Sledders rescued after clouds close trail

[Darrell]

Sledders rescued after clouds close trail

Fun in the sun turned to risky business for teens

By Lee Revis

Editor, Valdez Star




Guardian angel - Drawing by Tracey Gressel

“They did exactly as they should have,” said Ron Woods of the backcountry search and rescue squad, after the group sent members up Hogback Mountain to bring back two Valdez High School students that lost their way on the popular snowmachining trails after cloud-cover obscured the duo’s way back home.



“Using your head out there is what saves lives,” said Woods, who acted as base manager for communications during the effort, that included five other members of the Valdez Snowmachine Club in addition to Trooper Tony Beck.





It all started easily enough say both young men. It was a warm day after school, and the combination of snowy mountains and bright sunshine was alluring. The pair, along with a friend that left before the trouble began, made their way up the snowmachine trails of Hogback.



“It was completely sunny,” said Jensen Rhoades, a 17-year-old Junior at Valdez High School, “We were up there riding without shirts.”



But it didn’t stay that way for long on that fateful afternoon of April 24.



“We were looking down into the clouds,” that came rolling in from the bay, said Carl Gressel, also a 17-year-old Junior, and Rhoades riding partner. “We saw the clouds sort of rolling up towards Valdez.”



Neither teen thought that that moving cloud cover would soon roll up the side of the mountain, obscuring the trail and leading to such poor visibility that the pair would lose sight of the previously clear trails.



“We couldn’t see the the trail and we couldn’t see down the mountain,” said Gressel, who says it was his first time up on Hogback, and only the second time for Rhoades. “We’d gone up for a nice warm day of riding, it was warm and the sun was shining up there.”



“I didn’t think the weather would close in like that,” added Rhoades, saying that visibility was reduced to two to five feet at its worse point.



When it became apparent to the teens that the cloud cover was creating a very dangerous situation – unforgiving cliffs and sheer drops line the trails on Hogback – the pair retreated back up the mountain above the clouds.



“Our cell phones did work up there up at the peak,” said Gressel, who did what young men usually do when they run into trouble, “I called my mom.”



Which led to the search and rescue team’s call-out that day.



“The fact was, you couldn’t see nothing,” said Woods, who praised the snowmachiners for their actions.



“They dug themselves a hole up there,” said Woods, after removing the seats from the snowmachines to line the makeshift snow caves.



“We had snow and a shovel,” said Gressel, adding that the pair had very little survival gear with them, but both had avalanche awareness and survival training and knew how to proceed while waiting for help to arrive.



Jeffe Saxe, Matt Smelcer, Lon Needles, Justin Major and Jim Burzinski of the search and rescue squad from the Valdez Snowmachine Club headed up the mountain along with Trooper Tony Beck, men who Woods says know the trails of Hogback like the backs of their hands, to bring the pair safely down the mountain.



“The whole thing probably took close to three hours for everything,” said Woods, “They all know Hogback real well.”



Gressel said later that the incident has inspired him to think about learning rescue techniques himself.



“I wanted to do something for the guys,” he said.



His sister, Tracey, sending the squad a handmade thank you, including an artist’s rendition of the rescue.



Calling the squad members brave souls, she wrote “… we found out tonight that guardian angels sometimes use guts and gasoline in place of feathers and wings.”



“That’s enough to keep you going,” said Woods, of the volunteers who never know when they will be called out to help those in need.