First I would like to say it has been a pleasure being the team's President this year! Second, I encourage everyone to turnout for the Christmas party at Mike K's home. It's on December 16th, starting at 6:00PM.

This month's evaluation is on December 17th, at 9:00AM. It will be a litter handling evaluation at Three Gun Springs Trailhead, please see the website calendar entry for detailed directions to the location. If you plan to attend this evaluation please leave a voice message on the hotline as soon as possible.

I would like to wish everyone a merry Christmas and happy New Years! Be safe and see you in 2007!

Boots and Blisters

by Mike Dugger, Training Officer

Last month on November 11 we had a joint training with Sandia Search Dogs at the Strip Mine Trailhead, near Placitas. Thanks to Cindy and her teammates from SSD for coming out to train with us. Two volunteer subjects left scent articles at base camp, and then took a short hike into the foothills. They did not stay on the trail, but wandered off trail between the hills and drainages. One of our volunteers was a prospective Eagle Scout named Justin, out doing some community service by volunteering to help with our training. We had about an hour of discussion in base camp about the types of scent dogs and the type of support we would need to provide when assigned to such a team. We learned that we would likely be responsible for communications and navigation, keeping track of where the team had been and communicating that to base camp. We also learned that when working with a trailing dog, be prepared to move fast! After the discussion, three dog teams were sent into the field to search for our subjects, and one dog team worked on some smaller exercises near base camp. The reason for this plan became apparent when one of our subjects, after being found about an hour later, complained of a mock ankle injury. The team remaining in base camp hauled the litter out to Justin, where Cibola members led an on-site training on patient assessment and packaging. Justin was then hauled out to base camp, allowing all participants to get some practice on a litter haul. Justin reported that the ride was pretty comfortable. The other subject, Adam, was found much later. It turns out that he was in a far corner of the search area, and down wind of the dog team for most of the day, proving much tougher to find.

December's training has already taken place as well. On Sunday the 11th, members of the New Mexico Search and Rescue Support Team (NMSARST) came out to train with us on communications and the Automatic Position Reporting System (APRS). Thanks to Tom Lea, Don Stone, and Bob Rieden from NMSARST for providing classroom training on communication and APRS. Their discussion focused on practical aspects, and how these tools are used on missions. Tom Russo, representing both NMSARST and Cibola, provided an excellent background and demonstration of APRS, using a Cibola laptop that he has painstakingly configured with all the necessary software to run APRS on future trainings. The team should consider making use of this tool as much as possible so that our members can gain familiarity with it and perhaps begin to deploy it on missions. After the classroom session, two teams went on short field assignments equipped with APRS trackers so that people in our "base camp" could monitor them from the NMSARST communications trailer. The filed assignments lasted about an hour, in the area of Embudito Trail and Bear Canyon. When the teams returned we plotted the GPS track logs acquired during the assignment, as well as the positions reported by APRS. It was surprising how much more data the track logs contained than the APRS positions. This was a great demonstration of the fact that position reporting by APRS is relying on GPS satellite coverage as well as the ability of the radio to hit a repeater or other station to communicate the packet information.

Finally, since this is my last article as Cibola's Training Officer for this term, I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who helped out with training during the year. It takes a lot of time and energy to put together team training, and several members helped out by putting on regularly-scheduled or supplemental training during the year. Tony Gaier, Chris Murray, Tom Russo, and Bob Baker helped out with training, to name a few. I also want to thank all the members and prospectives who participated in training during the year. Our regular training program is what enables our new members to come up to speed in SAR relatively quickly, and helps the rest of us keep our skills sharp, especially during times of reduced mission activity. Keep training, and remember that this is the best way to create knowledgeable, confident searchers when the real missions come along.

Disclaimer and Copyright notice

the Editors

The contents of this newsletter are copyright © 2006 by their respective authors or by Cibola Search and Rescue, Inc., and individual articles represent the opinions of the author. Cibola SAR makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the information contained in these articles, and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions that may be made. Articles contained in this newsletter may be reproduced, with attribution given to Cibola SAR and the author, by any member of the Search and Rescue community for use in other team's publications.