(continued from here)

May 14, 2010: My first ski injury. Part 2: Thoughts.

Search and Rescue: WTF?

Alright, I have now skied and hiked Heliotrope Ridge on a broken ankle. Awezum. Or not.

I certainly appreciate the time and energy that Search and Rescue volunteers here in Washington invest into the rescue operations. When I say "I appreciate", I mean just that: in the face of the surgery bills, I have just written a check for $100 of my hard-earned to the Bellingham Mountain Rescue Council. I intend to keep donating once in a while, particularly if they get around to supporting online credit card donations. I know there have been and there will be situations where Search and Rescue people make a huge difference and there will be situations where they save lives.

That said, I can't help but think how screwed up the whole Search and Rescue volunteer institution is if we can't get a flipping helicopter on a very popular, iconic volcano that serves as a prime entertainment ground for climbers, skiers, hikers and snowmobilers coming from anywhere between Vancouver and Seattle and beyond. The said volcano is surrounded by a number of other popular wilderness recreation spots that attract thousands of people every year. Yet, the most we can collectively manage is an 11-hour response time of a volunteer party equipped with a sled, and not enough people to carry this sled loaded with an injured person. Huge effort by a lot of people, close to zero benefit to anybody.

I know what the American thinking is: "I am not spending MY tax money on YOUR entertainment". Well, what I paid in either federal or local taxes in 2009 alone less what I actually used in taxpayer-financed services is certainly enough to cover a helicopter ride or two or three or five, so I feel completely entitled to talk about it.

I have also spent too much time over the years talking to my friend Mike who lives in Switzerland to know full well that in Switzerland they pay less income tax on more salary than we do, yet somehow they manage a 30-minute helicopter response time universally throughout the Swiss Alps.

In short, the issue is certainly not a lack of money, the issue is priorities in spending the money. In Switzerland, mountain sports are a valid, mainstream way of recreation. Here in Washington, home to some of the most impressive views on the planet, the state with a huge variety of climates — from rain forest to the desert — and, accordingly, a huge variety of outdoor recreation opportunities, — the most glaciated state outside of Alaska, with glaciers visible from nearly every population center, including Seattle proper, we have a general population that is completely oblivious to all and any of that. I can't count the number of times I have been asked in the hospital (where I only spent two days) "is there still snow in the mountains?" Like, seriously, people, what do you suppose that white stuff on Rainier or across the sound in the Olympics is? Paint?

The Mountaineers' membership is about 10 thousand people. The WTA claimed about 7 thousand "households" worth of membership in 2008. I am sure that the intersection is huge (i.e. there are many people who are members of both), and I am sure that not all members are actually active climbers/hikers. Then I mostly recreate with people who are not members of either. Then there are smaller outdoor clubs all over the state, which I can't find membership data on. From these numbers, I am vaguely guessing that 60 thousand people seems like a generous estimate for a number of wilderness recreationists in the Washington state, and that would be one percent of the state's population.

Being that outnumbered, can we get a budget for a helicopter so people don't have to ski Mount Baker on broken ankles (or worse)? Or maybe two helicopters, so that people don't have to hike more remote locations in the North Cascades on broken ankles (or worse)? Well, I am sure we can: looking at some of the agenda that gets pushed through legislature on both Federal and local levels, there is little impossible in politics with the right amount of lobbying.

Will this happen? Perhaps, but until then: don't break your ankles on Mount Baker. Since you don't have a whole lot of control over this, think hard in advance what you will be doing if you do break your ankle in the middle of a glacier. Understand that this can quickly escalate from a local injury to a fight for survival. An uphill fight.

How we can prepare better

Start early

We would have been much better off if I had broken my ankle three hours earlier. Looking back at it, we walked out under our own power, which we didn't need to wait for SAR to do. Did we consider walking out by ourselves without involving SAR? Yes, we did, but with the amount of daylight we had left at 5 pm and the speed at which I was moving, we ran the risk of not making it all the way back before dark, and then the task of keeping ourselves warm would have been hard to impossible to accomplish. So...it pays to start with the daylight, or earlier, even if the trip is only a few hours: if we can get done, say, at 2pm, that's awesome: if anything happens, it happens before 2pm, and that leaves more time to deal with it than the same thing happening at 5pm does.

Carry overnight gear as a group

An eternal question: do you travel light and therefore fast, minimizing the time on the mountain, and therefore the likelihood of getting stranded on it or do you prepare for every possible contingency? I have always been a fan of light and fast, opting to carry the minimal gear that can help (but not necessarily guarantee) surviving an emergency bivouac, but I am now thinking that a sleeping bag and a good bivy sack, if not a tent, is worth being shared among the group members on the way up even on day trips. The reasoning is that it doesn't take anything extraordinary to get stranded in the middle of nowhere, and having a sleeping bag can prevent the non-extraordinary problem from getting escalated to truly dangerous.

Carry a personal locator beacon

At roughly $700 this seems expensive, but if those things work, they are worth it. We lost about 4 hours getting to the cell phone reception zone on Saturday.

Carry a sled kit, and maybe take a tobogganing module from the ski patrol curriculum.

With a pre-made sled kit, sleds are actually possible to make. Adds weight again, but arguably can save a lot of time in an emergency. Another option — conceived by Juya — is to have a real sled in the car which the party can descend to and bring up should the need arise.

Carry the heat packs (toe/hand warmers)

I have been in the mountains every weekend this year, and every weekend I had copious quantities of heat packs in my backpack; including one weekend when Mike and I just hiked Mount Charleston in Vegas. I never had to use them, all year long; I then used them up one weekend before the weekend when I broke my ankle, and I didn't replace them in my pack. That was a mistake that could have been fatal.

Don't count on Search and Rescue

You get what you pay for.

Donate to Search and Rescue

Maybe you (or your friends) will actually get what you pay for.