Mount Baring, located on National Forest land in Washington state, is popular with base jumpers across the U.S. The mountain’s north face drops nearly vertically to a meadow below that features a small lake and open areas, enticing high-risk takers with a short hike from the parking lot to the 6,127-foot summit. Over the years,
Welcome Spring! Since the winter business meeting in February, your board has been parsing the data from the Mentimeter responses collected during the meeting. We solicited the membership for folks interested in drafting a strategic plan once all this data is listed by priority. If this is something you would like to be a part
When the Tahoe Nordic Search and Rescue team responded to the deadly avalanche in Lake Tahoe in February, they couldn’t have anticipated the wide-reaching impact it would have on the team. TNSAR responded, along with Nevada County’s Search and Rescue team, rescuing six survivors and later assisting with the recovery of nine deceased skiers, including
The 76th ICAR Assembly of Delegates was held in October 2025 on the final day of the annual ICAR conference, which was in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It marked only the second time in ICAR history that the conference has been in the United States, according to the report from Tom Wood. All eight of the
Utah SAR Teams Paying Search and Rescue Members for Missions, Training Summit County (Utah) Search and Rescue is the latest Utah team to start compensating members for their work. Because of a new statewide tax for emergency services that went into effect last year, the county, which includes Park City, is working on a plan
As mountain rescue teams, we are all familiar with the management of accidental hypothermia. It involves a well-established series of activities, including rewarming the subject, providing calories and hydration, and removing the subject from the field. Rescuers typically provide whatever calories they have on hand, with a classic choice being hot cocoa and some sort
The MRA community, and the larger search and rescue community, is a special place and we are lucky that so many people work so hard at making it safe, welcoming and supportive. I see this locally when I get to work with other teams in California, and nationally when I get to reach out to
Season’s Greetings. I hope everyone has had an enjoyable holiday. Now it’s back to the grind of our workaday world. Your board has been working on several projects over the last few months. We are looking into the feasibility of creating regional FEMA response teams. These teams would be made up of members from various
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
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
Wilderness medicine is basically what we all do as part of a MRA team. In keeping with this thought, I want to bring information to you that is relevant to what we do either with technical ropes and providing medical care in colder temperatures. Jørgen Melau published in his Substack under the title “Frozen
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
Sitting here in California hoping for snow, but mostly getting rain. I know the snow will come, but patience isn’t exactly my strong suit. Recent missions for my team have definitely required patience as we have had several searches this year with no find of our missing person. Most searchers find these to be the
Greetings fellow MRA Members, I hope all of you had a safe and enjoyable summer. As we head into the fall, the board has a few avenues that it is exploring. With the deployment of FEMA teams to recent disasters, the question has arisen as to whether the MRA might be able to create a
Crisis on Mount Hood: Stories from a Hundred Years of Mountain Rescue Ten years ago, when the Hood River Crag Rats turned 90 years old, we had a small celebration for the community. That spawned an idea in my brain. I was a writer before I was a doctor and a rescue mountaineer. I’d written
In Los Angeles County’s San Gabriel Mountains this past August, during a heat wave, a hiker who was out searching for a woman who has been missing since June 22 had to be rescued after falling ill on Mt. Waterman. L.A. County search teams, aided by other counties around the state, had already conducted more
Garmin Reports 2024 inReach Data Many SAR teams have noted the increasing frequency of satellite device activations precipitating callouts, and data from Garmin, which introduced the first inReach device in 2011, backs up that people who recreate in the outdoors are increasingly making use of the devices to call for help when they need it.
It’s been many years since I was in school, but fall has always brought me back to that feeling of starting a new journey. This year, I actually am returning to school for the first time in several decades, having enrolled in a writing program where I hope to marry my two passions – SAR
Fellow MRA Members, I want to thank the Marin County SAR members who made the Spring SAR Exercise such a successful event. It was a lovely venue with many different tracks of interest to all. I would have liked to clone myself to attend all the field and class sessions – which is why it
The 2025 Mountain Rescue Association (MRA) Annual Search and Rescue (SAR) Exercise took place June 12 – 15 in the headlands of Marin County, just a few miles from San Francisco’s iconic Golden Gate Bridge. Hosted by the Marin County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue team, this year’s event was held at NatureBridge Golden Gate, a
