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

TNSAR Search 5/26/2018

Lost Fisherman The Cedars/Onion Creek

Submitted by Dirk Schoonmaker

A 30 year old man left his truck on the road down to the Cedars and went fishing. About 2 in the afternoon he called to say he was lost. A PCSO deputy talked to him, but unfortunately did not get him to drop a pin or give a good GPS location and so the search area was quite large. West side ground pounders were apparently out for the afternoon with dogs and vehicles but were unable to find him- TNSAR was called at 9:20 pm.

When 5 of us arrived at the CP (Rom, Dustin, Alex, Calvin and me) we were given a search area at the headwaters of Cedar Creek and told to get there by Jeep transport to the top of Mt. Lincoln and hike down to it. After a quick conversation with Jamie Fawcett we clearly realized that there was no summer road to the top of Lincoln and that if there were it would be entirely snow covered. We went back to the CP and suggested that we hike and search up Cedar Creek from the Cedars to try to get to our search area. They agreed. We were driven to the Cedars and Calvin and Alex started up climbers left bank while Dustin, Rom and I started up the right. At about 3 am, after an arduous hike in and out of the creek bed, through head high, wet, buck brush we realized we were getting cliffed out on both sides of the creek and there was no way anyone would have come up this way or that we were going to get to our search area. Calvin and Alex went cross country down to the south fork of Onion Creek and the southside crew went down a use trail to the Cedars. We were picked up at about 4:00 am and driven to the CP. (We found out at the CP that the dogs had tracked him down the Cedars Road to Onion Creek, which obviously would have been nice to know before we headed up Cedar Creek. As far as we could tell, no one had been searching up Onion Creek- the obvious search area)

Apparently the fisherman walked out in the morning and was found at his truck alive- unknown where he had been during the day.

SheriffDispatchSkiers
Dave Lade
Dirk Schoonmaker
Alex Heyman
Rom Marcucci
Dustin Phelan
Calvin Mitchell

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