Mounted search and rescue

[Lois Guyon <laguyon2@yahoo.com>]

Yes, the archives contain discussions on everything.  I always tell people 
new 
to MSAR that the best source of information for them is the MSAR-RIDERS 
archives. I will go there to add to the information in recent posts to do a 
small unit on winter searches for our training and then hope we never have to 
use the information again.  


Lois






----- Original Message ----
From: Una Smith <una.smith@att.net>
To: Mounted search and rescue <msar-riders@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thu, January 6, 2011 7:09:05 AM
Subject: Re: [MSAR] snow searches

Lois, I would not have tried to respond with horses in 2 feet of snow 
(blowing snow?  even worse).  Trailering on icy roads takes practice
and recreational horse riders don't get practice loading, trailering,
or riding in any kind of foul weather.

Wood ash and sand is what my family in snow country uses to control
ice on their driveway.  It looks bad but is very effective.

On one search my horse slipped on ice while loading at home.  That
caused her to balk at loading for the return trip.  There we were in
a slick pulloff beside a mountain highway, cold and tired, and my
normally eager to load horse would not load.  Nuts.  She was a wise
horse though and after thinking about it for some minutes, she did
climb very carefully into the trailer.

Searching in snow, snowballs can be a signficant problem, especially
if the horse is shod.

Another thing about searching on horseback in cold weather:  the rider
is prone to get very cold.  During that 7 hours in the saddle search I
mentioned, I had to dismount and walk for several hours simply to make
more muscle heat.

We have discussed winter searches here before.  Dig in our archives.

    Una
_______________________________________________
MSAR-Riders mailing list
MSAR-Riders@lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/msar-riders