Park Rescue Teams Are Good At Their Job Because They Have To Be

A dozen National Park Service rangers are hoisting an accident victim strapped in a stretcher up the side of a canyon wall when a leader whistles.

Suddenly, everyone lets go of the rope.

Suspended in midair, the litter and its occupant automatically stay put, a hundred feet above the ground. The rescue team has passed the so-called “whistle test.”

“If, by some unusual act of fate, every ranger working this rescue was simultaneously struck by lightning, we are redundant enough with backup systems that the litter would not fall,” says Ken Phillips, search-and-rescue coordinator for Grand Canyon National Park. “That’s why we have the whistle test.”

George Black Simmons, the volunteer “victim” in the litter with hands serenely crossed over his chest coffin-style, didn’t even flinch during the worst-case scenario simulation.

“I’ve got absolute confidence in these folks,” Simmons said after being hoisted over the lip of the canyon wall. “These are some of the best climbers in the country right here.”

For five days in April, more than 40 park rangers from Hawaii to West Virginia practiced technical climbing rescues at Canyonlands, near Moab. The third annual training seminar drills rangers in the intricacies of high-angle and vertical rescues, from using Petzl Stops and Prusik Hitches to tying a double-loop-figure-eight knot and night rescues.

“This training is to park service search and rescue what the All Star game is to the NBA,” says Steve Swanke, Canyonlands’ Island In the Sky District ranger. “The 17 trainers here are the tops in technical rope rescue.”

That the training must be so involved is testament to the increasing need for specialized rescues in national parks and public lands. More visitors are pursuing once-elite recreation pursuits such as canyoneering or rock and ice climbing, some without the proper knowledge, experience or equipment.

And the growing popularity of “climbing gyms,” indoor faux rock walls, have added to the boom in backcountry rescue missions. The indoor walls teach climbing skills but do not prepare recreationists for the unpredictability of weather and natural terrain.

“Five years ago, a technical rescue was tying a rope to the bumper of a Jeep and hauling it up,” says Frank Mendonca, search-and-rescue (SAR) coordinator for the Grand County sheriff’s office, which joined San Juan County in the training. “Now, there has to be greater expertise. The county’s procedures and equipment must be the same as the park service so we can work together on rescues.”

Already this year, Grand County has logged 22 SAR incidents, which is double last year’s number at this time. Since Feb. 26, Arches and Canyonlands national parks have responded to five hiker or climber incidents, including a fatality.

On March 28, for example, park rangers and Grand County raised an injured hiker in a litter 300 feet out of a canyon during a rainstorm. Fifteen minutes after completing that rescue, they rescued a boy who had become stranded while climbing at Devils Garden campground. Accessing and lowering the boy to the ground took more than three hours.

In 1996, Canyonlands National Park employees responded to 27 emergencies, 17 involving hikers, according to Galen Howell, SAR coordinator for Canyonlands, Arches and Natural Bridges. The total cost was more than $28,000, although a portion of that figure includes air-ambulance rescue costs incurred by victims, not the federal government.

“What we spend most of our time doing in this part of the country is medical evacuations, hikers who take a fall and can’t go on,” says Phillips, who - literally - wrote the book on park service technical rescue methods. “What many people don’t realize is that the park service is not legally required to do rescues. While the public may have an expectation they will be rescued, court cases have shown we are not mandated to conduct rescue operations.”

Indeed, while park policies dictate the saving of human life will take precedence over all other management activity, the safety of rescuers is given top priority in any rescue mission, followed by the victim. At parks where climbing is popular such as Washington state’s Mount Rainier and Alaska’s Denali, rangers are frequently put in perilous rescue situations. Some have died attempting rescues.

“We have strict written parameters for conditions to attempt a rescue, such as wind speed for flying, and if conditions are beyond those parameters, we won’t go,” says Phillips. “But training programs like this builds the confidence of our people so they know they could do it if they had to.”