Latest / The Junto Podcast / E77: Search and Rescue on Mount Yonah - Training for Real Life

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E77: Search and Rescue on Mount Yonah - Training for Real Life · The Junto Podcast

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Hello, America. Welcome to the Junto podcast, where we promote the practical
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applications of critical thinking and bold creativity.
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I'm your host, Edgar Mills. Thank you for joining us.
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Hello, America. Welcome back. This is a little short bonus episode.
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We're doing, we're going to do a little look at, so last week on 25 August,
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there was a mountain rescue on Mount Yonah in North Georgia.
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An unidentified man he's been rescued so but he wasn't identified,
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now it's speculation but i'm pretty
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sure the guy was a cadet at the north georgia university up there but,
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so he was hiking free climbing scrambling whatever you want to call it on the
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western face of Mount Yonah.
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Well, if you don't know, Mount Yonah is, well, the elevation,
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I mean, here in Georgia, right? It's only about 3,100 feet, but it's granite.
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And he was about 260 feet off the flats there, the ground.
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And he was somewhere around 40 or 50 feet from the top,
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of the mountain there well he was out climbing got said he got off track you
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know off track or on the wrong line,
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and he got stuck and they're saying he was on like a 20 inch by 20 inch little
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ledge and and there's camp you know there was a drone footage and everything
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and he was up on the mountain he got on his phone he called 911,
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and he stood by and waited well,
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that's uh that's white County out there, by the way, and the crews, they sent up a drone.
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And once he got pinpointed, a White County firefighter named Will Roper rappelled
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down. They set up on the top of the mountain, rappelled down.
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Harness the kid up and then a rope team, you know, pull them back up to the top.
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And once they got on site, the whole operation took about 42 minutes.
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And I'm here. That's good. That's what I'm calling good.
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The guy was uninjured. He was he was fine. And actually, you know,
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as per the news outlets, he was remarkably calm and even joked,
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you know, with the rescuers.
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And I mean, he was on the ledge looking at his phone, hopefully tracking when
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they were going to get to him.
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So he was wearing, and the reason I think he was a North Georgia cadet,
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it's because he had like a multi-cam three-day pack on.
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Definitely not a climbing pack and definitely, you know, kind of a generic,
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just a three-day pack or a salt pack, whatever you want to call it.
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And he was wearing sneakers. the regular it looked like he was wearing regular
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running sneakers to me that's what i saw from the footage,
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yeah so it's now he told officials you know the the firefighters and whatnot
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that he wasn't experienced well i don't know he said he was experienced climber
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he said he was experienced and just chose the wrong line,
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i don't know experienced in what anyway.
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So that was pretty interesting. It was a pretty good story. It was pretty cool.
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Mount Yonah, yeah, there's plenty of trails out there.
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And there's a pretty significant trail going up to where you can start the climbing and things like that.
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But then there's also some pretty serious, fairly serious climbing out there.
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And I don't know what the hardest climb, but probably 5, 10,
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or 11, maybe even a little harder out there.
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This also happens to be where Army Ranger School does mountain phase of Ranger School.
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That's where they go out there to do all their mountain stuff.
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So there are well trouts out there, bolted routes.
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So the firefighters and the locals around there, they commented that people
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regularly treat Mount Yona like it's just an easy hike,
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or an easy scramble, and then they get in over their heads pretty quickly.
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I can attest to this. There are some very, well, I'd say technical spots out there for sure.
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I've been out there plenty of times.
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So people will go out there thinking it's just a walk up through the woods in
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an easy breezy. Oh, we'll go do a little scrambling. Next thing you know, you're stuck.
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Yeah, it's easy enough to make a wrong move, especially like granite.
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If it's wet or it's early in the morning and the humidity is pretty high and
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stuff, that stuff can get pretty slit.
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And yeah, you can run out of holds real quick and then you're kind of stuck, right?
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And there's been plenty of fatalities out there. In fact, there have been plenty
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of fatalities out on Mount Yonah over the years.
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But this particular time, and good on the guy for being calm,
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and good on the guy for knowing when to say when, and he had the capacity to call 911.
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And good thing he had coverage.
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That's pretty important. Had he not had cell coverage, it might have gone down sight worse.
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So, yeah, good on him for that.
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Because what were his options? I mean, he'd obviously reached the limit of his
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advance. He couldn't go any further.
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And I know a lot of you out there who don't climb very much,
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or you think, well, if you climbed out there, you could probably climb back.
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Well, in my opinion, down climbing is worse and more dangerous than ascending.
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Because you can't immediately see. You're constantly looking back and trying
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to feel for the toe holds as opposed to feeling for the hand holds.
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It's down climbing is dangerous. It's very dangerous and very difficult.
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So good on him for, yeah, knowing when to say when.
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Roper, the firefighter who, ironically, his name is Roper, he said that had
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the rescue not gone down, like had the kid not had cell coverage or whatnot, I mean,
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what was the option? It could have been catastrophic.
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I don't think there's a way to sort of calculate your fall from 260 feet on granite.
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There's a lot of, yeah, it's rocky out there as well.
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So, what I'm saying is that whole incident showed a very, what I think was a
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very efficient and well-coordinated technical rescue. That's what I think.
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Especially the use of the drone. Now, I know we poo-poo on drones a lot and
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we poo-poo on technology a lot.
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But that is a perfect, perfect use for drone technology for that situation.
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Had you sent guys up sort of reconnaissance guys out there physically looking
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for the guy man who knows drone found him instantly and that is awesome,
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and then the guys who did the rope work especially the guy who did the rappelling down.
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And getting the guy rigged up to get pulled back up I thought it was pretty awesome.
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And what I think this shows, this incident, and these incidents are,
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well, they don't get highlighted.
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I don't know how rare they are, but they don't get highlighted.
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You don't see these always on the news when somebody out at some spot gets rescued.
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It kind of highlights that something that seems like a niche market or a obscure
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training task, it kind of shows that that stuff matters.
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Especially if you're on a, well, a fire crew and you're out there and that's
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your sort of jurisdiction, your area of operation is high angle mountain stuff,
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or like water rescue if you're near, you know, rivers and whatnot.
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And in the South, I mean, everybody's near a river.
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So having that specialized training is important.
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And it's easy to send somebody to go get some training, and then neglect the
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follow-up sort of sustainment training.
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And some, most, a lot of these agencies do neglect it.
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They'll send some guys to go do a cool thing, and then you never use it.
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And five years later, an incident happens, and you got guys scurrying to try
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to refresh on something that, yeah, you already invested in,
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so why not keep investing in it? I think it's important.
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So, but is that why I wanted to do this podcast to break in my normal routine?
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Well, this is where the story becomes very relevant to our listeners.
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Listeners who like to go train and guys who think about doing different types
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of training who are always trying to make themselves better.
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You know that at OSS, formerly Two Team Guys, our training, we do a lot of scenario-based
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leadership and team development.
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That, well, we build it off of the principles of special operations doctrine.
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And the courses are all sort of immersive scenario-based courses.
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And they're problem-solving.
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Now, some of them haven't. There's classroom portions in most of them,
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but the goodness is the experiential getting out there and getting hands-on,
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in context and in action.
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So we just so happen to have a course. It's a search and rescue mountaineer
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course, And we have done this in conjunction with Higher Ground USA,
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also here in Rome, Georgia.
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And it's a fully immersive three-day course, and day one being,
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This fundamental classroom stuff, then we go into knot tying and things like straight away.
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And then we spend two days on the mountain.
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And the students, you come to the course as a member of a fictional search and
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rescue team, an ad hoc search and rescue team.
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And the mission is to locate and rescue a lost and potentially broken hiker who went to,
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you know, go hike and climb and then was not heard from.
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That's the scenario. And then the emphasis for that course, obviously,
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it's on mountaineering skills.
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The practical skills that you would use for you know basic climbing techniques,
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but also some of the things you need to to do rescue like hall systems and things like that,
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so that's the function that's the focus is the mountaineering techniques and
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then clearly teamwork is a big focus,
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it takes a team it takes a team and within that team it takes well smart calm,
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leaders who can manage multiple people, multiple tasks,
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manage emotions, all those sorts of things.
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So it's an excellent course for team building and leadership development.
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And then within the technical part of that, we focus on sort of technical standards.
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Nathan and myself are there to, we're not a part of the team necessarily.
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We're just there to ensure that the technical skills are, well,
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that everybody's being safe.
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And that when you clip in, you're not going to fall to your death.
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Yeah. So, and ironically, and one of the reasons this stood out so much is that
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where this rescue happened last week, it is almost a carbon copy of our course.
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The rescue that happened, the real life rescue, is very nearly the exact same
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scenario that we ran well prior to this rescue ever happening.
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Now, it was pretty easy to sort of come up with that scenario because there's
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been exact instances in the past.
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That I used as references when building the course.
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But again, the reason it stood out so much is it was almost in the exact same
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location of where we actually did our last Mountaineer course a couple,
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a couple of years ago on Mount Yona. Yeah.
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Cause it's a great place to train. It's a, it's, it's a very good environment for training.
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It's got all the, all the things and features that you need to get all the tasks completed. So yeah,
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The only difference is this guy wasn't injured, whereas in our scenario,
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our guy's injured with a broken leg.
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So, yeah, yeah, it was uncanny how similar it was.
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And, yeah, they, except we don't have, we don't, we don't use a drone to locate
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our guy. We use some recon guys.
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But, yeah, we locate our guy. And then there's sort of a time sensitive,
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well, not time sensitive, but there's a little pressure. Like we don't,
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we want to get down to save the guy before he could potentially fall to his death.
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And then there's, do we, do we raise him up or do we lower him down?
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You know, it's a little bit of problem solving right there. And then,
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then there's got to be a rescuer or two that go down and rig the guy up,
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set him up for safe transport.
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And, again, either make the decision whether they're going to bring him up or let him down.
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And then somebody's got to run the team up top who's working the blaze and everything.
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Such a perfect example of what our course does. Such a perfect example.
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So, yeah, that's it. That's why I wanted to bring this up. So the parallels
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with the real rescue that happened in our Search and Rescue Mountaineer course,
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I mean, it's not just marketing fluff, although it just happens to be a great
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marketing opportunity.
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That the firefighters executed the exact same sequence of events that OSS and
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higher ground students rehearse, train, rehearse, and execute.
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They actually rehearse their skills back at the team house. They get out on site. They locate.
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They assess the situation. they rig up the injured person and they send climbers,
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up or down to attend to this person,
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and package this person up to get him to get him off the mountain,
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so yeah it couldn't have been more perfect the and well in the real life event
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they they completed all actions in 42 minutes now that's once they got on site
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i'm not sure how long it took them to get on site,
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But once they got on site 42 minutes,
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our class takes a little longer than that.
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Yeah. Our class takes a little longer.
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And that's okay. And because you got sometimes, you know, unknown personalities
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working together for the very first time.
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So, which is a good, that's a good feature that you're trying to navigate personalities
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while trying to navigate this sort of enormous task.
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So anyway, perfect example of what we train in the search and rescue mountain air course.
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So let's talk about you being out in the woods especially in mountainous terrain.
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Hiking some sort of maybe good practices right stay on marked trails stay on marked trails,
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there's a lot of stuff going on in a lot of different national forests where
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you shouldn't be trumping cross-country smashing terrain and whatnot that and
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especially stuff that's unmarked, especially in technical terrain. Stale marked trails.
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Especially at Mount Yonah, there's a lot of, because we're in the South and
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our, our terrain is still all very, there's a lot of foliage and it's very thick,
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wood line and everything like that.
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We don't have an alpine space out here, right? We don't get that kind of elevation out here.
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So you're still trying to see through trees and things. And,
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and some of these, some of these cliffs and drop-offs will sneak up on you if you're not careful.
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Another reason why it's important to stay on marked paths and there aren't any
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fences out there there aren't,
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you know unlike stone mountain right in atlanta or in decatur where well it's
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actually stone mountain but you know some parts up there there's a fence where
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you can't go beyond that fence,
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i mean technically but it's not like that in most places,
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so there so you have a lot of secret little unsuspecting drop-offs there.
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And then another thing that's unique to Georgia that is there's a lot of pine needles out there.
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And if you're not familiar with walking on pine needles, it's very slippery.
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They're very, they're very slippery and loose. Then there's a lot of loose rock around.
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So I think wearing running sneakers is probably not the right way.
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You should probably wear some hiking boots, something with a little ankle support,
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something that's got some, some good, pretty good grip on it.
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Or approach shoes if you know approach shoes have sort of unique specialized,
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slightly stickier soles that stick better to granite,
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they're good for scrambling approach shoes and they got the toes that are kind
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of covered with the rubber as well so you can sort of underhook your toes on
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some some sort of technical climbing stuff,
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but yeah not running sneakers not running sneakers and then of course carry
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the basics with you carry water of course carry water,
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yeah maybe even a little bit of snack protein or something have some layers
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with you depending on the time of year,
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definitely have a headlamp in case you get stuck out there at night in case
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you're stuck right and and it's creeping up on you the darkness is creeping
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it's not going to get any better in the dark most likely but at least that headlamp
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will help somebody spot you,
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definitely have a map with you and not and not just your phone map but a hard
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map something that or some kind of offline GPS system, but even then,
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you need the extra batteries.
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Check the weather. Do the weather forecast. In Colorado, this matters.
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In the Rocky Mountains, this matters because out there, that weather will sneak
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up on you in those higher altitudes.
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Yeah, and if it looks like it's going to rain, that rain makes for very slippery rock, folks.
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Let someone know. Tell someone, your homie or CQ desk or whoever, your mom.
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Let them know where you're going and kind of give them a generalized idea of
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where you're going to be.
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For God's sakes, don't just go wander to woodline alone. I know that's Pioneer
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Way and all, but it's, yeah, it's ultimately dangerous.
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Yeah. So sort of kind of hit, have a hit time.
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If I'm not back by this time and I have it called by this time, there could be an issue.
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Yep. Yep. If you have to get off trail while you're out there, right?
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So you're, let's say you're just going for a trail hike, but you see a nice spot.
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Looks like a good photo opportunity and you have to get off and you got to do
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a little scramble once you start scrambling you may as well treat that like
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it's a real right regular climb,
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and well get route information you can go on mountainproject.com and just find,
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everything it's all there,
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type in mount yona or type in north georgia or whatever you can come up and see every route on Yona.
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There's no reason to go off searching for some climbing opportunity.
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You're not Sir Edmund Hillary. You're not going to discover anything or you're
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not going to be the first to summit Yonah.
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So anyway, do your homework on that. You know, buy a guidebook that you can take with you.
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Last resort, you know, ask the locals. There's probably plenty of people up
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there to climb all the time.
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And rescues happen. So this rescues happen because people want to follow the
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climber's routes and paths, but they don't have the climber's skill and experience or equipment.
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Be careful out there on the rocks.
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So now if you're actually going to go climbing alone, I get the freedom part
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of all this, but generally speaking, you know, that don't.
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Now, there's been a recent debate on one of the podcasts I was on about carrying
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an extra magazine when you carry concealed.
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And a lot of people think, well, one magazine is not enough.
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Oh, it's just not enough. What if, what if, what if?
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Well, climbing is a team sport, I think.
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You need a minimum of two, especially for top roping or even lead climbing or
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whatnot, where you're putting in your own protection.
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Or even if it's a bolted route, whatever it is, it pretty much takes to,
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if you're doing it by yourself, you don't have any safety. There's no safety involved in that.
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There are no auto belays out in the outdoors.
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So the default answer there is don't climb alone. If you choose to go anyway
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because you're a pioneer and you're a trailblazer,
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yeah, definitely choose your routes based on mountainproject.com or based on the guidebook.
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Go climb a route that is a couple of ratings below your skill level.
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Don't go after the don't go try to get a personal record here by yourself,
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so if you're going to climb for fitness or just because you you just want to
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climb and work on technique you know climb at a lower level than you than you think you're capable of,
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and one of the things i hated most about being on a mountain team is everything's
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a very early start get a good alpine start because normally,
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especially in the Rocky Mountains,
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you've got to do a frigging three-mile approach before you even reach the climbing.
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I mean, you've already walked a couple thousand miles of elevation before you've
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even reached where all the climbing routes, the technical climbing routes are.
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But there's a reason for that. You don't want to run out of daylight.
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You don't want to run out of daylight. Leave early.
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If you're going to climb alone and you know you're going to go climb alone,
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I'll leave a detailed five-point or five W's contingency plan with someone.
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Here's where I'm at. Here's a route I plan to climb or a couple of routes I plan to be on.
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If you don't get a phone call by this time, please come look for me.
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If you can't find me, call a rescue, you know, et cetera, et cetera.
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If you're going to be out, way out where there's no service,
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have a satellite messenger, man. Don't rely on like cell service.
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I'm guilty of not necessarily wearing a helmet, you know, a lot.
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But one of the reasons you wear a helmet is when you climb with other people
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is that they're up there climbing and kick some rock loose.
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You only get hit on your nugget. It's not going to save you if you fall necessarily,
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but mainly it's for rocks.
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But definitely wear a helmet. Wear some good, proper climbing shoes.
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They're specialized. They exist for a reason.
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And climbing shoes are uncomfortable and a pain in the ass. But at least wear approach shoes.
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You can get semi-somewhat comfortable approach shoes that function almost as
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good as climbing shoes do.
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I mean, they are climbing shoes.
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And then have a light pack, a pack made for climbing.
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One that's small, tight, the weight doesn't shift around.
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Because when you're on a rock and that weight shifts, if you didn't pack efficiently,
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that's going to be a variable that you don't want to deal with.
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That could pull you off the rock.
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So if you're going to wear a pack wear a good one but generally speaking you
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don't need if you're climbing some of these routes you don't need a pack you
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put your pack at the bottom and do your thing.
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Then plan yourself a retreat.
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If you're by yourself, you need to figure out, all right, if I get to a certain
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point, then there's an easy spot you can slide over to to come down.
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I said earlier, down climbing, I think, is as dangerous as ascending. It's dangerous.
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Your feet are not as tactile as your hands. You can reach around and find holes with your hands.
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When you're reaching down, when you're tiptoe trying to find something,
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it's difficult. It's very difficult. And I think dangerous.
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I'm not a big, this free solo business, I'm not a big fan. I was always a nervous
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climber. Hell, I'm still scared of heights for that matter.
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If you're out there trying to be one with God and be free with the mountain and all, good on you.
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But some of the greatest have died doing that stuff with, with decades of experience
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and, and, and just all the stuff.
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So I don't recommend, I don't recommend the free solo stuff,
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but try not, try to be aware not to be, you know, once you feel like you're
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getting pretty deep into a thing and it's, and it's done, don't,
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don't, don't get over your head.
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Don't get too deep over your head to where you can't, like the guy last week,
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like hold on with one hand, make your, you know, make your emergency call.
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Yeah, it's, climbing is very dangerous guys. And I'm not trying to discourage anyone from climbing.
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It's awesome. The feeling of, of doing a route and completing that route is,
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is pretty, well, rewarding for sure.
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Don't climb yourself to death.
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Pride and accomplishment is awesome, but falling to your death is not awesome.
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And yeah, Mount Yonah for sure. But any mountain, any mountain,
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any climbing endeavor out there rewards preparation and it punishes sort of improvisation.
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Trying to just make it up on the fly. I'll figure it out.
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Now, preparation wins the day when it comes to technical mountain climbing.
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The mountain's going to be there, folks. It's been there thousands,
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maybe even millions of years.
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And it's going to be there thousands, millions more. So make sure you're able
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to stick around in your little window of time as long as possible to go climb that mountain.
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So yeah, I just wanted to talk about that. Thanks for listening to this.
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I just wanted to talk about it.
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And I wanted to sort of pump up the mountaineer search and rescue mountaineer
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course a little bit to seek and save the lost.
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That's the logo. That's the motto for the mountaineer course.
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And our fictitious mountaineer search and rescue mountaineer team is the Highlands Guard.
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Yeah. And you get a coin for that course, for completing that course.
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And it's a very nice coin. But.
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Get a lot more out of it. One, a little bit of accomplishment and overcoming
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maybe a little bit of fear.
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You get to meet some good people who are interested in the challenge.
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It's always good to meet people who take on new challenges because they're usually
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very, well, productive and what's the word I'm looking for, maybe even successful
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type people, people who chase challenge,
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not wild and crazy,
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but, you know, in a semi-controlled environment where there's actually learning objectives.
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So yeah, that's it folks. Go to OspreyShootingsSolutions.com backslash team-building.
31:08
And there's a button on the website as well, Leader Team Development,
31:12
and check out the courses. The Mountaineer course is on there.
31:16
Feel free to hit me up, edgarmills.ospreyshootingsolutions.com,
31:21
to inquire about the Search and Rescue Mountaineer course. Again,
31:26
we may or may not, we're trying to figure out when to put the next one on,
31:30
but most of the courses are done by demand.
31:33
So if we have four more people, we will put together a course.
31:38
And that's for any of the leadership development and team building courses.
31:44
So, yeah, thanks for listening to this, folks. I appreciate you.
31:47
Go check out the websites. Thanks for listening to the Junetow podcast.
31:51
Please think about donating to gifsengow.com backslash helpahomeyfund to help
31:59
us in our charitable efforts. And let's see.
32:04
Yeah this episode will be coming out on tuesday september the 1st is that correct that's tomorrow,
32:13
yeah and then i'll be dropping the regular episodes on on thursday so thanks
32:18
for listening folks i appreciate each and every one of you folks.