A friend of mine has been on the Search & Rescue Team in Mono County for many years.? We've been discussing the record snow levels this year, which got into a conversation about navigation in the Sierra.? Thought this little bit of "history" would be of interest to the group:
Comments from Russ Veenker, Ops Leader, Life Member, Mono County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue, and 40+ year resident of June Lake.
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Another quick story: ?All SAR [Search And Rescue] candidates are required to be competent in Map and Compass Navigation. ?When out in the field on operations, periodic “well-fair checks” by radio are conducted by Rescue Base with each team. Part of the well-fair check response is to report an approximate location of your team. ?The Team field leader always had a topo map tucked in his/her radio chest harness. ?It would sound like this: “Rescue Base, Team 2 OK, located 1/4 inch North of the ‘R’ in ‘Reds Meadow’” (Rescue Base would have a topo map of the search zone and place a “2” ?at 1/4 inch above the R in Reds Meadow on their map).
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GPS for civilian government agencies was made available in 1990. ?As a team, we had two early GPS hand-held Lowrance units we slowly integrated into operations. ?When Rescue Base would radio your Team for well-fair check, you’d report your location by reading the UTC# on the GPS (which translates into longitude and latitude). ?Later in 1990 we were in the field on a search when Rescue Base started doing well-checks and both GPS devices could not acquire satellite signals.? The teams in the field quickly adjusted back to using the topo map method to report their locations…no big deal, but perplexing. ?We found our overdue subject (who was ok) and all teams began to return to Rescue Base. ?When we all got back to RB, we started to talk about the GPS issue while standing around re-hydrating and snacking. ?All of a sudden our radios go off with the Sheriff “Tone” (indicating an officer safety issue), “Attention all Mono County units…all Mono County units…the United States has invaded Kuwait…repeat, the US has invaded Kuwait…all units acknowledge.” ?We all looked at each other…not shocked given the US military build-up to push Saddam out of Kuwait.? Each Sheriff deputy in the field began to acknowledge the alert from dispatch, including the SAR coordinator hanging out with us at Rescue Base. ?Suddenly it hit us - the reason we couldn’t acquire GPS satellites is because the US military turned off the civilian frequencies which, we learned later, were being used by our adversaries in Kuwait in their weapon guidance systems!. ?The other thing we learned about hand-held GPS devices is that the rechargeable batteries could not handle the cold of winter…they only last about 60 minutes.? (Today's units are much better). ?So, back to the importance of Map and Compass Navigation skills! ?
Adrian