Bergtrage - Seattle Mountain Rescue

SEATTLE MOUNTAIN RESCUE BERGTRAGE - JANUARY 2012
Avalanche Recovery 1880. In the Alpine
countries during the 18 th century before
there were helicopters, toboggans,
transcievers and modern medical treatment
avalanche rescues were the most difficult
and dangerous rescue operations as shown
MT SI SEARCH
IN JANUARY
1981: It was 31 years ago on the evening of
January 26 th when King County requested help in the search for a
missing hiker on Mt. Si. The next morning, Seattle MRC had four
teams in the field searching the west side gullies, the summit area
and around Little Si with Errington and Don Goodman flying as spotters
with Army helicopters. The next day Errington made another
flyover with the Boeing helicopter but no signs were found and in the
days following Errington and Davis made two more ground searches
with no results. On February 21 st , the body of Brett Hall was found in
a creek feeding the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River.
Brett was a kid who was stubbornly gonna’ go up the front of Si but
his friends didn’t want to go any further, so they let him continue on
while they came back down. Brett went from the gully on the left
above Moon Valley, and apparently went up a small face. Then next
year some kids hiking in Black Canyon found a shoe with a foot still
in it partially buried in gravel. Davis went with a team of 3 or 4 and
ascended Black Canyon to get the remains. His Dad put a plaque up
at base of the Hay Stack which is still there today.
Some thoughts were that he died up on the face and was snowtransported
to fall into Black Canyon. And the “creek feeding middle
Fork” was the water channel down Black Canyon, but they did not
want publicity for Black Canyon so made it an obscure place in the
press. There is a legend of a gold mine somewhere up on Si, and
many have tried looking for it in the Black Canyon. The teens that
found the bones in the shoe were most likely looking for the gold
mine in Black Canyon.
"CLIMB TO GLORY"10TH MOUNTAIN DIVISION (LIGHT INFANTRY)
It is well known that the Mountain Rescue Association (MRA) was established in 1959 at Timberline
Lodge at Mount Hood, Oregon making us the oldest Search and Rescue association in the
United States. What is not so well known anymore is that the Army’s 10th Mountain Division is
considered one of the founding units of the MRA. How could this happen when the 10th Mountain
was disbanded in 1945 after WW II? In 114 days of combat, the 10th Division suffered casualties
of 992 killed in action and 4,154 wounded. This deserves an explanation.
Veterans of the 10th Mountain Division were in a large part responsible for the development of skiing into a big
name sport and popular vacation industry after World War II. Ex-soldiers from the 10th laid out ski hills, built
ski lodges, designed ski lifts and improved ski equipment. They started ski magazines and opened ski schools.
Vail, Aspen, Sugarbush, Crystal Mountain, and Whiteface Mountain were but a few of the ski resorts built by
10th Mountain veterans. Many of them became active ski patrollers and rescuers and eventually founding
members of the MRA.
Ome Daiber, himself never a soldier, was named an honorary member of the National Association of the 10th
Mountain Division for his contributions developing cold weather and mountain survival gear for the Army. Dee
Molenaar, another MRA founder and author of the book “MOUNTAINS DON'T CARE, BUT WE DO: An Early History
of Mountain Rescue in the Pacific Northwest and the Founding of the Mountain Rescue Association” is also
an honorary member of the association due to his service to the Army as a civilian instructor with the Mountain
and Cold Weather Training Command at Camp Hale, Colorado where two members of the Seattle MRC, Lou
and Jim Whittaker, were also enlisted Army instructors and Honorary Members of the 10th Mountain Division
Association. As you see, the Seattle MRC/SMR has also had a long history of being associated with the 10th
Mountain Division. As a gesture of this historical association, at the January 17th Winter Party there will be a
donation can for the Wounded Warriors of the present day 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry) which, even
though is is not trained as a mountain warfare and only wears the “Mountain” tab as an honorific has been engaged
in continuous deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan and has had more deployments than any other Army
division. Please make a donation at the party, no matter how small, and help these Wounded Warriors.
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