Death Valley Days

Death Valley National Park (CA)
Two Day Search Ends With Rescue

On the evening of Monday, March 23rd, rangers received a report that a visitor was stranded on a ledge in Golden Canyon, a popular hiking area in Death Valley. Rangers hiked the trail system by headlamp but were unable to locate the visitor.

On Tuesday, park personnel were able to make voice contact with the nab, who was trapped at the top of a series of dry waterfalls, some of which were greater than 100 feet high. Rangers directed a U.S. Navy search and rescue helicopter to his location, where he was hoisted into the aircraft without incident.

He was flown to the Furnace Creek Airfield, where he was medically evaluated and debriefed. He said that he left the main trail system and began following a series of social trails until he became “cliffed out”. Once he realized that he was trapped he sheltered in place overnight and awaited rescue.

Search and rescue efforts were supported by members of protection, fee collection, interpretation, resource management, maintenance, and management branches, as well as military personnel from the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake.


This gentleman certainly could have used a whistle or a light, or whatever. When out rambling, it is worth asking yourself if you can retrace your steps.

If the NPS keeps this up, Death Valley will need a new name....

It is interesting to see that the Rangers will willing to do a night search by Headlamp. That seems to be rare, but interesting that they were willing. Does anyone know if this is common in other areas?

Absolutely routine in my experience. Probably about 80% of the time a search either began in the evening or continued into the night.A headlight was critical equipment, even though it was often carried in the hand.

This was in southern Arizona, based on about 450 operations. In my opinion, if you delay initiating an operation until daylight, you are all too likely to turn a rescue into a body recovery.

The victim was "cliffed out". Ahem ... why wasn't he able to re-trace his route? Well I'm sure there is probably a good explanation. Maybe it got dark and he just didn't want to risk re-tracing his route in poor light. That would probably be a good decision.

I agree with other comments. It was very nice of the Rangers to wander around in the dark looking for this person. Hopefully they were operating in groups of two or three. We are putting our rangers at risk, if they have to walk around in the dark themselves.

Pete

If you jump of a ledge, you are not always able to get up on it again.

Note that the search parties apparently stayed on the trail, probably not as single searchers. They almost surely had radios and a functioning network.

You might be surprised at how often people working in the parks are working alone.

RMNP changed this a bit after a week long (or so) search for a solo missing backcountry ranger who eventually was found deceased from a fall - they now have GPS trackers transmitting their location when they transmit on their radios and they file travel plans and have regular checkin with dispatch so response to their being overdue can be prompt and effective.

They may still be alone but they have a guardian angel on close watch for them.

We might be able to do the same thing with PLBs and ham radio or cellphones (or satphones).

Nor was he the first, and probably not the last. It was several years before a back country ranger's remains were found at Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park. He had evidently drowned in rapidly flowing melt water in a snowfield.

Still unclosed is the case of Paul Fugate, a ranger at Chiricahua National Monument, who left the visitor center on a slow Sunday afternoon in January, 1980, and who has not been seen since. I was heavily involved in that operation for sometime.

GPS technology et al. does increase the odds in the back country, and advising others of your plans and itinerary has been practiced in sensible, safety conscious operations for many years - often to good effect.

If you suffer a fatal fall, none of this gee whiz, high tech gadgetry offers you any significant benefit, although it does help the park in keeping the park clear of debris

that's cold!

Agreed,that's cold, but perfectly true,and stated from experience. My rule of thumb is that is the victim sustains a fall of forty feet or more, the operation is nothing more than a body recovery, for which friends and family are often grateful all out of proportion to the effort required. Body recoveries are often great opportunities for newer members to acquire some experience while not being under great pressure.

Knowing where you fell won't always save your life but it will certainly shorten the search and in the margin might get help to you in time to save your life.

Rangers still missing..... that's sad and ought to be cautionary info to other backcountry rangers.

Any rock climber can tell you, climbing UP a a rock face is much easier than climbing DOWN one (that's probably why they invented rappelling). Maybe the victims problem was something along these lines.

Actually his disappearance occurred in a front country setting. he walked out to "check the nature trail",probably walked down the entrance road a bit and encountered a drug deal in progress. At least that is my preferred hypothesis...

The search effort was complicated by the distinct possibility that he might have left intentionally, something that is often a possibility in many such situations.

"Actually his disappearance occurred in a front country setting. he walked out to "check the nature trail",probably walked down the entrance road a bit and encountered a drug deal in progress. At least that is my preferred hypothesis...

The search effort was complicated by the distinct possibility that he might have left intentionally, something that is often a possibility in many such situations."

I sympathize. I know that area. Very rugged. Many, many locations for a person to become lost, or a body to be hidden. Unusual incident, though. Bizarre. almost sounds like he did just leave the area completely.

Pete

Not only rugged, but there are many abandoned mine adits and shafts. After proper training, we checked out many of them with negative findings. There are very few places more treacherous than old mines.

Just to drift this thread into positive territory,please read the second story in this post: http://www.nps.gov/morningreport/

It is nice when you find people like that. They find their niche, become expert, and then become the foundation or anchor for everything going on around them. We need lots of different kinds of people in this world, but I have always really liked people like that.