For a week at home it seemed awful busy.

You heard about the start of the week in the last blog entry. That was Monday, through noon, when the rain started and the day cooled off.

About 90 minutes after that entry, the phone rang and we had a mission to support Custer SAR (just south of us on the Sangre De Cristos) in the search and rescue of what initially was four people missing on Crestone Needle (14er), which is noted for folks taking the wrong exit route when coming down and getting lost or cliffed out (no way up - no way down).

I got a hold of some of our alpine and technical rope team members and we headed for the Custer County Rescue Barn.

Everyone brought their cold weather gear (layers, ice axes & crampons) and prepared for a evening out. As we crested the Wet Mountains and got our first good view of the Sangre's we knew it would be cold and wet. The Sangre's were capped with a very dark cloud bank and had snow down to tree line.

Arriving in Westcliffe the number of missing was now at two, a couple that had been out since Saturday. The weather precluded air search/support. These types of changes in the situation are not uncommon early in a mission as facts are being gathered and clarified.

As we geared up to deploy to the field, e.g stripping gear that won't be needed, splitting gear up amongst the team, getting maps, etc. The call came in that they had been found. This is always good news, now the wait to see if rescue would be needed. They turned out to be OK and could be walked out.

We stayed until released, then headed back to Canon.

The rest of the week went as planned, except for the need to call in a cable locater to mark the area at the end of road so that I could dig some post holes using Mike's trencher (more on Mike below). Getting a locater up here is always an adventure, will they show up...at the right place etc. By Friday at 3pm we had the power company locater show after Marlys ran into him a couple of miles down the road, after taking the ATV to collect the mail (5 miles away). She had him follow her.

While he was working, the phone rang. Chaffee County (west of us) needed help in finding a couple missing on Mt. Columbia (14er) that hadn't been heard from since they placed a 911 call at 17:30 the day before at the 13k' level.

They needed more people to go into the field the next day (Saturday) to continue the search. Had a advisement sent out from dispatch and started to work the phone to see who could go out (and making sure we still had folks here to handle a situation should if one developed). Decided on 6 people, two teams of three.

While making arrangements to send the teams, the locater turned back up at the house to let us know that the power went right through where we wanted to dig.

Turns out that before the afternoon was over the couple was found, and no one had to go.

Which was good because the weekend was already full; Saturday ATV certification training, Saturday evening going to the Springs for the CSSO Pops concert "The Music of Led Zeppelin, then Sunday's re-scheduled Flight For Life lift ticket re-certification.

Saturday's ATV training started especially colorfully when Mike, whom a few of you have met, showed up with the donuts...and pants last seen in a drug induced hallucination. Obviously he did not get enough attention as a child, or it was a plan to visually confuse other golfers in order to give him a sporting chance.

We bought season tickets to the CSSO Pop's series this year and the Music of Led Zeppelin, by Windborne was a great start. LZ music lends itself well to a full orchestra and Randy Jackson the singer they had covering the songs had the style and voice down well. I would like to see some of their other shows, e.g. Music of the Eagles, Pink Floyd, etc.

This is basically a traveling rock band and conductor that plays with a local orchestra. It is a great combination.

Got home at mid-night, now time to get ready to go to helicopter training.

I thought retirement was suppose to be leisurely.

Building a Spot for The Camper

We needed to level an area 20'x10' for the camper and Mike had lent me his trencher which also has a backhoe and a blade below it.


I have never run this type of equipment before and after using the backhoe to clear a few boulders, I figured out why you pay experts like Tim L. to do this type of work. If I had had another couple of hands and could really run multiple consciousness', I maybe could have watched and adjusted for everything going on when doing this type of work.

Leveling this small patch of dirt took me about an hour.

Luckily it started to rain, otherwise I would have probably kept screwing with it and ended up overdoing it.

They say part of becoming a great artist is knowing when to stop and say it is done.

Up at The Bank

The last two years our Technical Rope Team has gone up to The Bank climbing and campground for a weekend of training, usually starting on Friday night.

The weather cooperated after receiving a little over two inches of rain at our place this week, and Marlys and I got there early Friday afternoon to grab some camp sites. The selection was based on where we were going to train over the next couple of days as the backside of the sites to the north border on the climbing area called The Darkside (in shadow). So beware if you go wandering at night because literally 50' behind some of the sites is a vertical drop off.

We grilled once folks showed up and headed out to the cliffs about 7pm. We planned on setting up a lowering system and then a pig-rig raising system and figured to be done around 9pm.

So why in the dark? Because many times by the time a search and rescue team is called out it is late in the day or evening and the work we do ends up being done in the dark. We try to practice in the dark to get everyone use to it.

There were a number of new folks with us and after running through the setup and tear-down a few times it was 11pm before getting back to camp. Late but not too late for a beer and a smores.

We waited until 9am before gearing up and hitting the trail on Saturday morning. The training was a scenario where we have a disabled climber on a cliff face and we would lower a rescue climber, do a pick-off then raise the rescuer/climber combination back to the top. Because of the need for a victim and a rescuer we had two lower systems set ups, safety lines and a raising system. A lot of work, but everyone did a great job. Again we got a few runs in, we broke everything down and debriefed about 3pm.

All in all a great weekend, now I need to put the exhaust system back on the Jeep after it very inopportunely fell off crossing a arroyo during last weeks rains.

Part of this repair included cleaning out the interior. I transferred a lot of mud after laying in it to wire up WITH A COAT HANGER the exhaust system for the long slow 35 mile drive home.

Bottle Openers From Recent Travels

During the recent trips to Minnesota and around Colorado, I have attempted to collect a piece of wood in most of the locals to make into bottle openers.

With the Summer travels coming to an end a few days in the shop resulted in these.

There is wood from the Alpine Loop below Handies (fifth from right), Monarch (2nd from left), Dan's place in Minni (third from left) and Democrat-Cameron-Lincoln-Bross (sixth from left or right). The one on the far left is curly Redwood from Eureka, CA. The wild striped one is from a piece of Gambrel Oak (scrub Oak) cut from behind the house when doing fire mitigation.

Haven't spent much time in the shop this Summer, but hopefully things will slow down this Fall and I can get in there. Found a source for curly maple and cherry up here in my area for the new table top Marlys has been asking about for a year now.