Mounted search and rescue

["IRVIN LICHTENSTEIN" <ilichten1@verizon.net>]

Besides restating the obvious regarding staging and terrain, the objective of a hasty team is to clear the obvious.  This means moving from a trail head to the end of trail, moving down drainages, upstream or downstream if there is a waterway.  Depending on the initial report there may be a PLS or PLK which is often endangered by the initial response of friends, fellow campers and law enforcement.  A team of sign cutters will work from the PLS out, similar teams will work the developed trails, animal trails, drainages, and waterways trying to further develop a direction of travel and distance covered by the subject.  This is basic search management, gathering information from the field to base your plans on. 

 

The actual techniques used will differ with the terrain, subject, and resources available.  However, your first in personnel must be sufficiently skilled not to park next to the subject’s vehicle, or set up the CP near the PLS. Base Camp does not have to be the deployment point.  You can loosen up your mount and check your gear during a short walk to the start line.  Often we routed teams through areas that had been searched once by a 50% effort to provide a second pass on the way to their primary assignment.  I would not worry about ducking—most developed trails have sufficient overhead clearance and statistically lost people take the path of least resistance so trails are a good bet.  If you have to resort to bushwacking and thorough techniques (grid searching) you are beyond the efficiencies of hasty style searching. 

 

As to parking or loading and unloading, that is what traffic control is for. If we can shut down major roads to provide a work area in the East with heavy traffic it should be a breeze in the West.  The idea is to get the job done, not find reasons not to.

 

Irv Lichtenstein   

 

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From: msar-riders-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:msar-riders-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Jorene Downs
Sent: Monday, June 15, 2009 4:56 AM
To: 'Mounted search and rescue'
Subject: Re: [MSAR] Hasty Mounted Team?