Category: In the News

MRA Members Work on International Missions

     In 2022, MRA and Montrose Search and Rescue team member Mike Leum was asked to join a mission to the Ukraine to help a group of special needs orphans who had been abandoned because of the invasion by Russia. Jack Osborne, the son of rock star Ozzy Osbourne and acquaintance of Leum, was

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Ensuring Federal Communications Commission Compliance Across the MRA

As volunteer rescue professionals, we provide an essential public service and mission readiness that requires a great deal of training and personal preparations. Underpinning this capability is communications. One of the most important, yet often overlooked, aspects of communications is maintaining  Federal Communications Commission (FCC) compliance to use the Mountain Rescue Association licensed frequency, 155.160

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SAR Briefs

Stowe Mountain Rescue Tries to Teach, Warn Inexperienced Adventurers The Stowe Mountain Rescue team made headlines in December with a post about social media videos that were luring inexperienced skiers and snowboarders into backcountry locations that they were not prepared for and leading to an increase in rescue calls for the team. More recently, the

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SAR Teams Provide Unique Experience for Youth

Kate Patterson’s first SAR mission was the kind that search and rescue volunteers always hope for. A 71-year-old woman had been missing in remote Mendocino County, Calif., for several days. The terrain was steep and heavily vegetated. Overnight temperatures dipped down into the 40s for the two nights she was out. Patterson, a member of

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2025 MRA Exercise in Marin County, Calif.

The MRA Annual SAR Exercise 2025 will be held June 13 through through June 15. This year’s event will be hosted by the Marin County SAR team and will be held at NatureBridge Golden Gate, located in the scenic headlands of Marin County. The annual MRA SAR Exercise aims to advance the field of search

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MRA President Testifies at OSHA Hearing

Mountain Rescue Association President Mark Miraglia testified yesterday that a proposed Emergency Response rule from the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration would put unnecessary and burdensome requirements on SAR teams and recommended that OSHA remove wilderness technical search and rescue from the rule. Miraglia spoke at a hearing for stakeholders to provide

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The Volunteers: Mountain Rescue Brings us Home

A new documentary about two search and rescue teams and their mostly forgotten shared history is more than just a story of difficult rescues and the hard-working volunteers that perform them. Filmmaker Mark Weiner hopes it is a philosophical look at the ways in which mountain rescue teams might provide an example for community and

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Documentary Spreads Awareness for SAR

Rick Lindfors-Ackerman – Meridian Editor in Chief A documentary film with the mission to raise awareness and support for search and rescue is gaining acclaim and popularity. “Where the Rope Ends” tells the story of Nichole Doane, a Seattle nurse who was rescued by SAR after a canyoneering accident in 2017. Doane was seriously injured

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Alaska Team Receives Award for Rescue Cluster

This year, Juneau Mountain Rescue received the Mel Nading Search and Rescue Award after a series of missions in the summer of 2022. The award recognizes “exemplary service of ASARA member volunteers performing search and rescue operations either on an individual or team level in difficult, dangerous, or complex situations while going above and beyond

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Battling Baldy: Frequent Missions on a Popular Mountain

Rick Lindfors – Meridian Editor in Chief Los Angeles – Just outside the Los Angeles city limits shoots a more than ten-thousand foot peak. Mt. San Antonio, commonly known as Mt. Baldy, is within plain view of the second most populous city in the U.S. and draws hundreds of thousands to its trails in the

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