Summary of 2012 Activities

2012 was the busiest year Rocky Mountain Rescue Group's 65 year history! We responded to 163 calls for assistance, including 29 search missions, 69 technical rescues, 29 of which were climbing related rescues. RMR also provided mutual aid services to other SAR teams on 9 occasions during 2012.

Missions of note for 2012 included:

• May: RMRG participated in one of the most technically challenging rescues in the groups history when a boulderer pulled a 1 ton rock onto himself, pinning his leg between the rock, ground and a tree. The unusually high forces on rescue systems and delicate position of the patient and rock meant the rescue required substantial rigging, and multiple techniques to effect the extraction.
• June: RMRG assisted the City of Boulder Mountain Parks rangers in closing trails during a wildfire close to the city.
• July - October: A multiple day search in the Indian Peaks wilderness was unable to find any trace of a 74 year old hiker who went missing after having lunch with her hiking partners. Colleagues from Grand County SAR, Alpine Rescue Team, Larimer County SAR, and Front Range Rescue Dogs conducted an extensive search, without any success. RMRG continues to search and analyze existing evidence and GPS data in the hope of providing closure to the family.
• August: RMRG executed 3 concurrent missions on a Friday afternoon. The first was the vertical rescue and evacuation of an injured hiker who became lost, and then fell on the 13,403' South Arapahoe peak. The injured hiker fell while scrambling through 5th class terrain to find a path down the mountain. The Inured hiker's daughter also became cliffed out and required rescue. During this evacuation, RMRG was paged to search for a lost Korean-speaking mushroom hunter. While staging for this search local EMS was paged to a car off the road near the search staging area. RMRG responded and provided ALS and a technical evacuation to the road. The mushroom hunter was found a few hours later by rescuers. Valuable mutual aid from Alpine Rescue Team contributed to these successful rescues.

Other activities of note included:

• July: RMRG published an extensive analysis of rock climbing rescues and injuries from the previous 14-year period. This account was published in the peer-reviewed journal Wilderness and Environmental Medicine. Watch the video presentation by RMRG on Learning from the mistakes of others.
• September: Seven members of RMR, along with 5 from Summit County Rescue Group travelled to the Sichuan Province in China for a 2-week SAR exchange. Multiple days of SAR training occurred in the Mt Siguniang National Park, followed by a two day climb of a 17000 foot peak, and multiple days of visits to cultural sites in the Sichuan Province.