Around 6:30 P.M. on Monday, November 9th we received a call requesting ground pounders for a mom and son who had gone missing while hunting earlier in the day. Our destination was approximately 12 miles north of the town of Pecos NM. Arriving at Incident Base with a team of eight Brigade members we learned a team from Santa Fe was about 15 minutes ahead of us in a four wheel drive vehicle to scout the road and meet up with the reporting party. Shortly after the first team arrived at the reporting parties camp they reported the son had been found but mom was still missing. We piled our eight members into two four wheel drive vehicles the Brigade had on scene and headed out for the 3.5 mile trip up a moderately difficult four wheel drive road. Following us was another team consisting of a Santa Fe team member and trailing canine from Pajarito K9’s. Once at the reporting parties camp Incident Base instructed us to conduct a line search in an ever expanding circle around the point last seen. Talking with the reporting party and conferring with the other teams our team leader decided to start our line search following a road heading generally north.
After about a half mile of hiking one of our members thought he heard a woman calling. We fell silent while he blew his whistle. She responded and we headed off in her direction. After another 0.2 miles of hiking we reached our subject. She was very happy to see us and extremely relieved to hear her son was ok. She was cold, hungry and thirsty but generally in good condition. She had managed to find a shed for shelter and build a fire. We provided her with warm clothing, food and a hot drink. Not long after arriving at the subject, the team in the four wheel drive and a State Police team in another four wheel drive arrived. Although our subject was happy to hike with us back to our vehicles she gladly accepted a ride back to Incident Base in the nice, warm State Police truck. Our hike is shown on the map. The subject was located at the upper red pin on the map.
A quick hike back to our vehicles and a bumpy drive back to Incident Base we debriefed, signed out and headed home. On the way home the discussion turned to, “how cold do you think it was?” We decided it was probably in the mid to upper teens but everyone was well prepared as our team leader had warned us to pack for extremely cold conditions and all stayed warm. I was back home by 4:30 A.M. Tuesday morning to get some well deserved sleep.