Rescue team praises drone

Mountain Rescue Aspen has a strict policy of not singling out members of the team, but it broke tradition recently to praise a rookie for playing a vital role in locating a lost hiker near Chapman Campground on June 27.

It was the first mission where MRA used a Matrice 210 drone fitted with an infrared camera and a second, powerful zoom camera. The drone was used at night to pinpoint where a woman was walking and to direct a ground team to her.

“We would have never found this woman,” said Doug Paley, a rescue leader.

MRA received the call at 6:20 p.m. on a Wednesday that the hiker was overdue. She was last seen at 2 p.m.

Eighteen volunteers with MRA assembled at the site about 30 miles east of Basalt in the Fryingpan Valley and launched a search at 7:50 p.m. The area where they believed the woman to be was thickly wooded with braided streams and marshy areas. It was pitch black.

Bill Murphy, who was at the controls that night, methodically searched one area of terrain and moved on to another. He began searching a third area when he thought he spotted the woman walking, but they had to make sure it wasn’t a team member. A rescue leader directed everyone in the field to stop walking. The subject viewed through the infrared camera was still walking. They knew they had their hiker.

The closest ground crew was a half-mile away, so Murphy was able to scope out the terrain and direct them to the best route to reach her. He also helped them navigate the terrain back to the road.

The drone could be deployed to pinpoint the location of a cliffed-out or lost hiker on a steep slope and to determine if ground or air crews would be needed. It can provide ground teams with GPS coordinates to a lost or injured party. In a climbing accident, the drone could be used to search for signs of life. In a rescue or retrieval, the drone could pick out a landing zone for a helicopter. It could even deliver supplies.