San Gorgonio SAR members assist in successful search near Cucamonga Peak

In yet another instance of training-day-turned-actual-scenario, we received a page early on the morning of Feb. 21 for a search on what was purportedly Mt. Baldy.

As we would later find out, after an unplanned detour, this was a bit of miscommunication. So, after leaving the Barn at Mill Creek at 0530, and a detour to Mt. Baldy where no sign of a search in progress was evident, we got the right info and made our way to the command post at the end of Haven Ave., in Rancho Cucamonga, arriving at 0800.

Fortunately for us, we were just in time for a briefing and as is usually the case, we didn't get a whole lot of detail on the back-story, but the subject, Daniel Travieso, is a 19-year-old who had attended a wrestling match in Rancho Cucamonga on Friday, and then decided he wanted to take a hike in the mountains. Around 1900 or so he calls his parents and says he is lost. Apparently there was aslo a 911 call at some point.

Searchers found track, discarded clothing, and what they think was his cell phone (Dunno who else's it would be.).

Shortly thereafter Bruce, Rodney and myself were aboard the rescue ship to be dropped off in a saddle above a drainage that they wanted us to clear down to Day Canyon.

I haven't examined the GPS track to figure our total land mileage, but it took the better part of a day to cover what must have been not much more than 5 miles.

Our first few steps out of the helicopter we were post-holing, waist deep, through the crust. This continued on for a couple hours while we made our way down to the main part of the drainage, which narrowed into a steep canyon. We had opted to leave behind snowshoes to lighten our packs, as we did not think the altitude we were going to be at would have quite that much snow accumulation. Oops.

We had been paralleling each other down ridges, a hundred or so yards apart, that converged into the drainage, where we all three joined back up. Not much more than 100 feet into the main drainage, we encountered our first rappel. It was probably only about 8 - 10 feet down, and not totally vertical. It looked like you could scramble down it, and we thought about attempting to do so, but a mistake would have resulted in a nasty tumble so I went ahead and threw a rope around an anchor ( A downed tree in the streambead.) and harnessed up anyway. Better safe than sorry.

This turned out to be the right choice as not more than another 100 feet downstream we encountered our second rappel. This one was on vertical rock about 25 feet down. Our only apparently available anchor here looked a little more marginal. It was also a downed tree lodged in the streambed, but it was smaller in diameter and looked like it might lever upwards when it was weighted. However, as soon as one went over the edge the direction of pull eliminated any levering effect and the anchor was solid. I wouldn't have lowered a litter on it though... The last rappel was another couple hundred feet downstream.

Fortunately for this one Bruce also had his rope along. Since we were doing pull down rappels our available rope-length was halved. I had about 70 feet of rope and the last rappel was 45 - 50 feet. So we tied Bruce and my ropes together, and wrapped them around our anchor (This one was a bombproof tree growing out of the rock. No worries there.), and proceeded down what turned out to be the final rappel.

Shortly after this point we converged on Day Canyon, and began hearing radio traffic that the subject had been located by 40 King. We were probably not much more than 200 yards or so upstream from where 40 King was circling, but even at our quickened pace it was slow going over downed trees, rocks, marsh, and thickets of thorny rosebush. We never actually got close enough to see the subject or the medic that they lowered down to him.

The subject was hoisted out and flown to Arrowhead Medical center. All that was left for us to do was some more bushwhacking and a steep scramble up a hillside to a ridgeline above the Canyon where we got airlifted out, after some pretty impressive maneuvering by the pilot.

That was definitely one of the more adventuresome searches I've been on. The subject was located alive, and Rodney made it home in time for his girl's basketball game. Can't ask for much better results than that. Though I was not-so-secretly hoping that we'd have to be hoisted out...

More pictures of the search can be viewed here.