My first search and rescue... Guess where I went??

I guess my weekend started out relatively normal. I took Tim to the airport Thursday night and was exhausted when I went in to work on Friday to work overtime with the fire crew. They lined me out with a fire pack and nomex, did the morning briefing, and then went off to do project work until maybe we got a smoke report to check out. I spent the day dragging MORE slash - up a steep slope and down the road - and it was pretty tiring. My hip flexors were pretty sore when I woke up, but no big deal, it was a good work out, right?? That night I went to the Rock Inn and met up with my friend Doug from the west side, who's kid's band was playing. It was fun just chilling out and we stayed out pretty late...

So I was tired again when I went into work overtime with the fire crew again on Saturday morning. Did our morning PT - ran a few miles, did a bunch of squats, lunges, push ups and sit ups... I haven't worked out in a while but no big deal, it was a good work out, right?? Just planned on doing more project work all day, maybe get some smoke reports... We've had tons of thunderstorms lately with lots of lightening, but it's rained so much the chances of us getting a fire are pretty low.

Around 10 am we heard chatter on the radio about a 26 yr old guy that was climbing Lamb's Slide (click for photo) on Long's Peak and had fallen 800 feet and needed to be rescued. 800 feet, and still consious?! Unbelieveable and damn lucky to be alive. The mountain was totally socked in - engulfed in thick fog to the point of preventing an aerial rescue - and it looked like the only way to get this guy out would be to hike up there and carry him down. Mike, one of the firefighters, and myself volunteered to help out with the SAR.

I had wanted to hike Long's Peak this weekend and thought it wasn't going to happen because I had to work, and because the weather has been so horrible...

And now here I was gearing up to do Long's FOR work in nasty weather. Funny how things work out sometimes.

We were told to bring enough gear to sleep on the mountain, so we loaded up on fleece and capilene, bivy sacks and MREs (nasty firefighter food) and soon I was on the Litter Team with rangers Tara, Katie and Bill, and Mike the firefighter. I told them I would probably be the slowest hiker, but they said it was no problem. Little did I know just how much slower I would be! The hike to Long's Peak is strenuous as it is, plus a heavy backpack and the fact that they hike SO FAST... We took a lot of short cuts, which made the distance less but the trail was steep and full of loose rock; it didn't take long for me to start falling back. This is the hike profile for Chasm Lake, which is right below where the man landed. Bill and Tara went ahead to set up the raft they were going to float across the lake so they could transport the victim to the storage cache. Katie, Mike and I kept plugging along, and they patiently waited up for me as I labored up the brutal steps above tree line. I felt bad but it wasn't a big deal - the "hasty team" was already up there and stabilizing the patient and there wasn't anything we could do for a while anyway. I think it took us about 1 hr 45 minutes or so to reach the storage cache, where we waited for futher instructions. They were still attempting to find a way to fly him off the mountain, but the weather was just too nasty. I couldn't even see my hiking party 20 feet in front of me at ALL. Soon, another party of 4 guys - 3 Marks and a Doug, which were rangers, a trails guy and a roads guy (all excellent hikers of course) - met up with us and we just sat tight until they were ready for us to assist with the litter carry.

They had stablized the guy and moved him from where he fell, because the whole time huge boulders were still rolling down the mountain. When we were finally told to continue hiking to the patient, it started lightening and thundering unlike anything I had ever heard before. The sky was totally fogged in and looking nasty, and the thunder echoed off the mountain as an earsplitting crack. Being on exposed rock during lightening is a bad idea but we had to get that guy down! Then, of course, it started hailing... and eventually turned into a constant rain that persisted through the rest of the rescue. Past the cache, the trail around the lake was just a jumble of skree and boulders, and I was exhausted so it was a little sketchy climbing across these rocks above the freezing cold lake. As we were nearing the end of the lake where they landed the raft (and the patient was a couple hundred feet above that, in the skree field), the weather finally broke for an instant and the helicopter pilot decided to give it a try. Soon, an orange helicopter flew up the valley, through the mountains, and landed on the skree field to whisk the guy away. Not much after the chopper departed, the fog closed back in. What a lucky man, to have survived the fall and then had that small window of opportunity to fly him off the mountain; otherwise, we would have had to hand carry him down, wasting valuable time.

We made it all the way there and did not end up carrying him down, but everybody thanked us for getting up there and being ready for the worst case scenario. The hike down was fast and wet, taking rocky short cuts and making the hike down in 1 hr 15 minutes with Mike, Mark and Mark. We had started up the trail around noon and I was back at the SAR cache at headquarters, turning my helmet, bivy sack and fleece back in at 6 pm... wet, tired but proud of myself for hanging in there and getting my ass up that mountain to rescue that poor guy.

I hadn't planned on staying at Tim's again while he was away, but I was beat so Dave and I went to the Rock Inn for some dinner. Another crazy chapter to my interesting weekend... I had only planned on one Guinness with dinner, but soon I found myself getting free drinks from the bartenders and other random drunk people! One older guy harassed Dave and I for not dancing and ended up buying us and Paul (maintenance guy) drinks because he felt bad for being obnoxious to us. He then hands us a purse and asks us to watch it while he dances with this blonde older lady. She comes over and is totally blitzed and buys us all drinks to thank us for watching her purse... and then decides she likes Dave more than this other guy and starts saying some NASTY stuff in his ear. Dave just laughs and doesn't even know WHAT to do, Paul and I are laughing at both of them... She starts hanging off some other guy and then comes back to Dave, trying to seduce him with her drunken lewd offers, saying she's "drunk, desperate and almost 40 years old"... She leaves the bar with some OTHER guy, but soon they come in, I guess she punched this guy?? And then started claiming HE punched her, which wasn't true... I just know she left and came back a couple more times, and eventually started harassing the bartender Michael, saying he was a loser for working at a bar in Estes and she was from Vegas and was "spending her rich husband's money" and her car is "worth three times more than you make in a year"... she was just OUT OF CONTROL! She asked Michael if he knew any big words because he was a loser and an idiot, and he said "INCARCERATED" and grabbed her car keys... she said "How about LOSER" and he walked out with her keys, she followed him...

And got handcuffs snapped on her by the cop right outside. They threw her in the back of the cop car and the whole bar was abuzz with all the drama that had just happened. At the Rock Inn! That doesn't happen there!! It was pretty funny and an interesting way to end the evening.

Today I slept and looked at German Shepherds and put down my rugs in my apartment finally... Not a very exciting day, which is excactly what I needed. Tried to get a new piercing today and new speakers for my truck, but alas it didn't happen. Tomorrow, I pick Tim up from the airport... so he can go to the backcountry again on Tuesday. :( 

So... I think it's bedtime now. It's been an exciting weekend and that's good enough for me! Here are some photos from my camera phone from the SAR.

I didn't make it to the peak, but I did get to the Diamond of Long's Peak after all!

 

This is the Chasm Lake storage cache, to get to the Lake we had to hike up the rocks behind it. On a normal day, you can see the Diamond of Long's Peak right behind it... In this photo, the fog had actually let up a little bit.

We were nearing the far end of the Lake when the helicopter had a chance to squeeze in when the weather broke. You can see the blue raft along the shore of Chasm Lake, and you can barely make out the small orange chopper in the middle of the snow fields. The guy had been up a chute that extends behind the ridge on the left, and came out where the left snowfield is. The carried him to an area on the right, just behind that ridge. That's where the helicopter landed.

The helicopter, loaded up with the patient and leaving over Chasm Lake.

Kelly's birthday

Just some photos that I have to send a couple people on the west side. We went to the Gateway and then the Grand Lake Lodge for Kelly's birthday last night. Always good times over there. We finished our "west side housing clear-cut project" today - after Cisco and I had felled, bucked up, and piled slash for all those trees by ourselves, the west side guys really came through and helped us in clean-up by giving us 2 dump trucks, the loader with a clamshell (to grab piles of slash) and manpower! I don't think you can imagine what a relief it was to get some help.Glad to be done with that; now on to maybe some east side hazard trees??

Just got home from taking Tim to the airport. Guess what? He's camping out again next week, right after he gets home from this other wedding. Guess he can't get sick of me this way, ha ha! ;)

Was pleasantly surprised when I was offered overtime on Friday and Saturday to join the fire crew while they send some of their people up to a fire in Drake. Longs Peak will have to wait yet again, but I'm not complaining!

Bedtime. Gotta put on the good ol' fire boots in the morning!

Back from the wedding, and still recovering!

First and foremost: I couldn't figure out how my batteries went dead on my camera, when I hadn't taken many photos. Once I got home, I was shocked to see 40 photos download on to my computer! And even better is that neither Tim nor I remember a lot of them being taken... You'll notice there aren't 40 photos posted on here. That's all I need to say about that! ;)

We got in to Portland Friday night and met his friend Mikey and drove out about an hour west of the city into what seemed a pretty "rural" area. It was dark when we got there so we weren't entirely sure what we were looking at, but we got to the bride's parents' house where we would be camping (and where the wedding was held). Ends up that her parents own a pretty decent chunk of property in the hilly area of Oregon, with lots of trees, space for camping, a huge beautiful house, a shower house for those of us camping, and a beautiful area in the trees where the wedding was held. Friday night we busted out a keg and I met Tim's friends from college, including his friend Kyle that owns that property in Alaska with him. It was a great time and everybody was very friendly. The bride and groom, Maura and Greg, were very nice and I'm glad they let me come along, since it was a pretty small wedding with all their close friends and family.

The next morning, we alternately helped set up tables, chairs and lights for the wedding, and lounged around on the grass, drinking beer too early in the day and loving every minute of the beautiful weather. The wedding started in the afternoon and I don't think they could have asked for a more perfect ceremony. Quite a few of us burned out relatively early from the partying the night before and the sunshine and drinking all day, but that champagne sure was good! ;)

Sunday, we woke up, some people nursed hang-overs, the rest of us broke down our tents, drank coffee and relaxed for a bit. Tim and I had the rental car, so we left early and dropped a couple people off at the airport and then he wanted to show me some waterfalls and the Columbia River off I-84. We ended up stopping at a park along the river and literally sleeping for a couple of much-needed hours in the grass before going back to the airport for our flight. By the time we got off the plane and back to Estes, it was around 2 am... So I spent Monday sleeping, watching Kill Bill, and eating mass quantities of sushi with Tim in Boulder. ;)  I don't think I've had a better day off!

Now, Tim's off camping out at the Loch (I hiked there with my Dad and Matt when they visited, it's a great hike!) to do trail work until Thursday, then I'm driving him to the airport so he can go to another wedding until Monday. :(  Guess it gives me time to update my journal!

On the work front, we finished felling in the west side housing today, for a total of 93 trees down. All that's left now is to clean it all up! Which is no small task. Hopefully I can put some before and after photos on here to give you an idea of what I've been up to.

I did book my flight back to Michigan so I'll be in town Sept 7-10 for Donna's shower. On top of that, I just talked to another friend of mine from Virginia who will be in town, so hopefully we can hang out! Him and I only seem to hang out in unique places or in strange circumstances - and I mean that in a good way. I still have a few weekends free for those of you who want to come out and visit, so get yer butts out here! Oh, and the coolest thing ever is that as of right now, I'm hopefully going up to Alaska with Tim in January for a couple weeks! My first time in Alaska, in the winter - yeah, I don't do things half way I guess! Hopefully he'll still want to talk to me by then, haha! ;)

Now, back to "Some Like it Hot". Kelly, a maintenance guy on the west side, is having a birthday so we're going out for drinks tomorrow... Thursday, taking Tim to the airport... Friday, Doug's (a roads guy) son's band is playing at the Rock Inn... And I was hoping to do Long's this weekend but looks like I'll be too busy. So that's what I'm up to and why I haven't called/written anybody back (I always have an excuse, don't I). But things are great and can't wait to see you MI people in a few weeks!

Photos from Red Rock Lakes trip

Just a quick update; obviously haven't been around much, out having fun and traveling and doing all those other weird things I do.

The trip was short, lots of driving, but very much worth it. Just look at the photos and you'll understand. :)  Got to visit lots of folks I haven't seen in two years - Gregg in Buffalo, Jeff and Gillian, Howard and Marilyn...

Tim got back Sunday evening so we had lots to catch up on, since we are leaving for Portland for his friend's wedding this weekend. Steve and I talked for probably hours on and off on Sunday while I drove through Wyoming. It was just a weekend of catching up and LOTS of talking. Phew!

And we're up to 79 trees downed and bucked up around the housing area; so much for our original number of 65. Looks a lot better though! Not looking forward to the clean up, that's for sure!

Probably won't update again until after the wedding, so that's all for now!

Photos from the Continental Divide

Here's some photos. I didn't take that many because there were so many cameras on our trip; hopefully I'll get some more from the other gals.

I finally went grocery shopping. That's about as exciting as my day was. ;)

I'm selling more stuff on ebay. Just trying to "simplify my life" and un-clutter my life... not that it's really that bad, but moving makes you THINK you have wayyy to much stuff!