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msar-riders - Re: [MSAR] Hasty Teams

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Subject: Mounted search and rescue

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  • From: Una Smith <una.smith@att.net>
  • To: Mounted search and rescue <msar-riders@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [MSAR] Hasty Teams
  • Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 08:22:32 -0600

"clearing tracks" equals checking trails?

There was a long discussion a while back on another SAR list about avoiding
the word "clear",
because "clear" encourages the thinking that done once = done. One use of a
hasty team is to
periodically recheck a trail, looking specifically for new sign (footprints
etc) in "track
traps" and at the trail margins. This is "sign cutting" and when used on a
trail it amounts
to a kind of leaky containment but it works really well when there is snow on
the ground or
(as is often the case here in New Mexico) the ground cover is mostly dust.
Fresh tracks are
very obvious.

In fresh snow, a lost subject may cross a trail without recognizing it as a
trail. Having a
hasty team travel the trail creates unmistakable sign that the subject almost
certainly will
see and recognize as a trail. This too is a kind of containment. We have a
local hotspot
for lost skiers and snowboarders in a national forest outside a developed ski
valley. They
go right across the trail without seeing it, then get confused because they
think they are
still above the trail. No one wants to go below the trail because it is the
only good route
back to the ski valley, and going below it means a slow hard climb back up to
it. A hasty
check of that trail very quickly divides our highest probability search area
in two.

For hasty searching to work best, it is important that the hasty team keep a
good unit log,
noting what sign and other possible clues they find, at what time, and where.
Possible clues
include make, model, color, and license plate number of any vehicles seen.
From a detailed
unit log, search managers (and subsequent hasty teams) may be able to
determine what sign is
new. I know that is obvious, but it bears repeating.

Stay safe,

Una Smith
New Mexico




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