Me On Search For A Missing Hunter Near Dinkey Creek
Dale Matson
“What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost
one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go after
the one which is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on
his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends
and his neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep
which was lost!’ “(Luke 15:4-6, NASB).
I have been an outdoorsman all of my life and run, skied and
backpacked much of the Central Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. About nine years ago I was skiing in the back country below Huntington Lake
California and came across another skier by the name of Dave Calvert who said
he was looking for a lost snowmobiler who had been missing overnight. Dave was
a civilian working with the Mountaineering Unit of The Fresno County Sheriff’s
Office, Search and Rescue Team. We talked for a bit and he invited me to
investigate joining the team. As I returned to the parking area, the sheriff’s
department snowmobile pulled in to transfer a man on a sled to an awaiting
ambulance. They had found the man who had set his snowmobile on fire to keep
warm overnight. I wrote down and later phoned the name Dave gave me.
Dave Calvert At The Iron Lakes Search
Art Sallee was my contact. I met with this kind of crusty
John Wayne type who had been involved in search and rescue for years and was
the unofficial team leader at the time. There was no official process for
getting on the team at the time but Art made the rough ways smooth by helping
me to initiate a background check and introduced me to the other Mountaineering
Team members at their monthly meeting.
Art Sallee In The Commo Trailer At Florence Lake
I also needed an Office of Emergency
Services (OES) number and began training classes that involved skills like man
tracking, staying overnight with only a fanny pack and Map and Compass
navigational classes. I have never trained in high angle or swift water rescue.
While I have hiked to the top of Mt. Whitney, I would not hang from a 50’ cliff
on a half inch rope. While I completed the Pacific Ocean 2.4 mile swim in
Ironman, the near panic I experienced in a class four rapids on the upper Kings
River taught me to stay out of swift water. There is also ongoing training and
fitness testing once you are considered “mission ready”. I also had to be deputized and that happened
just before I was about to be sent out on my first search.
It was a mutual aid
search in Kings Canyon National Park near Hume Lake. A young man and his
grandfather had been on a day hike near Cherry Gap and were missing overnight. As I was awaiting my assignment to a search
team, another volunteer team member Robin Calderwood looked up and asked two
men who wandered into the parking lot if they were the missing folks. They said
they were and she led them to the Command Post (CP). That was the end of our
search. What a great first search it was! That is what is called beginner’s
luck. We were all treated to a free
breakfast in the Hume Lake Camp mess hall and I drove home with a false
impression of what Search and Rescue was all about.
I wrote and self published a book about my first seven years in SAR.
I wrote and self published a book about my first seven years in SAR.
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