Mesa Scouts found OK after wet, cold weekend

[fgoodwin]

Mesa Scouts found OK after wet, cold weekend

 

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0313weather0313side.html

http://tinyurl.com/ofbbr

 

Kids, leader lost in Superstitions

 

Lindsey Collom

The Arizona Republic

Mar. 13, 2006 12:00 AM

 

The search for a missing Mesa Boy Scout troop ended early Sunday when rescue crews spotted a tent peeking from a snow bank in the Superstition Mountains.

 

Nine boys and one adult were rescued from the mountain after spending the night huddled in three tents during a winter storm punctuated by freezing temperatures and biting winds.

 

Cmdr. Robert Cooper of Superstition Search & Rescue said the group, which originally included a Scoutmaster and another chaperone, had been in the mountains since Friday night.

 

The troop camped out in Haunted Canyon during what was supposed to be an overnight trip, but the group was overcome by the weather Saturday morning.

 

The Scoutmaster and a chaperone parted from the group Saturday afternoon to search for their vehicle, which was miles in the opposite direction, Cooper said, but did not exit the canyon the same way they entered. The snow had blanketed the trails, whiting out the landscape.

 

A search for the troop began about 9 p.m. Saturday after a concerned parent called 911. Fifteen Superstition Search & Rescue volunteers located the troop's van in the darkness and canvassed the area by vehicle and on foot.

 

By then, the snow was more than 3 feet deep and the troop was nowhere to be found, Cooper said.

 

A break came in the morning, when an Arizona Department of Public Safety helicopter spotted one of their tents. With the coordinates in hand, rescuers trekked several miles up the mountain by foot to make the confirmation.

 

When Cooper and his crew found the boys, they were "soaking wet and had nothing warm left."

 

The crew provided food, water and warm clothing until a helicopter could lift them from the mountain. No one was injured, Cooper said.

 

The boys and their families were reunited by noon.

 

"They were lucky," he said. "They made several mistakes to get into that predicament, but once they realized they were lost, they did everything right."

 

For more information: http://superstition-sar.org/

[SWScouter]

I found out about this last night on the news. I'm very glad everything turned out okay for the troop.

 

I find this interesting because my son and I were scheduled to go on our first outing with the troop he crossed over to this weekend. We were going to camp in an area NE of Phoenix, while the other troop camped in an area SE of Phoenix. Friday night, we decided to cancel the trip and instead meet at a leaders house and work on advancement and then go bowling. We knew the snow level was dropping but we were concerned about rain, not snow, and the roads being washed out, especially since a lot of the area where we were heading was burned out last year. We made the right choice, the rain started around 2AM Saturday and continued well into Saturday evening. I measured 2 1/8" at my house and areas in SE Valley measured over 3". After 143 days without measurable rain, we had quite a wet day! In addition to that, the snow level dropped to around 2000-2500'. We would have been snowed in for sure. Yesterday there was a thick blanket of snow to be seen on all the surrounding mountains. This was a very extraordinary storm for this area.

 

I imagine the only good way for those scouts to have gotten out on their own would to have had a GPS and to follow the "tracks" made on the way in. With all the snow on the ground and falling, a map and compass would have been worthless. With at least a foot of snow on the ground when they woke up Saturday morning, travel would be tough without snow shoes. Once they got to their vehicles, I'm not sure they would even have been able to get out.

 

SWScouter

[fgoodwin]

Thanx for the first-hand account. I'm curious, because the article doesn't say: what was the forecast for the weekend? Was snow mentioned at all?

[SWScouter]

Lots of snow was forecast at the higher elevations. I heard they were expecting the snow level to drop as low as 3500'. Where we were going was around 3100' so it would have been cold and wet, possibly with sleet. The superstitions start at around 2000' and go up over 5000' in places. I have no idea what the elevation was where the troop was rescued from. My guess is they did not expect snow. I can try to look up the elevation of Haunted Canyon later.

 

SWScouter

[fgoodwin]

Thanx for the update.

 

I assume the SM reviewed the forecast before he left with the Troop, and made a judgement regarding the likelihood of snow where they were going.

 

I'm glad this didn't end in tragedy.

[SWScouter]

After looking at the topo map of the Haunted Canyon trail it appears the low spot would have been at 3200' or so on one end and 3600' on the other with plenty of it over 4000'. The trail looks to be somewhat like a horseshoe, close to 9 miles in length, the two trailheads perhaps 5 miles of road between. They would probably have started from the 3200' end. I don't know where the troop was but with warnings of the snow level dropping to 3500' I'd certainly consider snow or sleet a distinct possibility.

 

SWScouter

[Beavah]

Snowed-in Scout hikers rescued

By Katie McDevitt, Tribune

March 13, 2006

http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/index.php?sty=61042

 

What started as a weekend hike for a Mesa Boy Scout troop ended Sunday in a mountain rescue. Nine boys, ages 11 to 13, huddled together to keep warm for more than 24 hours, after 3 feet of snow forced them to stop their 6-mile hike through the Superstition Mountains, said David Perkins, leader of Troop 716. Despite freezing temperatures, no one was injured.

 

The troop started hiking Friday evening near Globe. The troop hiked into the night and got wet as the weekend storm swept into the mountains. When the Scouts woke up Saturday, they were wet, cold and deep in snow.

 

Perkins and another adult left the boys with their most experienced leader and hiked back to some parked vehicles to call for help.

 

Through the use of GPS response systems and cell phones, the pair placed calls for help.

 

We were scared of being cold, so we had to get off our wet clothes and stay as warm as we could, said Tyler Rowley, 11. We didnt know what to do. We thought we were going to die.

 

Just before noon, helicopters airlifted the group to rescue vehicles.

 

Their leader, a former Navy Seal named Jim Beach, saved those boys lives, said Kyle Rowley, father of 11-yearold Tyler Rowley.

 

There were no injuries and no frost-bitten feet, Perkins said.

 

For Tyler Rowley, the trip was a bad experience. He said he probably wont want to go hiking again.

 

Perkins said the boys had enough food for two additional days.

 

They learned what they were capable of on this hike, Perkins said. They will look back on this later in life and realize when they encounter something difficult that they have the strength to handle it.

 

*****

 

This seems like another poorly prepared scout group gettin' in over their heads, eh? Pushin' into bad weather in the mountains in the dark on Friday, so they can be out on Saturday? Sounds like an LDS unit.

 

With all the snow on the ground and falling, a map and compass would have been worthless.

 

Dat seems like an odd statement, eh? Please explain. I don't understand how snow on the ground makes any difference in how one uses a map and compass. And nobody should be trying to hike in a true white-out, but a map and compass work just fine in a general snowstorm up here in da midwest.

 

[scoutingagain]

Like others I'm glad all turned out OK.

 

While it is 20/20 hindsight, any instance like this can and should be examined for lessons learned. We can't put ourselves in the exact shoes of this leader at the time, but we can think about similar scenarios and ask ourselves what we would do.

 

As for me, I would not be considering a winter nightime backpacking outing for the group of 11-13 year olds I serve, regardless of the weather forecast. Our older scouts, sure and I'm confident they would do fine. The younger scouts in my unit frankly are just not ready for that kind of outing yet and we camp year round in New England.

 

We have a winter campout scheduled for this weekend for the whole unit, younger boys included. We'll be hiking about a half-mile into a group campsite near an abandoned ski area. We're watching the weather, and hoping for some snow! Right now there's hardly any in the mountains of NH. Current forecast is partly sunny, highs in the 30's lows in the teens, with possible snow showers.

 

SA

[SWScouter]

Beavah,

 

I wrote, "snow on the ground and falling". I assume it was a whiteout situation. I don't know what a general midwest snowstorm is but I don't think it's 3-4' in ~18 hours.

 

Perhaps I shouldn't have said useless, at least with a compass they would know what direction they're traveling and they could point towards a road. I think it would have been very difficult at best to place their location on the map without a GPS.

 

One thing, I have no idea when the two leaders left to call for help. The snow stopped Saturday evening, so if the adults waited til Sunday morn to travel to their vehicles, then a map and compass would have been very useful. Thinking about it, they probably did wait til Sunday morning after the weather broke. My comments were thinking of the scouts packing up and heading out Saturday morning as soon as they were able. At that time, it would have been snowing very hard as it would have for most of the rest of the day.

 

SWScouter

[le Voyageur]

I'm glad that all are okay.....

 

In all my years of backpacking in the Superstitions I've never seen snow there. It must of took these scouts by suprise. As my Phoenix kin keeps telling me, when it hits 50 they start wearing parkas...yeah, I've had cold nights in the desert, but never been snowed on. This is weather you would see up in the White Mountains, or the Mogollon rim country. The weather is just not right....

[Beavah]

Interestin' le V, and SWS, thanks.

 

If it's really a rare occurance, it's easy for troops not to have developed any experience with it. Those of us who've spent a lot of time in the hills in other places might anticipate somethin' that the locals don't.

 

And whiteout navigation is always somethin' to avoid.