Tahoe Nordic Search & Rescue, Inc. Tahoe Nordic Search & Rescue, Inc.

TNSAR Search 5/20/2011

Female Skier West of Tinkers

Submitted by Jimmy Smith

On May 20st a local woman left Sugar Bowl at 9:30 AM for a quick solo tour to Squaw Valley. As she approached Tinkers Knob, she dropped down west and ended up heading more southwest than intended and end up missing Squaw altogether. Late in the afternoon when she realized she was not where she was supposed to be, she called her husband. After a couple of phone calls back and forth, the husband then called 911 for help.

At approximately 8:00 PM, TNSAR was paged to report to the Judah Lodge for a skier west of Tinkers Knob. As the team was deploying, the cell phones were working between the four skiers and four snowmobilers who were responding and an alternate plan of deploying from Cabin Creek was discussed. At approximately 8:45 PM, two skiers arrived at Sugar bowl and met with the husband and the PCSO deputies. The area where the husband felt his wife was, based on her description, put her in the Chief Creek drainage, northwest of Granite Chief. She was planning to follow a snowmobile track she had found that was going back the way she came toward Tinkers Knob until 7:00 PM at which time she would hunker down. Due to a low cell phone battery, they had made a plan for her to call her husband at set times. During the last call, she was told to call 911 so that we could try to get a coordinate. Unfortunately, the coordinate came back for the cell tower she hit and her phone battery died. At that point, it was decided to deploy a team from Squaw Valley and a second team from the crest south of Tinkers Knob via Pole Canyon and catch up to her somewhere in the middle.

In the meantime, PCSO Falcon 30 airborne and was given Lyon Peak, Granite Chief, and Tinkers Knob as landmarks to search between.

At Pole Canyon two snowmobilers pulled in two skiers up to meadow below the crest on the east side. From the there, the snowmobiles split up, one going south up to the crest and another heading north toward Tinkers. Once they found routes to reach the crest looking down toward the west, calls were made and a flare was put up, but they did not get a response from the MP. They then made there way back to the skiers and pulled them up to the crest. After they arrived on the crest, Nordic 2 had reported verbal contact so they waited on the ridge until it was certain they did not need to drop in. From there, they exited the field and made their way to command post at Squaw to make sure they did not need to come in to help.

At Squaw, two snowmobilers pulled three skiers up to the top of Emigrant. By the time the team reached the top, Falcon 30 was low on fuel and timed out and they returned to Auburn for the night. The skiers dropped down and then hiked up and around the south face of Granite Chief and then climbed over the top skiers left of the peak. The plan was to traverse west across National Geographic Bowl and onto the ridge to the west of Chief Creek then work the ridge covering the drainages on both sides. After the team traversed the face of the bowl, a yell for the MP was made and a return call from her was heard. Given the calm clear night, it was difficult to discern the direction or distance. They then scanned the valley with a single headlamp and she was able to yell back when it was pointed in her direction. At that point the three skiers split up and held a high, middle, and low traverse on the west flank of Chief Creek and met up with the MP just after 2:00AM. She had continued to hike after she watched the helicopter come and go and figured she was going to have to get out on her own and it was helping to keep her warm. Though she really did not know where she was, her plan was to follow the snowmobile track she had found to wherever it went which took her right into the path of Nordic 2.

The MP was given water, food, and a headlamp and, to her credit, she decided to carry her own pack and skis even though the offer was made many times to take her gear and lighten her load. She was very tired and walked the downhills instead of skiing and put her skis on for the uphill climb. But, it was apparent she wanted to at least finish the hike carrying her own gear.

The group then climbed up and made the ridge back into Squaw close to 3:45AM and skied down to the bottom of the Shirley Lake chair where they met up with the snowmobiles for the pull back up to mid mountain. Everyone was back down to the base of Squaw by 5:00 AM.

SheriffDispatchSkiersSnowcatsSnowmobilesOther
Dave Hunt
Terri Viehmann
Steve Kehler
Jeb Mirczak
Jimmy Smith
Bob Wright
Russ Viehmann
Scott Baumgardner
TJ Johnson
Chris McConnell
Scott Meyer
PCSO Falcon 30

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