A Cold Night's Training

The Sanders County Search and Rescue held their annual winter rescue training Saturday with a class and overnight field training in the snowy woods of the Lolo National Forest.

Sanders County Search and Rescue President Mike Bedick said it is the second time the search and rescue team has held an overnight training session since he has been a member. He said the weekend of training, both in the classroom and in the field, has multiple purposes.

"It serves as a class for new junior members and as a practice for seasoned members," Bedick said. "It's a chance for some of the guys to sharpen their skills."

Eleven people attended the class Saturday morning and seven of them were able to go out on the overnight training session as well. Among those seven — Bedick, Erich Pfalzer and his son Andrew Pfalzer — attended last year's overnight training. The other four were junior members of Sanders County Search and Rescue who were at their first winter rescue training.

Dakota Killgore, Thad LeClair, Josh Saunders, and Thomas Tasakos, all students at Plains High School, tested the skills outside that they learned inside the classroom earlier in the day.

Bedick said SCSAR members under age 18 are given junior status and must maintain a 2.00 grade point average in school to stay on the team. He said they can participate in all rescues except for dives and cannot vote or hold offices within SCSAR until they are 18.

Saunders, 17 and a junior in high school, said that volunteering with SCSAR and other services is something he enjoys doing.

"I just like doing emergency services," Saunders said. "So I wanted to join the search and rescue team."

Saunders is also a member of the junior fire program in Plains and is a certified first responder. When he turns 18, Saunders plans to take his basic EMT test.

Tasakos and Killgore are also members of the junior fire program in Plains and LeClair is in the EMT class in Plains High School. The boys all agreed that getting into the outdoors is a major plus to volunteering with SCSAR. Tasakos pointed out that volunteering can also have long term benefits.

"It adds to my resume for firefighting," Tasakos said. "And I like being in the outdoors."

Bedick is pleased with the commitment of junior members to join the SCSAR and participate in the overnight field training.

"It's nice to have them," Bedick said. "They're willing to go out and search for people and help out."

On the overnight training, Bedick covered man-tracking, avalanche rescue, patient-packaging, wilderness first aid, snow shelters, and basic winter survival. He said learning how to build the snow shelters and survive in the snow overnight comes in handy if the situation ever arose where a rescue team had to spend the night with a patient.

Erich Pfalzer said it's important to actually spend the night outside in the snow because it can make people more comfortable if they're ever in that situation.

"Not a lot of people have had to spend a night out," Pfalzer said. "Just spending a night out increases the comfort level so people know what to expect."

The seven men snowshoed and cross-country skied into Evan's Gulch off Prospect Creek, about 16 miles northwest of Thompson Falls. They made their way into the woods carrying full backpacks and dragging two sleds with extra gear until they found a place near the creek. There they unpacked and began digging out their snow shelters where they would later spend the night. Some dug out individual shelters with sleeping benches, others built larger caves designed to fit a few people. Pfalzer said the snow was deeper than the previous year and it gave them more to work with. He and his son attempted to build separate shelters on either side of a large mound of snow, connecting them to each other. The four new members tried a similar tactic but with room for all of them. Bedick burrowed himself a sleeping area, well covered by a few feet of snow.

Bedick said he went over the strategies and tactics of winter rescue and survival in the classroom, but the field training was the real test, especially for the newcomers.

"I covered a lot of the diagrams in class," Bedick said. "Out here, they actually have to do it."

He said the winter training is very important to SCSAR because there are so many unpredictable variables involved in search and rescue and the team must be ready.

"The weather can be unpredictable in Montana, so they have to be prepared for anything," Bedick said.

Pfalzer said having a search and rescue team available is a necessity for a place like Sanders County, which has the potential for dangerous situations in the outdoors. He said it's the unusual event that team needs to be ready for.

"Not a lot of things happen but they can happen," Pfalzer said. "Someone needs to be prepared and ready to respond so people know who to contact."

Pfalzer said being a part of SCSAR has been a good experience for him and for his son Andrew, who, at 16, is a junior member.

"We've been on some searches together and it's been great," Pfalzer said. "There have been a lot of great training opportunities."

The Pfalzers, who live in Trout Creek, have also trained in ropes and swift water rescue. Pfalzer said volunteering for SCSAR is one way he can share his knowledge of the outdoors and that's what drew him in.

"I wanted to be involved in some community service," Pfalzer said. "This was one place where I thought I'd have something to offer."

Bedick said volunteers are a vital tool of SCSAR and he knows there's a solid group of people that can be relied on. Bedick said that despite being run by volunteers, the search and rescue team has to be as good as those run by professionals.

"We're volunteers but we have to be trained as professionals," Bedick said. "We do all the things the paid professionals do; I guess we just do it out of the kindness of our hearts."