Scout Troop 2 days overdue
By Kevin Walker
At 3:30
Tuesday afternoon, the phone rang with news of a
rescue mission in the Whitewater area.
Enroute to the
Whitewater Fish Hatchery my dad informed me that
a scout troop from the Pacific Palisades area was
overdue in coming out to the Fish Hatchery.
Overdue is right considering they should have
been out on Sunday.
We arrived at the Fish Hatchery at
about 6:15 p.m. We were soon joined by the rest
of the team members rolling on the mission, and
soon after a Hughes 500C helicopter from the San
Bernardino Sheriff's Department set down in the
meadow where base camp was being set up. While
Walt asked the necessary questions of two of the
older scouts, the chopper went up the canyon to
check out wind conditions.
Upon his
return we were told by the pilot that he had
spotted a small fire in the middle of the north
fork. With that Walt loaded his pack equipped
with RMRU's new field antenna into the chopper,
and left for a ridge above where the scouts were
camped. After about 15 minutes Walt radioed out
instructions of what gear would be needed (which
mainly consisted of food), and to have the bird
bring in all available team members. I was flown
in next, followed by Jim Fairchild, Bernie
McIlvoy, Tom Aldrich and Steve Zappe. With all
that completed, base camp operator Steve Jensen
radioed back that the helicopter would return at
6:00 the following morning for air evacuation.
Descending the steep slope into the
scouts camp we were greeted by 12 hungry boys and
one very relieved Scoutmaster. As the scouts
waited impatiently for the food we had brought in
to finish cooking, the Scoutmaster, Ed Dillingham
told us that they had started at Poopout Hill and
just didn't realize that it would be such a hard
hike as it was, and it being a high water year
didn't help matters any.
After the
scouts had their fill of food and were finally
bedded down for the night, Walt and Jim, knowing
the canyon well from trips of their own, decided
it would be best to hike out to the middle fork,
and be airlifted out from there. So at 5:00 a.m.
we woke up the scouts and helped them load their
gear into the packs. At 5:30 we were finally
ready to move.
Moving down
the canyon was slow going due to the steep canyon
sides, and high water in the bottom. All went
well even though we had to wade through knee deep
snow water a few times. And once we could finally
climb out of the canyon to the ridge, it became
an easy walk out to the extremely large middle
fork.
At 7:45 the
chopper (Bell 204) arrived at our location for
the first load of five scouts. Two more flights
in for kids and one after that for RMRU members,
and we secured the mission at 8:20 Wednesday
morning.
With many
"Thank yous" and "Boy was that a
fun ride out" RMRU bid Troop 85 of the
Pacific Palisades a farewell.
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