In your time as a Search & Rescue volunteer you will encounter many references to clues. Some people will be referred to as "Clue Aware", "Clue Finders", or "Clue Destroyers". A difficulty arises in that there is no uniform way by which Clue Awareness is taught in our area. This chapter will try to help you develop an appreciation for this most important of Search skills.
Whether in a natural or human made location, all that you can hear, see, smell, touch or perceive through experience adds up to a picture. Some are things that fit in the picture. Other things are disturbances to the harmony of the pictures many elements. It is these disturbances that are clues.
Simply by virtue of being alive, every living thing creates clues. A hiker leaves tens of thousands of clues strewn about everywhere he/she goes. We start with the obvious: Tracks and Litter. They are important, but there is more.
Every living thing has a peculiar scent all its own. This scent is in the form of millions of microscopic particles. The human sense of smell is too poor to detect these particles. Rather than lose the value of these millions of clues, we bring in the Search Dog. Scent is important, but there is more.
Subtle are the clues generated by a person's actions, thoughts, and physical state. As a person tires, their feet splay out further from each other. A fresh and energetic hiker will leave track with the toes pointing almost fully forward and parallel. So tracks with the toes splayed out likely indicate someone who is becoming physically fatigued.
Fatigue is also a thing of the mind. What happens as a person wears down mentally is that they deviate from their normal routine or behavior. This deviation can be detected in the clues they leave behind. The backpacker who is described as very conscientious about leaving only footprints behind may leave some litter. The hypothermic individual ignores personal safety by discarding the very things that could prevent death. The suicidal type often leaves behind personal articles or clothing, all very neatly placed.
So it is human idiosyncrasies and behavior that are both the producers of clues, as well as the clues themselves. You need not be an authority on human behavior to detect clues. You need only an open mind, and a willingness to endure hours of seemingly fruitless effort.
The delicate nature of clues is equal to their criticalness to a successful search. Merely by being in the same area as the victim, we destroy the victims clues. We do this by covering them up with our own. Tracks and scent are especially delicate. Scent can be rendered useless by the exhaust fumes of cars. These fumes desensitize a dogs nose. Thus simply driving your car up and down a road a few times may destroy any chance of the victims passage being detected by search dogs.
Tracks are patterns left in dirt or other surfaces by feet or by anything else that contacts the ground. Searchers feet and tires leave tracks just as surely. All too often, these "Searcher Clues" are deposited on top of the victims.
1). CLUE DETECTION. A search was once initiated by a hiker who reported encountering a fellow who seemed ill-equipped. The hiker spoke briefly to this fellow and learned that he intended to go to Mt. Kimball. This at a late hour, with cool temperatures and rugged miles ahead. The reportee continued out to his car. Upon getting there he noted that only one other car was in the parking lot. This was Saturday evening. A snow storm came in that night, leaving a good foot of snow in the higher elevations.
The first hiker was sufficiently concerned to check the parking lot in the morning. There he found one car. He called the Sheriff's Office and a search effort was launched immediately based on this information. The lack of a missing persons report could easily be explained by the fact that the weekend was only half gone. The victim was reportedly dressed in a tee-shirt, shorts, and sneakers. A group of very concerned volunteers proceeded into the snow of Finger Rock Canyon.
Our reportee hadn't thought to jot down the license number of the car he saw on Saturday. But we were all comfortable with his certainty that the car he saw was the one in the lot, myself included. A check of the vehicle's registration led to a residence in the city. An officer went to the address and, finding no one at home, interviewed the neighbors. A neighbor was found who knew the car's owner to be a hiker, and that the person planned a hike that weekend.
An examination of the car was made by both deputies and volunteers. This was done through the car's windows, as the doors were locked. Little was visible. Some fast food litter, and some greasy tools resting on a newspaper on the floor. The possibility that the car did not run, and that the hiker was off somewhere getting assistance arose due to these greasy tools. Time later showed this theory to be incorrect. What solved this search mystery were the newspaper and, coincidentally, the owner of the car turning up a short time later.
The newspaper really bugged me. Several times I looked at the paper through the window, trying to figure out why it didn't quite feel right. Finally it came to me: The newspaper was too thick to be a weekly or Saturday edition, at least for Tucson. I had read the previous weeks papers, and was certain that they were much thinner than this one. The paper was folded with the bottom side of one page visible. A volunteer was found who had Sunday morning's paper in his car. Leafing through it we quickly came to the page that was visible through the window.
Based on the obvious fact that someone hiking since Saturday could not have the next Sunday morning's paper in their car, I argued that the search should be canceled. We scaled down a little and were about to recall all personnel completely when the team furthest out in the field encountered the car's owner. His hiking party had gone out that morning. They were powerful hikers, and were returning from Mt. Kimball. No other hikers were encountered.
2). CLUE PROTECTION: The most fun I've had with a Point Last Seen was in protecting one. While driving to work one morning SARA was paged to search for two hikers overdue from a trip in Catalina State Park. As I was just approaching the park, I pulled in to wait for everyone else. I got a description of the subjects vehicle off the radio, and went to look for it. It was found parked in a sandy area next to the trail head for Romero Canyon. It was 6 AM on a Saturday morning in the early summer, which meant that several gazillion hikers would soon be trampling through the very spot where the car was parked.
I parked my truck on the pavement behind the car, and went on a little climbing trip. The area around the car was bordered by trees, old telephone poles laid out to prevent cars driving up the trail, and an over developed pickup truck with massive tires and half the shock absorbers in Arizona. What I did was surround the car with a barrier of flagging tape by climbing through the trees, along the phone poles, and over the truck. These monkey shines allowed me to fully cordon off the area from hiker damage without ever setting foot on the ground around the car. Easily the most socially redeeming bit of climbing I've ever done.
It almost worked too. Right after completing this a deputy arrived in a big Blazer with overhead light bar and Sheriff's markings. His truck being a much more impressive sight, we replaced mine with his. So as the deputy and I are standing there studying a map on the hood of his very obvious police vehicle, a hiker runs up and jumps over the flagging, trips, and falls rolling across all those beautiful tracks! Grrr.......
Another example of clue detection and collection also occurred in the state park. A 48 year old fellow was overdue on the Romero Canyon-Sutherland Trail Loop. Actually, he was right on time. But he had allowed only 10 hours to complete a two day hike, and he was poorly equipped for the season.
I was asked to locate and document a track at the campsite the hiker and his wife shared in the park. They were camped in an RV. So I stretched flagging tape from the drivers side front bumper several feet out to a bush. Then around the bush and parallel to the side of the truck all the way down to the exhaust pipe. The reason? Very simple. Most RVs have service hookups down the drivers side, as well as cargo storage hatches. Sure enough the hiker had left numerous distinct tracks in the sand along the drivers side of the RV!
But it got even better. The couple took many pictures traveling about. In one location they encountered mountain lion tracks in light snow. To get a size comparison the husband walked alongside the tracks and the wife photographed them. She loaned us the photograph of his tracks and, along with measurements taken in the sand, we were able to precisely identify his tracks on the trail!
Clues, like most lessons in Search & Rescue, are little things. It's can be difficult to take much satisfaction from finding something like a button, or an orange peel. These things are so much smaller than victims. The problem is that the single most ignorant act of new volunteers is that they go out looking for victims, rather than looking for clues. Breaking this habit is essential to being a Clue Aware Searcher. Find the evidence of the victims presence, and you closing in on the victim! Any fool can trip over a body.
There is no one "Best Method" to use in searching. A combination of techniques is typically used when conducting a wilderness search. These include Sign Cutting, Interviewing, and Attraction. All this while hiking a prescribed course chosen as likely to block, confine, intercept, or overtake a missing hiker. The degree to which separate techniques are used will depend on the Team's specific instructions, and pooled resources. Your search efforts begin as soon as you start into the field.
SIGN CUTTING: This is the detection of disturbances created by the passage of a human being through a wilderness area or other terrain. While hiking be on constant watch for tracks, pieces of tracks, or for any debris as you might imagine a human generating. When you see a sandy area ahead, move off the trail so as to protect the "Track Trap". Pay attention to litter. If the brand new candy wrapper or cigarette pack matches what the victim was said to be carrying, you've got a clue! Clues we have found in the past include: Full and partial tracks, candy and food wrappers, footwear, books, clothing, backpacking gear, cigarette butts, canteens, and other personal articles.
Not counting the victim, our most valuable clue is the tracks left by the victims footwear. Sadly, it's often very difficult to determine the exact pattern. All we usually get is make, model, size, and color of shoe. None of this is helpful. Shoe sizes vary tremendously, and have only a passing connection to track size. Take my feet for instance. They require anything from a size 7.5 to a 9, depending on the brand. So what we must do is pay close attention to the general type of tracks we see. Take note of location, age, direction of travel, type of sole, and if any leave the trail. Should a detailed track description become available later, than your written or even mental notes of tracks encountered may prove quite valuable.
ATTRACTION: This is simply the attempt to enlist the victims help. We advertise our presence, and invite the victim to do likewise. Attraction involves anything you can think of to get the victims attention. Yelling names, flashing lights and mirrors, blowing whistles, and careful listening and watching. Remember that if you are successful in attracting the victims attention, the victim must in turn attract you. So after yelling, be quiet and listen a while. Have the radio operator stand off a little ways. Try placing people on adjacent overlooks to catch sounds from different directions. Coordinate your attraction efforts with other teams, least you wind up attracting another team. It's very entertaining to discover that two teams "found" each other, but it's not very productive.
A technique that has worked well for me in the past is to split my team, the halves moving the same route, but a 1/4 mile apart. The method serves two purposes. The halves of the team can appraise how well their compatriots efforts are traveling. Also the Team's collective hearing ability is spread over a larger area to catch more sound. The down side of this method is the need for the Team's two halves to communicate with each other. If this cannot easily be done without crowding up the radio, then the team can't split. (Ham radio anyone?)
INTERVIEWING: The people you meet on the trail can provide valuable information, and effectively multiply the number of searchers by alerting the hiking public. The difficulty arises that everyone has an innate yearning both to help, and to be involved. Untrained, undisciplined people often try to make what they remember about the hikers they've seen fit the description of who's missing. This is a very natural tendency and is without malice.
When encountering other hikers, introduce yourself, and ask for a few moments of their time. Example: "Hi, I'm Clyde Rescuer with Search & Rescue, we're looking for an overdue hiker. Can I ask you a few questions on where you've hiked and what you've seen?". Give the hiker a highly simplified description of who you are looking for. The idea is to let the interviewee tell the interviewer what the interviewer already knows about the victim. Be very careful not to ask questions that suggest their own answers. Ask about where they have hiked and camped. Get rough descriptions of anyone they noticed. Ask about campfires seen or smelled, or voices heard.
Try to do all this without taking notes, some people are put off by it. Write down critical parts later. If the hiker(s) don't seem to have any useful information, then work in a more complete description of the victim. Ask them to call the Sheriff's Office if they remember anything later, no mater how trivial. Assure them the victim is in no difficulty with the law, our only interest is to make certain the person is alright.
My favorite example of a search where all techniques fell nicely together is also my first search as a SARA member, this is entirely coincidental.
We were nearing the end of a long days work practicing a variety of self rescue and fixed rope techniques. Having come through the lesser training stations, I was on my way back up the hardest one when Jim Gilbreath looked down from the top and yelled: "Get your ass up here! You're going hiking!" For getting a trainees attention, I know of no better method then to get the adrenaline pumping. The ascent was some 200 feet, mostly overhung, using Gibbs ascenders on Goldline. Bouncing and spinning in the gusty wind and being called for my first search was an unbeatable combination.
The problem was a family group, a father and two young daughters. They were several days overdue traveling from Marshall Gulch to Catalina State Park. The were said to be very well equipped. Tent, sleeping bags, plenty of food, numerous maps, and other gear suggested that they should be able to take care of themselves. All three had the same bright red windbreaker. We had a rough, though usable track description (a rare delight). And of course we had their names. Their back country experience was limited, so we expected them to be lost. The greatest mystery at the time was how anybody could wander around such heavily traveled trails for three days without asking directions. This factor caused no small degree of concern, as it suggested that our missing subjects might be either too dumb to ask for directions, or in serious difficulty
.I was on the first team sent out from the mountain top. This five man group was poorly matched. Three of the group were fast strong hikers who could easily be pictured running the entire 15 miles and 6000 feet down the mountain. This, in essence, was our Team's assignment. To cover the route quickly, doing only a minimum of attraction, interviewing or sign cutting. The thinking was that we would find them somewhere along the trail, as is very common in these searches.
The other two team members were not up to this high speed travel. My feet are flat, real FLAT, and cause me considerable pain at times. The hours spent ascending ropes all day had my feet well tenderized. Bob Birkett claimed to be too old to chase all these young fellers down the mountain. Having later learned that Bob is no light weight in the woods, I suspect the reality is that he took pity on me and my aching feet.
So off we went up the Marshall Gulch Trail. The plan being to cross The Wilderness of Rocks, then along the Lemmon Ridge Trail and Romero Pass Trails down to Catalina State Park. The team started quickly, but split into two parts within the first 1/4 mile. The three fast hikers became Team 1. Bob and I became Team 2.
Team 1 did its assigned job well. Team 2 followed comfortably behind. Team 2 quite naturally fell into a mode of operation more akin to my physical level of performance. We did more intense interviewing and sign cutting, simply because we had the time. By the time Team 1 was nearly to Lemmon Ridge, Team 2 was hardly a third through the Wilderness of Rocks. Even so both teams came to the same conclusion.
Nothing had been found to suggest that our victims had gotten very far into the Wilderness of Rocks. Both teams interviewed hikers who were certain they had not encountered anyone fitting the victims description, however vaguely. Of much importance were the couple who had been lounging about, on folding lounge chairs no less, at a major point on the trail since before the victims entered the woods.
Bob suggested the victims were probably off trail, perhaps to the south of us. We discussed this and decided to try more intense attraction efforts. We left the trail and went in search of overlooks to shout down into the many convoluted canyons and drainages. We took turns shouting and listening. About the third location we tried, we got a response.
This is where it gets really neat. The response we got wasn't the "Here we are!" kind. Rather it was a "There they are!" shout. The confusion was quickly resolved when we back tracked about a 1/4 mile to find two hikers we had interviewed earlier, standing high on a rock. The victims had heard our shouts from nearly two miles across the canyons, but we had not been able to hear them. The hikers were relaying for the victims!
While the victims could not shout loud enough to be clearly understood, they looked right to be who we were looking for. They were reported to all be wearing red nylon wind breakers. Two red jackets were clearly visible. The third person appeared to be in a tee shirt.
A third team which had come up from Sabino Canyon was found to be in a good place to divert. So while Bob went off cross country to link up with the victims, I started a signal fire for all to guide on. Several more hours passed before all had met up, and we were actually certain we had the right people.
Everything about this search pleases me. Granted, the initial team assignments were poorly made. But the teams quickly adapted to this. All the teams together utilized a full spectrum of techniques and individual abilities to solve the problem. The combination of fast and slow teams both doing tracking and interviewing told us where the victims weren't. Interviewing and attraction then served both to attract the victims attention, and to enlist the aid of the public. (For another angle on the Thompson Family Search, see "The Rescue of Chris")
Since this first encounter with Search, I have seen a wide variety of problems and approaches. The fast, trail running team is frequently successful. So too does the slower, more methodical team have numerous finds to be proud of. The key in all these successful searches has been the variety of resources and techniques brought to bear, and the willingness and ability of individuals to adapt.
On to CHAPTER SEVEN...
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