Can You Say Alberta Search And Rescue ?

Can You Say Alberta Search And Rescue ?

Written by : Jeffrey R Hilton

***

Ah winter ! Yes.Some people swear by it. I swear at it.

It's gained a huge popularity and a lot of fans I'm just not one of them much anymore.

Years ago I got my first pair of cross country skis and toured through the city parks with them enough to somewhat know what I was doing,  and get some great exercise at the same time.   At that time I had never been down hill skiing yet.  A good friend called and asked if I wanted to go try my skis in Kananaskis Country in the mountains.   Sure I would.  We left early on a Sunday morning and headed into the mountains, leaving our wives together back in the city.  We would join them later in the day for supper. At least that was the plan at the time.  At the trail head, we parked and after reading the trail sign and map. We decided on a long narrow loop trail and set upon it.


Not long after we came to some pretty scary hills, as in the kind where if you don't turn and follow the hill,  you go off a cliff instead,   and especially as I had never really been down any hills with my skis, let alone down the side of a mountain, this might be a bit risky.  I went cautiously as I could clearly see,  if I didn't make a few of the turns, I would simply drop off the side of the mountain. Ya no thanks !  I walked down 2 of the worst ones.


We got through the worst of it, and stopped for some lunch Before leaving we realized that there was a fresh Deer kill a few feet away from where we ate,  and were off again. Finding ourselves at another sign map that showed, we could join another loop trail and do a double loop, so to speak. This would make our time in the back country a bit longer than we had planned. A full day of skiing. Nice enough day. lets do it.  After a few more hours on the trail, things started to go wrong. I had fallen lots and as a result, I was getting wet, damp and cold.
My outdoor clothing was inadequate and not standing up to the back country cold or wetness very well.


The brightly lit day suddenly turned grey. We noted that it was getting late in the afternoon and still had a ways to go to get back.  That's when we decided to spring into action and put some juice on to get gone.  It seemed like only a matter of another 45 minutes on the trail and it was like someone switched a light off and left us in the pitch dark.
the sun was gone ! It would go down to minus 15 that moonless night.


I didn't feel good about this at all. thankfully my friend had a little more adept survival skill than I and we trudged on for a bit with his encouragement and could barely see each other at times 4 feet distant from each other. We took our skis off and began to walk.  My friend noticed that I was shivering a lot as we stopped again to assess the situation.  My thinking was already clouded and I was stumbling a lot. it was then that he decided that I would stay put on the trail and he would jog ahead and try to see where the trail went.


First we would build a small fire on the trail so I could reverse the hypothermia process a little if not slow it down.Once a small fire was going, my partner was off. After about ten minutes, the fire began to die down and I had to keep walking farther and farther to get bits of wood to try and keep it going.Just when I had a good start, my partner returned and said he would need to take a torch from the fire as he couldn't see at all and thought that maybe it wasn't that much further. So off he went again and I stayed and fought to rebuild the fire. It seemed like an hour had passed before he finally returned and by that time I was shivering uncontrollably.


Good day now a bad night and getting worse as my partner informed me that he could't see the way out so we would have to stay the night.  I had a bit of a fire going now and again another torch and off he went to find a suitable place to hunker down for the night. At least we had lighters and matches.  By the time he got back, I was turning into a basket case and in the grips hypothermia.  My partner had managed to keep himself a little dryer than I had.  He led me off again stumbling down the trail and pretty soon I was puzzled to see this huge glow in the sky. As I rounded a bend in the trail, I saw a very welcome sight.  There was a huge telephone pole sized log ablaze along with a few smaller ones close to a recess in the bottom of a cliff that was somewhat dry and sheltered.This fire was an inferno already.  My mate Scott,  had done a cracking job on this one.


We settled in and I  immediately stripped naked and hung all my wet clothes up on the log near the fire and began trying to thaw out, rotating around the fire like a possessed Popsicle stick.  I was a bit shocked at the size of the fire my friend built, but it worked a charm as it wasn't long before my clothes were dry enough to put back on.As a matter off fact, they were almost burned and my socks were singed but the clothes felt good to put on warm like that.  We resigned ourselves to stay the night and the next morning we would find our way out easily in daylight.  All we had to do was get through the night and I was more confident that would happen now.  Until then, the only experience I had of winter camping was when I was in Army Cadets and then at least we had tents and arctic sleeping bags.


Unbeknownst to us, our wives had alerted the RCMP when we hadn't returned by ten pm and Alberta Search and Rescue was called into action.  We chatted for awhile and both fell sound asleep as we hunkered down close to the fire as we dared get.  At 3 am I almost had a heart attack when I felt someone shaking me and I could see still sleeping beside me as I looked up into the face of a rescuer on skis with a dog by his side.  He said;  "Do you want to walk out now or wait until morning ? " "Um ya we'll go now as id staying until first light would make matters any better.  He informed us that another group of searchers were looking for us elsewhere on snowmobiles and radioed them that we had been found.  Yes of course,  why couldn't they have found us so we could of got a ride out ? Punishment for stupidity maybe ?


I arrived home at stupid o'clock in the morning in a zombie state and slept for only one and a half hours before getting up and and going to work for 7 am.  How and why I did that I will never know.  My face looked like a had a bad sunburn from being so close to the bonfire that probably saved my life along with my good friend that kept a cool head and secured us a great chance at surviving the night.  My thermal socks had holes burned in them as did all of my other clothes.  I kind of lost my taste for x-country skiing after that  and my skis went in the garbage.  It goes without saying that I am grateful to Alberta Search and Rescue for their efforts.  We probably would have been fine until the morning, but who's to say ?


Going anywhere near the back country now, winter or summer, means bringing along a survival kit tailored to the season.  Don't leave home without it !  I always had carried one and this was the one time I didn't bring it along.  I'm just grateful I am here to tell you about it, really.
Thank You Alberta Search And Rescue !

***

SHARE

JOIN

SUBSCRIBE

COMMENT

FOLLOW

Jeffrey R Hilton