Yosemite Forum

Following up on the discussion here about people who need or want rescuing...

Which parks get SAR calls the most often? Want to guess? We guessed three of the top five...but not the other two:

So which parks have called on SAR teams the most over the past two years?

Once you're done guessing, here is a link: https://www.backpackthesierra.com/post/ ... rous-parks

Or a link to a more in-depth look on Outforia: https://outforia.com/search-and-rescue-hotspots/

To my knowledge modern (yo) SAR was started by Jim Bridwell in Yosemite when they needed an impromptu rescue off of el cap. Before that I do not believe there was an organized effort in the parks to have a team of people ready to rescue folks in need. It started with paid volunteer climbers who were allowed to live in tent cabins in camp 4 (where they still live.) Now its a law enforcement group. Pretty far flung from the stoned climbers who were the founders.
Some history from the lads themselves:
http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum ... AR-history

One of the rangers in Yosemite told me once that on average, in summer, there used to be a dozen SAR callouts on just the Half Dome route. (The permits have cut that number down a lot.) Having been in the park on mutual aids, I've heard the radio traffic - hands down Yosemite has one of the busiest SAR teams, and people who work in the park volunteer as ground pounders on their days off, adding to the frequent mutual aids bringing volunteers working with county SAR teams, dog teams, helicopters from Lemoore and CHP, as well as the paid team in the park. We've had trainings with YOSAR - their water team is an invaluable resource, they've helped county teams with recoveries in other jurisdictions.

I used to listen to the park radio all the time as one member had one and would set it up for everyone to hear. The funniest report I heard was of a LEO ranger on half dome complaining that he was unable to repair the stanchion that was broken on the cables.. I thought to myself- did he try shooting it with his sidearm? Perhaps the tazer had no effect after the stanchion was ordered to fix itself? Not sure. And I never did hear if the stanchion was put into custody for refusing commands. But I did laugh that an armed ranger with no tools was on the radio complaining they could not do a job that required tools.. NPS proud