9 rescued from Mendocino forest
Saturday was 'busy day' for Search and Rescue
WILLOWS >> Of three rescue operations Glenn County Search and Rescue conducted last week, the one Saturday, March 6 was “by far the most lengthy and strenuous,” the team said after helping nine people out of an area in the Mendocino National Forest where their vehicles got stuck on a snowcovered road that isn’t maintained.
Glenn County Search and Rescue received a call Saturday morning reporting two vehicles were stuck in the snow carrying a combined seven people near Plaskett Meadows, off of Forest Highway 7, according to a Facebook post on the search and rescue team’s Facebook page.
The team towed its offroad vehicles to the end of the pavement and continued driving through the snow in two UTV side-by-sides and Jeeps toward the area where the group was reportedly stranded.
At the junction of Company Road and Forest High
way 7, members of Glenn County Search and Rescue noticed several sets of footprints in the snow, which came from the direction the vehicles were reportedly stuck. While the two side-by-sides followed the footprints, the Jeeps continued on the road.
The Jeep team located the vehicles about a half mile past Plaskett Meadows and found one of the vehicles nearly falling off the road. The group traveling in the side-by- sides spotted three individuals, who were part of the stranded, approximately 10 miles from the vehicles near the Forest Highway 7 and M3 junction. The three were given a ride back to the location of the vehicles.
Glenn County Search and Rescue later learned from the stranded group that they had been stuck since 2 p.m. Friday without food and water. Initially, one vehicle got stuck in the snow, which led the group to call on an acquaintance to help them get out. That second vehicle also got stuck. Then, while the Glenn County Search and Rescue team was responding to the call, a third vehicle which had been called to help also got stuck in the snow, adding two more individuals for a total of nine people stranded.
Upon locating the stranded party, Glenn County Search and Rescue escorted each of the nine people involved and their vehicles out of the forest over the course of several hours.
“We hope by posting this incident that it reminds everyone that winter mountain travel can be extremely dangerous even to large (four-wheel drive) vehicles,” Glenn County Search and Rescue said in the post. “We also want to press the importance of staying together and at the area you are stuck at once emergency personnel have been notified.”
Contact reporter Will Denner at 530-896-7774.