This past weekend was our annual Multi SAR weekend. This past weekend (Oct 12 – Oct 14) was our annual Multi SAR weekend where we take the new recruits to the mountains and stress them out for two days. As you all know we had some pretty good rain Friday and it was no joke in the mountains. We departed SD around 1830 and quickly encountered rain and lightening. We arrived at Humber Park, organized ourselves, and left up the Devil’s Slide Trail to Saddle Junction. We were carrying a ridiculous amount of team gear and 30 gallons of water strapped to two litters. About two miles in, the rain really opened up. We had to stop before the top exposed section because the lightening was right above us. There was no time between seeing lightening and hearing the thunder. I was actually kinda worried. Some folks arrived early on Friday and hiked up to the campsites early. After talking to them on Sunday they said on at least one occasion the lightening was so close to them they felt the shock wave go through their tent.
As we were waiting we hear people up ahead saying “flash flood!!” and in a few seconds the trail turned into a flowing river 2-3 inches deep flooding everything (and everyone) in its path. After about an hour of trying to not get hit by lightening we continued to the saddle and broke into our teams to go to sleep. Around 3:30am I got to my camp site excited for my warm tent and bag. This excitement quickly evaporated as I realized my sleeping bag was soaked though. I had to wring out my bag it was so wet. Eventually I settled on sleeping in a large trash bag inside my sleeping bag to try to stay a little dry.
The following morning we broke into our teams and I headed to the rappelling station. We were pretty exposed here and the rain and wind did not let up the whole day. At this point I haven’t been dry since Friday around 2200. We cycled through the new recruits and some had a pretty spicy rappel. It was so foggy / rainy that you couldn’t actually see the bottom of the rope you were rappelling on.
Saturday night cleared up a bit but when the sun goes down the fun begins. Some SDMRT members are assigned to be patients who have had horrible things happen to them. I was a reporting party named Matt who saw a plane crash. Eventually after getting the recruits in action I wandered off and got sick in the woods. They had to re-find me but by that time I my condition worsened so much that I died 😛 After many hours of people getting themselves pretty messed up we made it to sleep around 1am. I had the joy of sleeping in my still soggy sleeping bag / trash bag. After packing up camp Sunday morning I gave a little instruction on how to properly package a patient into a littler and we hiked out as a team hauling Dylan the whole way. We had a short debrief and SDMRT headed to Idyllwild Brewing company for a well deserved beer. Last night I cleaned up the majority of my stuff and everything is still soaked wet. Hopefully it dries by this weekend.
Pretty gnarly looking rappel