By Mary O’KEEFE

Last week CVW wrote about the dangers of hiking during inclement weather especially before, during and after storms that had high rainfall totals. Sgt. John Gilbert, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Dept. (LASD) – Crescenta Valley Station, is the Montrose Search and Rescue (MSAR) coordinator. Gilbert reminded people that even after the rains stop creeks continue to rise and mud and debris continue to slide.

An example of this occurred on Sunday night when MSAR members were called out to rescue eight people who needed help getting out of the Angeles National Forest (ANF). The three adults and five kids had gone on a weekend trip but found that due to a turn in the weather they needed help getting home.

The kids were 11 to 13 years old and, according to what they told MSAR members, were part of a Boy Scout troop. They had gone out prepared with tents, jackets and food; in addition, they had a Garmin inReach system that they ended up activating.

“They had hiked up Stone Canyon Trail to Mt. Lukens then they came down the Grizzly Flats Trail into Big Tujunga Canyon,” said Steve Goldsworthy, MSAR operations leader for this rescue.

The hikers had made a river crossing earlier that they felt was “sketchy” and got to the portion of the trail where they had to make another river crossing. The trail crosses the river about five times in the canyon, Goldsworthy added.

The river kept rising and they didn’t want to make another “sketchy” crossing so they decided to stay for the night. But the adult hikers realized this situation could get worse and decided to put out a call for help. “The problem was they were sitting down in a wash at the same level as the river and we were expecting seven to eight inches of rain in the mountains in the next 48 hours,” Goldsworthy said.

So waiting did not seem like a good option. In the mountains, rivers can have artificial dams where logs and debris hold water back but at some point hat debris can break away.

“[Then] you have a debris flow situation and it can easily wash away [people],” Goldsworthy said.

So MSAR’s objective was to get the hikers out that night. Luckily, because the hikers activated the inReach system, the team was able to set up communications via text and get their global positioning system coordinates.

MSAR member Mike Leum said having that system was very important because without it the team would have most likely not heard of the hikers needing help until someone reported them missing and then would have had to search hundreds of miles in the ANF.

Prior to leaving the station Goldsworthy contacted LA County Flood Control and asked for the flow out of the dam be curtailed.

Goldsworthy said he had Plans A, B, and C but ended up going to Plan D because of the terrain, location, river and incoming storm. The team would have to cross a river that was raging and deep. Goldsworthy wasn’t comfortable with that being the first attempt at the rescue so he called in LASD Air Support.

“They came in and spent about 45 minutes trying to get someone on the ground close to where these campers [hikers] were,” he said.

They were having difficulty finding a way to get a paramedic rescuer, who rides in the helicopter, on the ground because of the power lines in the area.

“And the mist started picking up,” he said, “and the weather started closing in.”

The air support finally got a paramedic lowered near the campsite but had to pick him up before he could reach the hikers due to the worsening weather conditions.

Goldsworthy approached the rescue then as a cliff rescue, which had its own set of problems.

The first plan was to lower MSAR members down the cliff on a cable via the winch truck – about 700 to 800 feet – then bring the hikers up one at a time the same way. But it became obvious that scenario wouldn’t work as soon as the first MSAR member started down the cliff side.

“It was one of the most difficult lowers on a cable [I have done],” said Leum. “The terrain had been washed away; there were overhangs, overgrowth and vertical drops. The [vegetation] was so thick you couldn’t see your feet.”

After Leum and MSAR member Will Richards were lowered down the cliff, Goldsworthy realized this would not be a way the hikers could be brought back up. Because of their training climbing up a vertical wall at night is something team members can do; however, Goldsworthy was not comfortable with having kids climb the wall.

So it seemed the only choice was to cross the river multiple times to hike out the group from the area. Five additional team members were on-site, scouting the river to locate the safest areas to cross.

The first crossing was the toughest. The water was raging and at least hip deep in areas. Leum forged the river with a rope and he and Richards created a rope rescue.

They elevated the rope on one side so the kids could use it as a zipline to stay “high and dry” out of the water, said Leum.

The adults were too heavy to traverse the river the same way so they had to be secured by the rope and walked across the river.

Team members were able to get the hikers safely across the first crossing and the other crossings were progressively easier, thanks to the water being curtailed by the flood control system.

But the water was still flowing. Just because the control system slowed the water flow the resulting reduction did not happen immediately; it took a long time to reduce the flow.

Thankfully the hikers were safe when they finally got to the road though they barely beat the downpour from the storm; however, for MSAR members the rescue brought back some personal memories.

“I was thinking of Chuck the whole time,” Leum said.

“Chuck” was Deputy Chuck Rea – the only MSAR member to lose his life while on a rescue. Deputy Rea died in 1969 during a water rescue at a river in Big Tujunga at La Paloma Flats.

“Where we entered the water, we were at La Paloma Flats about 100 yards from where Chuck Rea lost his life,” Goldsworthy said. “That was weighing heavy on my mind when I thought of putting people in the water as the first choice.”

Deputy Rae and fellow MSAR members were rescuing 20 to 30 people who had been stranded at the Tujunga Wash. The area had received a large amount of rain. The rainstorm was still raging during the rescue and they had to cross a river to set up a rope rescue system. Deputy Rae had apparently slipped on a log as he was crossing the river and was trapped under the water. His team members tried heroically to save him but the water was too fast and deep.

MSAR members are very familiar with the ANF and how effects of storms can last for days.

“I don’t encourage anyone to hike when there is rain in the forecast or even two or three days after the rain because the water levels are still very high,” Goldsworthy said.

In addition the potential for falling rocks and trees is elevated due to the soil being so saturated by the rains. Goldsworthy added MSAR was on a rescue a few months ago when a hiker was just sitting next to a waterfall when a rock came over the falls and struck her. The hiker was transported to the hospital but did not survive.

As a reminder, even after a storm and especially between rainstorms, it is not advised to hike in the ANF. Creeks can quickly become rivers; a calm river can become a raging water flow with debris and trails that were easy to traverse a few weeks ago can become slippery and dangerous after a rainstorm.