Sometime Sunday, Nov 21, a 60 year old man went snowshoeing at Galena Creek Park,off Highway 431, near Reno. A storm was blowing in and he was apparently poorly dressed. When he got in trouble he tried calling out on his cell phone before it's battery died. Washoe County searchers went out that afternoon but were unable to reach the area.

TNSAR was dispatched at about noon on Monday and spent the first 4 hours searching areas that had been searched the night before, while other teams went to a spot that the cell phone had pinged. One TNSAR team headed for a pond at 8280' because one phone transmission had reported that he saw a pond. At about 1600, the searchers from other teams, in the cell phone ping area, reported finding a hat, fanny pack and one snowshoe with a running shoe still in the binding. (This was just south of Alpine Walk Peak 9038', at a knoll marked 8406' on maps, between Whites Canyon and Alpine Walk Pk. UTM 11s 0249162, 4362739)

TNSAR was finally asked to go to that area. When we got there, 3 teams with 10 people and one dog had searched the area and found nothing more. We did a long downhill sweep into the creek bed, fall line from where the snowshoes had been found, to no avail. There was as much as 3 feet of snow drifted in some spots, lots of head height scrubby brush and body might have been impossible to see. Late in the afternoon, after crisscrossing the slopes and a thorough search of the creek bed we briefed a team from Bishop that was heading up and went back to the command post.

Troy met Mike and myself at safeway parking lot in Kings Beach at 05:15 on Tuesday, 11-23-10. 6" of new snow had fallen in Tahoe Vista overnight. The three of us drove over Mt. Rose hwy in white-out conditions and arrived at the incident command post at Galena Creek Park by 06:30 where we met Geoff and Devin. We were briefed by the Washoe County sheriff and informed that we were continuing a search for a 60 yr old male snowshoer who reported himself lost on Sunday 11-21-10. A hat and a running shoe, still laced in a snowshoe, had been found the day prior by search teams and we were given those coordinates for the found items. Our search area was a radius of 300 yards around the area of items found. The skiers were instructed to focus below the location of the items found and the Placer county snowshoers were advised to focus above the location of the items found. We drove north on Mt. Rose hwy to another trailhead, with atv access up a forest service road (047) heading up Whites Creek drainage. By 07:30 A Washoe County ATV was shuttling the Placer County searchers up to the wilderness boundary where we headed up Whites Creek trail apx. 2.5 miles to the items found. The winds increased steadily as we gained elevation up the canyon. The walls of the canyon narrowed and slopes got considerably steeper as we left the main trail and travelled cross country. The snowpack was varible: 6" or less in some spots and 3'+ in others. We were able to hike with skis/skins the entire way to our search area, often on top of rocks and large bushes. We reached our search area and advised the snowshoers not to proceed due to steep/tretcherous terrain. We split into two search groups: Mike and Geoff went up higher on the ridge, while Devin, Troy and myself searched below the items found to the creek bed. Around 14:30 we had completed our search area, with temps dropping and wind gusting 50+mph, the call came to return to IC. The five of us reluctantly skied out to the wilderness boundary where we reported to IC that we were all present and skied back down to our truck. We were debriefed back at Galena Creek Trailhead with Washoe County sheriff and the western Placer County snowshoers.

Update: on 2/7/2011 a body was found by Washoe County Search and Rescue volunteers about 3 miles away from the Whites Creek Trailhead, in rugged terrain and underneath about 2 feet of snow.