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Dardanelles Lake
August 1999
At 10:30 pm on Sunday night, my evening routine was gratefully interrupted by that obnoxious beeping of a SAR tone-out. As a new and yet unhardened member, my adrenaline immediately began pumping. My excitement grew as I listend to Fleck give the details for a first light search out of Big Meadows trailhead. Almost immediately my heart sank as I realized I would not be let loose for the night, but instead had to wait for the sun.
That night little sleep came, as my mind kept churning over the adventure that lay ahead. Finally my 5 am wakeup came, and I hurriedly donned my search gear and headed for the door. As I drove toward the CP, I mentally went over my gear checklist. I was prepared.
Upon my arrival at the CP, the SAR truck's base radio was being put up. I eagerly watched as I was shown how it worked. Once the team was ready (Robert, John, Lynda, Judy, Lisa, Jenny and myself), Fleck conducted a planning and information session. He let us know we were to search for two 50 year old females wearing swimsuits and carrying towels. The vision that came to mind was not a pretty one.
Envisioning the possible hypothermic state of the unfortunates, we headed out. At our brisk pace we quickly crossed the meadow, mounted the crest, and began the short steep descent to the trail intersection below. H-20 arrived in the search area and gave us a friendly fly-by.
While we were enjoying our morning outing, Felck had established contact with the lost women via cell phone, and was enjoying his chat with them tremendously. I believe it went something like this: "We're west of the lake, no we're east of the lake"… "We can see Lake Tahoe, no we can't see Lake Tahoe"… "We can see a ridgeline with snow and the sun shining on it"… "We hear the helicopter (then as H-20 gets nearer to where they were actually found) No, we can't hear it any more."
Fleck lost his patience somewhere during this babble and finally simply told the women to, "Be very quiet (yeah right) and hold the phone above your head." Yes, he told them to hold the phone above their heads! Although his intention may have been merely not to have to listen to them anymore, his method seemed to work. H-20 was near enough that he could hear it through the phone, and he directed it in closer until it sighted the women.
In the meantime, we waited, listening to H-20 and Fleck. At one point, H-20 gave us coordinates that led us to believe we should head toward Round Lake. Then when we were nearly there, they sighted the ladies and gave coordinates nearly due west of Dardanelles. Oops, we turned around and headed back towards Dardanelles.
By the time we reached the trail intersection again, H-20 had decided to load them and we were told to head in. Just about the time that we summited that short, steep slope, H-20 decided to drop them at Big Meadow, so we decided to quickly (run!) maneuver our way down the trail so we can set up an LZ. After a quick descent to Big Meadow, H-20 decided to drop the ladies nearer to Fleck. So, never having seen the rescued pair, we walked out.
Once we returned and broke down the CP, we headed off to Chris's for breakfast with the H-20 crew. While there, Fleck told us of his frustrations with our dear lost souls, and that the RP, who phoned after 10 pm the night before, had actually known that the ladies were lost as early as 1 pm the day before, but had chosen not to call for awhile. Thus the RP caused his wife and her friend to spend a blue-lipped and sleepless night wearing nothing more than a wet swimsuit in the forest after a nice afternoon thunderstorm. Isn't he a thoughtful man.
All said and done, I am as anxious and excited about SAR as ever, and eagerly await that obnoxious beeping of the next SAR tone-out.
(P.S. Nice reinvention of the DF, Terry! My favorite bit in the above scenario was the fact that these ladies, in attempting to start a fire, burned some of their dollar bills! (Take no clothes, but don't forget the phone and some spending money.) They decided, however, that their well-being wasn't worth burning the $20's ……. LM)
Submitted by Damon Partridge
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