SEARCH AND RESCUE MISSIONS RISING IN U.S. NATIONAL PARKS
While the number of search and rescue missions in National Parks has been creeping up since 2018, some parks in particular have seen a dramatic spike in the number of people requiring rescue services in 2021, straining a patchwork search-and-rescue system.
By Sahalie Donaldson
18-year-old Rowan Fitch perched on a rock in the bottom of the Grand Canyon and bit into a granola bar, taking a single small piece between his teeth just like he had the previous four days. His childhood friend Reese McMichael, also 18, did the same, eyes locked to the sky cresting the canyon walls.
It was August 2017 and the boys had been lost for five days with nothing to consume other than a granola bar each and the trickle of water pushing up through the ground near their resting place. Fitch recalls passing the hours retrieving water and stacking rocks in hopes of making their location more visible to rescuers — anything to keep the dark thoughts at bay.
What the boys intended to be a day hike into the Grand Canyon had shifted to a nightmare when they’d been unable to find the trail they’d taken into the canyon. Worried about losing their only water source, the boys decided to stay put and wait for rescue services to realize something was wrong. They anticipated that authorities would become alerted when the boys failed to check out of their campsite as scheduled.
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Reese McMichael and Rowan Fitch, left to right, sit in a helicopter for a photo after being rescued by search and rescue rangers with the National Park Service. The boys were trapped in the Grand Canyon for five days and four nights. (Rowan Fitch)
“We knew that eventually they would put two and two together and realize we were lost but it became a question of how long are we going to be here before they start looking for us,” Fitch, now 23, said. “We knew it would probably take at least three days but we were hoping that they would start looking for us. But then the sun goes down on the third day and nobody comes looking for us, then the sun goes down on the fourth day and we were like.. how long are we going to be here?”
On the fifth day a lone helicopter carrying National Park rescue rangers swooped overhead. Once it landed, four park rangers piled out of the machine ready to lend service and look the boys over for injuries. Fitch later learned the team located them within a few hours of beginning their search.
The boys watched through the helicopter window as the Colorado River shifted into a green ribbon below, trees compressing into spiky shapes the size of a fingernail.
“I remember looking out the window and being like damn, I was just all the way down there,” Fitch said. Four and a half years later, he still donates to the Grand Canyon rangers every single August.
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Zion National Park’s search and rescue teams, composed of highly coveted paid park ranger positions and volunteers from the community, operate out of its emergency operations center located near the park entrance. Jan. 1, 2022. (Sahalie Donaldson)
Across the country the number of search and rescue missions in national parks has been creeping up since 2018. While the number of missions being undertaken are up overall, some parks in particular have seen a dramatic spike in the number of people requiring rescue services, straining a patchwork, often volunteer-based search-and-rescue system. Some parks like Maine’s Acadia National Park, Zion National Park in Utah and the Grand Canyon National Park even experienced their busiest years to date in regards to the number of search and rescue calls they received.
Both former and current park rangers who go on search and rescue missions credit this increase to a number of things, including more unpredictable weather conditions, greater access to cellphones meaning people are becoming more likely to call for help rather than get themselves out of minor situations, and the fact that more inexperienced people are exploring the outdoors. The increase in demand has coincided with staffing shortages at many national parks which some park officials credit to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, amplifying the already intensive pressures park rangers face.
Across the country the number of search and rescue missions in national parks has been creeping up since 2018. While the number of missions being undertaken are up overall, some parks in particular have seen a dramatic spike in the number of people requiring rescue services, straining a patchwork, often volunteer-based search-and-rescue system. Some parks like Maine’s Acadia National Park, Zion National Park in Utah and the Grand Canyon National Park even experienced their busiest years to date in regards to the number of search and rescue calls they received.
Both former and current park rangers who go on search and rescue missions credit this increase to a number of things, including more unpredictable weather conditions, greater access to cellphones meaning people are becoming more likely to call for help rather than get themselves out of minor situations, and the fact that more inexperienced people are exploring the outdoors. The increase in demand has coincided with staffing shortages at many national parks which some park officials credit to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, amplifying the already intensive pressures park rangers face.
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“This year with all the National Parks — all recreation areas really has been just over the top for pretty much all parks. We’ve had busy years in the last five with the centennial and growing visitation — things like that, but we are now 500,000 visits over our next highest season which was 2018,” said John Kelly, Acadia National Park management assistent. “It’s not like a 2% increase, it’s like a 17% increase over our next busiest year.”
While many outdoor enthusiasts and rangers are celebrating the increased interest in the outdoors, the surge of activity and strained areas unused to supporting so many people. Many national parks, like Utah’s Arches National Park, were so busy they implemented a reservation system this year to cope with the demand. Others, like Rocky Mountain National Park in northern Colorado, used a timed-entry reservation system to help stem the numbers.
For search and rescue rangers existing in a system already rife with physically and emotionally demanding conditions, the increase in visitors are causing problems.
Hikers walk down a popular trail at Yellowstone National Park in 2020. (Sahalie Donaldson)
Search and rescue missions risings in National Parks:
Thérèse Picard, Acadia National park’s chief ranger, stands inside of a garage that holds the search and rescue gear that park rangers use to respond to the unprecedented number of search and rescue missions in 2021. (Sahalie Donaldson)
Acadia National Park’s search and rescue services were thrown into upheaval in 2021, increasing a third compared to the same period in 2019. Kelly, the park’s management assistant, pointed to the surge of visitors to the Maine park, many of whom are inexperienced when it comes to the outdoors, as one of the contributors to the increase. 2021 proved to be the park’s busiest year to date at over 4 million, topping the previous record in 2018 of 3.54 million visits.
But record breaking visitor numbers alone is not enough to account for the increase in search and rescue services as percentage wise, the number of missions has far increased the 17% change in visitation, Kelly said, adding that it’s also become harder and harder to hire seasonals so “being prepared for search and rescue services is increasingly difficult.”
“It’s exceptional. If this increase matched the visitation we’d understand that,” Kelly said. “But what we are seeing is a far less experienced visitor so we have a combination of a large number of people but a large number of people who are inexperienced with being outdoors.”
Eagle Lake is just a few miles away from Acadia National Park's headquarters. (Sahalie Donaldson)
The town of Bar Harbor, a bustling tourist stop during Acadia National Park's busy season, is largely abandoned over the long winter months. (Sahalie Donaldson)
The town of Bar Harbor, a bustling tourist stop during Acadia National Park's busy season, is largely abandoned over the long winter months. (Sahalie Donaldson)
Eagle Lake is just a few miles away from Acadia National Park's headquarters. (Sahalie Donaldson)
Acadia National Park is a 47,000-acre mass sprawling along the Atlantic coast. It’s landscape is rife with thick woodland, rocky beaches and glacier-capped peaks, making it at times a complicated place for the park’s search and rescue rangers to conduct missions given the technical skill required to traverse some areas. The
Thérèse Picard, the park’s chief ranger, has seen firsthand how inexperienced hikers get into trouble at the park. She recalls receiving a call one night from a solo hiker who’d hiked up the North Ridge Trail for sunset only for it to get dark faster than she’d anticipated. Unable to get down on her own and not knowing how to read a map, Picard coached her down the trail over the phone.
Picard says that experience is just one of many. The park service regularly receives calls from visitors who don’t do the proper research or bring adequate gear and get themselves trapped on a ridge or become too tired to make it back on their own. Visitors’ overreliance on technology instead of doing the research themselves has also contributed to the increase, Picard said.
“You have new people coming into the park you know, whether it’s wanting to be outside under Covid or the latest tourist (advertisement),” Picard said. “A lot of people aren’t prepared.”
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Reading off an index card as she stood inside the garage housing Acadia’s search and rescue gear, Picard said the year’s increased demands has caused a great deal of strain for the park’s rangers. According to data collected between October and September— the park’s fiscal year — rangers carried out 30 rescues in 2017, 42 in 2018, 38 in 2019 and 39 in 2020, but that number jumped to 50 in 2021. EMS incidents were tracked separately, though Picard said those have remained more level in the mid 100s.
While Acadia National Park has a partnership with a local volunteer search and rescue group called Mount Desert Island Search and Rescue as well as service sharing agreements with local fire and emergency service teams, low staffing levels has made everything more difficult.
Thérèse Picard, Acadia National park’s chief ranger, glances off to the side while recalling the busy year the park's search and rescue rangers faced. (Sahalie Donaldson)
Rangers embarking on search and rescue missions at Acadia National Park often use cross country skis during the winter to get to difficult to reach areas in heavy snow. (Sahalie Donaldson)
Thérèse Picard, Acadia National park’s chief ranger, shows the contents of the park's only search and rescue vehicle. (Sahalie Donaldson)
Thérèse Picard, Acadia National park’s chief ranger, glances off to the side while recalling the busy year the park's search and rescue rangers faced. (Sahalie Donaldson)
“Our staffing levels are staying the same or even dropping a little bit just because of inflation but visitation is increasing,” Picard said. “Even though the severity of our issues aren’t that bad, the terrain that we have here is far more labor intensive.”
Most of Acadia’s trails are step stairs which are ill suited to anything with wheels that could assist in carrying out injured visitors.
“A lot of the time it’s just hard physical labor,” Picard said. “Carryout can take anywhere between twelve and thirty people depending on the length of the time and just the additional personnel that are needed and the low staffing levels means that we are calling more people in on overtime so you have this increased cost.”
Picard said Congress hasn’t allocated any additional money to their budget for years and as inflation has increased, the park’s spending power has decreased. As of now, the park largely relies on donations to cover equipment costs and additional training for rangers.
Staffing shortages are not unique to Acadia National Park. According to the National Parks Conservation Association, National Park Service staff has shrunk about 14% over the past decade, largely driven by federal funding cuts.
While Acadia National Park doesn’t see as many serious search and rescue incidents or get as many fatalities as some parks, Picard said it can still all get to be a lot.
“For the most part here, it’s long hours, it's physically taxing because we don't get to use a lot of mechanical aids for our carry outs — It's truly labor and hard labor at that. We do get fatalities here and that is challenging particularly because our staff often get pulled in to be the family liaison,” Picard said. “That just all gets to be cumulative and then you also add in what we do for a living, like we’re law enforcement, that’s our primary job.”
Acadia National Park headquarters is located about a ten minute drive from the well-known tourist town Bar Harbor. (Sahalie Donaldson)
Rangers drive into the parking lot outside of the park's headquarters on Jan. 7, 2021. (Sahalie Donaldson)
In Utah, a trio of National Parks have also seen an increase in their search and rescue missions this year. Zion National Park, Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park, all located in Southern Utah, have each had record years. There’s been over 200 major search and rescues in Zions this year so far compared to a typical 110.
Increases in the number of search and rescue missions haven’t been limited to federal lands. Many local teams across the country, which are generally volunteer-based and part time positions, are also experiencing an increase in volume.
The demand has been intense enough for local teams that some states are implementing or expanding upon existing laws to charge reckless adventures for costs of search and rescue missions.
The Washington County Sheriff's Search and Rescue Team in Utah responded to 148 calls so far in 2021 — higher than any year prior except for 2020 which was around 160. Given the additional strain on these volunteers compounded by staffing shortages, local lawmakers implemented a new compensation program into the 2022 county budget which will include payments between $50 and $100 depending on the danger of the mission.
Some places have already tackled this on the state level with legislation. Hawaii, Idaho, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont and Oregon currently have laws in place that allow the state to seek reimbursement from a person who requires rescue services due to their own negligence.
Even during the winter, the park's slowest season, cars line up outside Zion National Park's entrance to get inside. (Sahalie Donaldson)
A park service vehicle left outside of the park's search and rescue operation center gleams in the sun. (Sahalie Donaldson)
Icicles cling to the side of a sloping rock wall just off of a hiking trail. (Sahalie Donaldson)
Even during the winter, the park's slowest season, cars line up outside Zion National Park's entrance to get inside. (Sahalie Donaldson)
A patchwork system:
Search and Rescue operations in the United States are a vast patchwork network system, composed of local groups, small volunteer teams, and elite, highly trained agents operating within the most popular National Parks.
Shaun Aurbey, a member of a volunteer search and rescue team in Utah County, used to dream of being a part of the National Park Services’ search and rescue system when he was a young man. Now, in his early 40s, Aubrey says he no longer aspires to fill one of these highly competitive roles, but he has a great deal of respect for these individuals.
“In National Parks there are actual paid rangers,” Aubrey said. “That is a really prestigious thing. In certain parks especially, like Zion, Grand Canyon and Mount Rainier— places where terrain gets pretty extreme — these guys are incredible mountaineers and climbers.”
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Many of the larger parks that field many search and rescue missions, such as Zion and Acadia, simply don’t have the manpower to respond to every call on their own, which is why they also rely on the efforts of local volunteers. My little sister, who signed up to be a volunteer search and rescue person at Zion National Park in December, receives an automated text message on Jan. 1 informing her that the park service is in need of volunteers to assist with a carryout on Watchman Trail. (Sahalie Donaldson)
The term park ranger is largely an umbrella term. Some parks do have designated park rangers who solely do search and rescue and generally have specialized skills like mountain climbing or rock climbing that help them carrying out the most technical and dangerous of missions, but most do not. Generally,park rangers help out with search and rescue as needed and forces are bolstered by local volunteers and other park staff members.
For example, Acadia National Park rangers are all members of law enforcement with medical and search and rescue training, but other staff members, such as those who work in the visitor center, also assist in search and rescue work. The number of available positions varies depending on the park. For example, Acadia National Park employs about 100 park rangers during the summer while the smallest parks might only employ 20 to 25.
Specialized search and rescue positions, particularly at popular parks like Zions, Yellowstone, Great Smoky Mountains and Grand Canyon, are highly coveted and rangers generally spend years in volunteer positions before being able to work their way in, said Aubrey.
“People go missing for a variety of reasons. People sometimes get lost or disoriented, may get injured or sick, or be delayed by inclement weather conditions,” said Cynthia Hernandez, National Park Service spokesperson. “In some cases, their disappearance is voluntary or the result of a crime. No matter the cause, our responders, officers, and special agents are some of the most highly trained, experienced and proficient subject-matter experts for search-and-rescue (SAR) operations.”
A system under duress:
Paul Crawford, the former head of emergency response at Lake Mead National Park, sits in the backyard of his Las Vegas home. Now retired from a 25 year career with the National Park Service, Crawford volunteers at a local fire department. (Sahalie Donaldson)
While those who conduct search and rescue operations are highly trained and hardwired to be resilient even when dealing with staffing shortages and increased demand, the work can have lasting effects — something the park service has recently become more conscious of and taken strides to address though many feel much work is left to be done.
Paul Crawford, former emergency services coordinator at Lake Mead National Park, spent his entire adult life with the National Park Service. Now retired, he’s reckoning with aspects of the job that left deep scars.
Throughout the 27 years he worked at Lake Mead, Crawford estimates he recovered about 500 different bodies.
“It’s a national park so the concept of somebody dying visiting a national park is just mind blowing,” Crawford said. “You realize that they are driving home and there is an empty seat in the car. That shakes you a little bit to the core.”
He recalls crouching beside a drowning victim on the beach early into his career, striving to pound life back into their lifeless body with EMS protocol. The only person on the scene at the time, Crawford was so intent on saving the person’s life he didn’t even notice that a helicopter driven by a fellow emergency responder had landed a mere 40-75 feet away till they tapped on his shoulder.
“I never heard it because you are into that zone of 'this is what I do for a living. I’m putting in my work and I’m putting my work done,” Crawford said. “It’s afterwards that you have to have aftercare… That’s what we are trying to get people to understand that you have to have aftercare”
It’s experiences like these that drove him to start a Facebook group for former and current National Park employees suffering with some form of post traumatic stress called “I Got Your Back.” While the National Park Service has gotten better recently at stressing peer to peer counseling, Crawford said the problem is very few people show up for sessions.
“No one wants to admit I got an issue. No one wants to say I can’t handle it. No one wants to be in a room sharing their raw emotions about something that has happened,” he said. “That’s the hard part. The hard part is getting people to understand that ‘hey this is a really normal process. There’s nothing that determines your masculinity, your femminity about this process. This is about healing.”
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Paul Crawford walks down the stairs of his Las Vegas home, pausing for a moment to consider photographs taken during his 25 year career with the National Park Service. (Sahalie Donaldson)
(Sahalie Donaldson)
Kevin Gilmartin, a behavioral scientist specializing in law enforcement related issues, played a key role in helping the park service move away from viewing mental health as an afterthought by helping start a critical incident program in the ‘90s. Gilmartin was running schools on critical incident work for law enforcement agencies at the time when the park service reached out for his support, which he provided, helping them implement a peer support system that’s still being used today.
The peer support person helps because they understand the issues and provide rangers with confidentiality, but that still isn’t ideal, according to Gilmartin.
“If you are a local first responder, there’s a separation between your professional life and your personal life,” Gilmartin said. “You live in the park, you live with park personnel. It's so intertwined which is a good source of support, but it also can be tricky because it doesn't give you separation to recover.”
But while the methods might not be perfect, Gilmartin said the most important change is that mental health care is at least on everyone’s agenda now while in the ‘80s and early ‘90s it just really wasn’t
Cynthia Hernandez, National Park Service spokesperson, acknowledged that search and rescue rangers are frequently exposed to traumatic events that can take a toll over their career.
“We encourage all employees to take action to support their mental health, look out for one another, and be a voice for wellness in their communities,” Hernandez said. “For our first responders – those whose work requires them to take care of others – NPS is especially committed to providing support, programs, and resources to help them take care of themselves first. We train our first responders in understanding how to normalize the stress response and how to take time to recover after traumatic events.”
Gus Martinez, former deputy chief in charge of search and rescue at Yosemite, said the National Park Service has gotten much better over the years of implementing mental health support, yet there’s still a long way to go. He remembers when he first started his career how nobody ever talked about the difficult things they experienced.
“Initially, it was a six pack and sitting around and not talking about it. Just drinking your way through it — that was kind of the macho thing,” he said. “You just didn’t talk about it, you just kind of went out and had a six pack with the guys then eat something and laugh about it.”
Now retired, Martinez regularly reflects on the years he’s spent as a search and rescue ranger and the impact the job has had on his mental state. He recalls driving through Yosemite with his teenage daughter for the first time after leaving the job behind. After pointing out various places where someone had died or where he’d rescued someone, his daughter said the job seemed incredibly grim.
“I didn’t realize until recently how certain things when you’re young that you work through in your career what they do to you,” Martinez said. “We got to forget about the bad things we saw and remember the good things, because there were a lot of good things, but obviously the ones that impact you are the emotional, traumatic ones that you see or are a part of that are very hard to shake sometimes because we are human.”
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