It’s been a deadly summer for hikers in the Southwest. At least seven have died in recent weeks from apparent heat-related causes — including one at the Grand Canyon, one in Death Valley and two at a state park in Nevada — as extreme temperatures this year have met increased visitation at national and state parks.
In 2022, the National Park Service tallied 3,428 search-and-rescue incidents — incidents that might include helicopter flights and multiday searches, and can cost tens of thousands of dollars. According to Travis Heggie, a professor at Bowling Green State University and former public risk management specialist for the National Park Service, that number is a significant undercount: It does not include so-called “agency assists,” or search-and-rescue responses by entities like sheriff’s offices, which are often better positioned to respond in some remote areas. If those, too, figured in National Parks statistics, he said, “the total would probably increase by about 30 percent.”
The salty snacks offered by rangers are part of an approach known as P-SAR, or “preventive search and rescue,” pioneered here after an extreme heat wave in 1996 led to hundreds of cases of heat exhaustion and five fatalities.
“We had nonstop calls,” recalled Ken Philips, who led the park’s search and rescue at the time. “It got to a point where we were like zombies.” Something had to change. Now park staff and volunteers undertake P-SAR training, and are told that the goal is to “get everyone back out of the canyon alive.” Also, said the P-SAR coordinator, Meghan Smith, the aim is to help people avoid experiences that will make them reluctant to return.
P-SAR is a bit of a misnomer: It’s not search and rescue so much as its opposite — education and outreach before any search or rescue is needed, an effort to replace as many helicopter trips as possible with better visitor awareness and preparation, and if need be, position spare tents and food supplies where stranded hikers need them.
A cohort of nine seasonal P-SAR rangers and another 70-odd volunteers patrol popular trails, plying hikers with information, advice and extra calories, and providing an early warning system for the park’s much smaller search-and-rescue staff.
Source: Gerety, R. M. (2023, August 1). Saving lives at the Grand Canyon, one salty snack at a time. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/01/travel/grand-canyon-heat-search-rescue.html?searchResultPosition=18
Analysis: Ryan (our partner) mentioned wanting to find ways to broach more somber topics surrounding the history of aviation and methods to do so in an approachable way. This just got me thinking about how to go about it in a succinct way that is not only easy to learn but easy to teach. People who come to the park should be excited about aviation, but that doesn’t mean we can’t also acknowledge the safety risks.
