Mounted search and rescue

[Una Smith <una.smith@att.net>]

Faye Neff wrote:
>The first day on the trail always offers at least one interesting
>challenge.

Very good point.  I'd forgotten about that.  I used to lead college
wilderness backpacking trips, and I always hated the first day.  That
was the day the most things went wrong, we had the most problems with
equipment, etc., and the unaccustomed sweaty work of packing a full
pack always made me grumpy.  Even though everything we did I had done
before and none of the equipment was unfamiliar.  The same goes for
horses.

One of the things I like least about SAR is that almost every mission
is a "first day" and doesn't go beyond that.  But it is unavoidable.

<rant on, not addressed to anyone in particular>

See, the thing is you can take a class and be told stuff and practice
something one time, and probably nothing bad will happen.   But don't
make the mistake of thinking it is always like that.  Usually it is
not, and the trick is to know when trouble is coming before it comes.

If you and your horses operate a dude string you might be qualified
and equipped to transport a SAR subject in the saddle, but frankly if
you and your horses don't do that for a living then as a SAR manager
I would be very unlikely to give you such a task assignment.

<rant off>

Whew.  I feel better now.

I do know some FS rangers I would want to do this, but unless we got
lucky their response time would be very, very long.

        Una