Mission 82 started with a text from our Team Leader on September 5th at 16:30 asking for ground pounders for a missing 74 year old female hiker on the Winsor trail in the Pecos Wilderness. Five Brigade members responded. Three ground pounders and two for Incident Base – the Incident Commander and a communications person. The ground pounders mission was to hike up the Rio Nambe Drainage from Nambe Reservoir.
The trail starts out nice but soon becomes difficult and risky. Heavy rains over the last several years have washed significant debris from past wildfires down the canyon choking and washing out the trail. We had a choice – Stay on one side of the stream and avoid crossing the stream multiple times or cross the stream multiple times to avoid cliffing out.
The hike up we decided to avoid crossing the stream and ended up with some fourth class scrambling where a fall would have been serious. On the way back we crossed the knee deep stream to avoid the cliffs which involves it’s own risks as we learned when a Brigade member badly sprained an ankle crossing the same stream in an earlier mission. We retreated after about a mile and half when darkness made navigating the cliff bands too dangerous.
Our subject was seriously lost and the mission extended into a third operational period. After a rest day the Brigade rejoined the mission during the third operational period with three Brigade members acting as ground pounders. The mission for the Brigade was to hike to Aspen Peak and conduct a line search northeast down the back side of the peak until we reached the Rio Nambe Trail. We had just reached the peak when the radio announced a Santa Fe National Guard helicopter had located the subject and extricated her via a hoist.
A letter from the subject a few days later thanking the responders indicates she is recovering. She says that when she was found she couldn’t use her legs and was hallucinating from hypothermia and lack of water and food after spending two days and a night and a half in the wilderness. Many thanks to the Santa Fe Air National Guard!