Sunday morning, June 12, at 5:20 am came the call from our leader (code name GearHead)… Search for a hiker, male, age 68, around Cerro Montoso, a peak about half between Taos and Tres Piedres, missing from early afternoon the day before. 8 Brigadiers answered that call on this hot and blistering day– actually 7 as the Incident Commander, a fellow brigadier (code name Sherlock), was the one ordering the calls. Arriving at incident base at 8:00 am, our tech-savy technician (code name Gryffindor) was absconded by Sherlock for running a highly effective and communicative incident base operations. The other 6 brigadiers, under the direction of GearHead, were deployed immediately to the field to search a ravine identified by Taos Search and Rescue the night before as an area of interest to be search with the daylight hours. Clearing approximately 2 miles of this ravine took a few hours but with no signs or clues, and was followed up with an additional assignment to grid-search the slope around the point of last contact with the subject which carried our team throughout the rest of that day, again with few to no signs or clues, but much opportunity to knock the accumulated rust — much to GearHead’s frustration — off our gear and skills after several months of no missions. We also learned the odd fact that the ground underneath Piñon pine trees is often pock-marked with divots oddly similar to marks left by a hiker’s trek poles.
For background, our subject had gone missing around 3:00 pm Saturday afternoon. He had been hiking with a group and his dog. Most of the group, except our subject and one other, had stayed behind when it came to the final rock scramble to the top of Cerro Montoso. The dog was supposed to remain behind with the group but escaped to try and follow our subject subsequently getting lost. Upon returning to the group and finding his dog missing, our subject took off in pursuit/search for the animal with only the clothes on his back and perhaps a half litter of water and wasn’t seen again. Taos Search and Rescue had been deployed the night before, finding the subject’s dog but not the subject, and our team was entering the second operation period.
That night around 10:30 pm a second callout was initiated by Sherlock for the following morning start at 7:00 am to which 4 brigadiers responded, including 2 brigadiers (yet to receive their code names) for whom this was their first mission – technically second for one whom’s first did not leave the parking lot… Once again upon arrival, Gryffindor was detached from our team to run another effective and communicative incident base operations. The other three, under the direction of Da Mule, were set on another assignment to search 1) a road leading up the far East side of the mountain and 2) to investigate an observed trail seen by another team from a distance the day before on the back side of Cerro Montoso. Unfortunately, while our team accomplished both objectives no signs of our subject were present. At one point on the road search we did find a hunter’s camp of sorts containing a small camper and several small structures that would provide shelter to a lost individual; however, after searching these structures we also found a recently dead dog and other signs that led us to quickly leave once we were assured our subject was not there. Between our first and second objectives, the going became very tough with slow progress over heavily vegetated, steep, and rocky terrain which led to the conclusion that our subject probably did not come this way. Upon finishing our second objective, which turned out to be an old service track to an abandoned earth tank which petered out after a few hundred yards and showed no signs of our subject, Sherlock recommended our team return a faster and easier route back to where other teams were searching from which friends of the missing subject gave us a shuttle back to our vehicle rather than the longer arduous route we’d just covered, for which we were grateful as it had been a long and hot day.
Not long after our field team had debriefed and left incident base, and the friends of our subject had been told the unfortunate news that without any clues or ideas further searches had been suspended, Sherlock, Gryffindor, and another individual were finishing up the last paperwork and cleanup of incident command when who should show up but our missing subject! The evening he’d disappeared he’d made his way about 4-5 miles west of the search area and found an empty ranch house. Hungry and thirsty, he’d broken into the building which fortunately had its own well to sustain him for the following two days while he waited for someone, anyone to come. Fortunately, someone did and was giving our subject a ride to Taos when he drove right through incident base where they stopped. We are all grateful to hear of his health and safety after searching for him for the last two days, where we were becoming increasingly worried given the heat and lack of water our subject had not survived.
