Dec 17th, 2020
Thursday morning, LAAFB received a request for volunteers. From the beginning, this was a different kind of mission; a late morning request for SAR groups, a relaxed 2 ½ hour notice. By the end of the mission, LAAFB highlighted their versatility.
Four members of LAAFB confirmed availability and prepared to meet at CD-1 by 9:30 am with a goal of arriving at incident base by 11 am. We packed for cold temperatures and grabbed our radios, maps, and the wheeled-litter from the station.
Incident base was located north of Abiquiu reservoir in the vast Chama River Canyon Wilderness. The subject had been missing for several days, maybe more.
Along with LAAFB, several canine search teams responded with a total of 5 dogs (later, another dog team and a drone team would join the search). Responding teams included Mountain Canine Corp, Santa Fe SAR, Taos SAR, Sandia Search Dogs, High Desert Canine, and Cibola SAR. The dogs were the real stars of this mission. Each of the dog-less LAAFB ground-pounders paired with a canine search volunteer to form teams of two. This strategy allowed the dog handlers to focus on working with the dogs while LAAFB took care of communications and navigation. In total, eight teams took to the field. One LAAFB member stayed at incident base to manage communications and coordinate navigation between teams.
Under different circumstances, the clear skies, calm breeze, and cool temperatures we experienced would have presented favorable weather for a nice hike. The ground was sparsely covered with thin layer of snow, and the Chama river was half frozen. We covered ground by the river, above the cliffs on the western side of the river gorge, and into the foot hills below a mesa. Sparse brush and rolling terrain above the cliffs allowed for good visual detection, however a lack of breeze likely limited the efficacy of the search dogs. Teams down by the Chama had to fight through thick vegetation which required a tighter search and more resources.
Around 3:30 pm Incident Command ended business for the day. Many of the teams were several miles of rugged terrain away from base. One team grouped with another to form a team of four and performed a coarse grid search on as they returned to base.
At the conclusion of our operational period I like to reflect on the search. What was our probability of success? What went well? What could be improved? How can we make those improvements?
We did a lot of things well. Incident base benefited from the LAAFB member that stayed behind to serve as Navigation and Operations staff. At one point, our inside man at incident base coordinated with an LAAFB field team to quickly and correctly distinguish a set of footprints as belonging to a search team, not the subject. As a group we demonstrated utility working with other search teams and with other types of search strategies. But we also learned that as a team, we can improve with our use of GPS. Since we are usually working with our fellow LAAFB members, navigation responsibility is not required of everyone. This mission was a reminder that we won’t always know what will be asked of us and that we need to be ready when called.