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Saturday, October 30, 2021
SEARCHES
Handheld devices
that work without
cell signals proved
their value earlier
this week in the
snowy Wallowa
By JAYSON JACOBY
Baker City Herald
A search and rescue oper-
ation tends to be considerably
simpler when you take away
the search part.
The handheld devices
that link to satellites orbiting
Earth, and allow people to
communicate even in places
where cell signals can’t pene-
trate, make it increasingly
likely that rescue crews,
before they start, will know
precisely where they need
to go, Baker County Sheriff
Travis Ash said.
“They’re becoming more
common to have them out
there,” Ash said on Wednes-
day, Oct. 27.
While describing one such
recent episode, the sheriff,
who has been involved in
many searches since joining
the sheriff’s office in 2005,
still was deficient on sleep
after going 36 hours without
so much as a nap.
Ash coordinated the
rescue of Robert Derald
Borders, a 67-year-old Baker
City man who was stranded
by an unusually potent
autumn storm in the Wallowa
Mountains earlier this week
that brought 2 feet of snow
followed by torrential rain
and winds strong enough to
topple trees.
Rescuers from Baker and
Union County search and
rescue teams reached Borders
about 2 p.m. on Oct. 25.
He didn’t need medical
treatment and was able to ride
his horse back to the trail-
head, guided by the rescuers.
Although the operation
was severely hampered by
weather that in its severity
shocked even Ash, an expe-
rienced outdoorsman, the
sheriff said Borders’ use of
a Garmin inReach satellite
device helped immensely.
The unit allowed Borders
to send text messages to
friends, who then alerted the
sheriff’s office to his plight
about noon Oct. 24.
Equally important, the
device pinpointed his loca-
tion, so rescuers didn’t waste
any time in potentially fruit-
less searching.
“If we didn’t know where
he was, and had to search all
that area, that’s a multi-day
event,” Ash said. “Having
that precise location, we just
had to figure out how to safely
get to him.”
Chris Galiszewski, coor-
dinator for the Baker County
Sheriff’s Office Search
and Rescue team, said the
devices, which generally
cost between about $300 and
$600, can truly be life-savers.
“We’re not guessing where
people are,” he said. “We
know where people are.”
Galiszewski said the
satellite devices are espe-
cially useful in places such as
Northeastern Oregon where
cell service is limited, or
Union County Search and Rescue/Contributed Photo
Volunteers donned snowshoes to reach a man stranded in the Wallowa Mountains on Monday, Oct. 25, 2021.
completely absent, in many
places.
The southern Wallowa
Mountains, where Borders
was overtaken by the storm,
is one such region.
Ash said he had only
marginal service on his phone
even when it was plugged into
a signal booster in his vehicle.
But the Garmin inReach
and similar devices sold by
other manufacturers use
satellites, which cover pretty
much every patch of ground
on Earth.
With such a device, users
can send brief text messages
— usually limited to 160
characters — to a prede-
termined list of cellphone
numbers, Galiszewski said.
The units also have an
emergency button that will
send a signal to a dispatch
center, he said.
In addition to the cost
of the device, users pay a
monthly fee for the satellite
service.
Garmin, for instance,
charges, $11.95 per month for
its basic plan, which includes
10 text messages.
The cost is $14.95 per
month for subscribers who
don’t want to commit to more
than one month of service,
according to Garmin’s
website.
Ash said that although the
sheriff’s office has occasion-
ally received calls after a user
accidentally hit the emer-
gency button, he is a propo-
nent of their use.
“They’re a very helpful
tool, and can be life-saving,”
he said. “I think it’s a great
tool in that sense.”
Both Ash and Galiszewski
also emphasize that other
simple — and free — precau-
tions can help backcountry
travelers avoid potential trag-
edy.
They urge people to
always let friends or family
know their itinerary, and to
set a time when they will
either return or be able to
send an update by phone.
That way, Galiszewski
said, people can call police if
a person, or party, is overdue.
‘It was miserable’
Ash’s story about the
rescue of Borders illustrates
that dangerous winter storms
aren’t confined to that season
in the high country of North-
eastern Oregon.
Borders, who had four
horses, was packing in
supplies from Cornucopia,
about 9 miles north of Half-
way in eastern Baker County,
to a hunting camp near the
Baker-Wallowa County
border.
The camp is near Soldier
Lake and Sugarloaf Moun-
tain, at the southern edge of
the Eagle Cap Wilderness,
Oregon’s biggest wilderness
area at 365,000 acres.
The terrain is typical of the
Wallowas, Ash said — steep,
rugged, heavily forested.
The elevation where
Borders was stranded is about
7,400 feet.
Borders rode out of
Cornucopia on Oct. 23. The
National Weather Service
had forecast a major storm for
the weekend, and in blizzard
conditions Borders struggled
to find the trail as he rode
toward the camp, according
to a press release from the
sheriff’s office.
See Searches, Page B3
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Union County Search and Rescue/Contributed Photo
Deep snow made it difficult to use vehicles during a rescue operation Monday, Oct. 25, 2021,
in the Wallowa Mountains.
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