Pass at 9:00am and immediately began practice. The weather was unusally warm and sunny with plenty of snowpack remaining (Perhaps 6 feet deep). The sun and warm temperature got the snow very stickly and wet.


We did 3 scenarios that took us high on Hayrick Butte. Each scenario was progressively more difficult. Each one involved 2 patients stuck on the mountain. The first was a skiing accident on a ledge. One patient walked down, the other had to be strapped into a litter and lowered using our litter, lowering system, and then hauling the litter out using skis or snowshoes.

Jerry setting-up the belay for the lowering system (Photo by Jonathan Ellinger)

Nate in a litter during the first scenario (Photo by Jonathan Ellinger)


The second scenario was similar. Some of us took turns as the patient. I was strapped into the litter for the second scenario. While the team worked on me I took video from "The Patient's Perspective."


Hoy getting strapped into the litter during the second scenario (Photo by Jonathan Ellinger)



Photo from "Patient's Perspective"



About half way down the slope, the litter I was in dislodged enough snow snow to create what became a giant snow pinwheel the size of a minivan. It was pretty humorous, albeit a little dangerous. I have attached a video clip here.




Snow Pinwheel Video



For perspective, look at the two guys standing next to just one of the chunks left from the pinwheel after it broke apart




Video: After Lowering, the litter is dragged back to base.

Each of the first two scenarios took about 3.5 hours. After the second scenario we dug snow caves before it got dark.







Then we did a night scenario that was nearly twice as high on the mountain, involved two climbers, and required two litters with a 600' lower. We stopped that scenario at 2am after we got the patients down off the high angle. We were exhausted. A very draining but worthwhile 17 hour practice.

Police Academy Range Qualifications

Over the past week, I have been through several range qualification courses. With the Lebanon Police Department I qualified at the night range with my service Glock and .223 H&K automatic rife. At the academy I qualified with my service weapon at multiple stages of fire.

Here are a couple of videos:

Night Range "Rolling Thunder"

10-Yard Behind Cover Qualification Instruction

One Handed Stage of Fire

Police Academy - How I celebrated my birthday

Today we had our defensive tactics practical test. We each had to fight our instructors. They wore us out with repeat practices first, then it was fight for your life. All mixed martial arts that we have been practicing for the past 2 months. It was all out with (almost no) restrictions. We wore sparing protection thank goodness. That lasted 5 hours.

After that ... we had Taser certification. It was 3 hours of instruction, a written test, and then a practical test where we fired Tasers and proved competence. Following that, we were given the option of "taking the ride."

I wavered at first, but then went ahead for the experience. The experience allows one to be able to testify in court on the effects of a Taser hit. The Taser shoots 2 barbed prongs with a wire attached. The officer can control the length of time the voltage is applied . The automatic shut-off is five seconds. It can be reactived for another 5 or it can be shut-off before the full 5 seconds is up.








In training, two officers hold you while a third shoots you from behind at about 12 feet away. We all took the full 5 second ride.It sucks! It is like being electrocuted. All your muscles lock-up and you cannot move at all. 5 seconds seems like an eternity. But after the thing shuts off, you are immediately okay. No residual effects at all. The only thing that remains is yanking the barbs out. You cannot feel that because that area is totally numb.







With the Taser Certification course, it was a 12.5 hour day.

Hows that for a birthday treat?

Ray Benson Backcountry Trip 1-1-08

Went for a nice 9.5 mile backcountry ski tour to Brandenburg & Island Junction shelters on New Years Day with Jason Wood (Santiam Ski Patrol / CMRU). A wonderful day with powder snow for a place that normally has "Cascade Conrete." There was about 7 feet of snow with 8 ~ 12" of powder on the top. It remained in the lower 20's all day even though it was partly cloudy. We broke about 4 miles of trail between the shelters and a bit on the PCT. An exhausting but fun day to kick-off 2008. Thanks go to Jason Wood for the photos.