Sierra rescue: ‘Somebody’s here!’
turn around sooner,” Rory said.
Just as he began to drift off, Susan started bouncing around in the front seat, “Somebody’s here! Somebody’s here!”
The ordeal began when Rory, 60, of Marysville and Susan, 59, of Yuba City went on what was supposed to be a day trip to the El Dorado National Forest on Saturday. They followed hardpacked tracks down an unmarked road in the off-road equipped Dodge
until Rory decided to turn around.
“When I tried turning around, I didn’t have enough traction or horsepower to get the speed I needed to get back up the hill,” he said. “By then, it was late in the day, and I thought tomorrow we could walk out.”
They didn’t know exactly where they were – about 3 ⁄ miles up Forest Service Road 14N05 off Wentworth Springs Road near Jerrett Peak in Placer County – but Rory knew how they got there and that there were other people in off-road vehicles maybe 8 to 10 miles away at one of the entrances to the Rubicon Trial.
Rory is a truck driver and an experienced offroader who grew up in eastern Oregon to a father who worked for the U.S. Forest Service and was a Boy Scout. He figured by following their hardpacked tracks back the way they came they could get help.
That would have been doable in the conditions at 2 p.m. Saturday but became impossible when a snow storm dropped two feet of fresh, wet snow overnight, he said.
They tried hiking out first thing Sunday morning, but it became clear within the first mile that plan wouldn’t work, so Susan returned to the Dodge and he continued on until he reached a ridge line where his iPhone picked up cellphone service, but not enough to maintain a
phone call.
He dialed 911 but the call dropped. He sent text messages to his stepson but only some of them went through, then he received one from the El Dorado Sheriff’s Department that said a helicopter was on its way.
While he walked back, he heard the California Highway Patrol air unit somewhere in the distance.
“I heard it flying around below me, but it never came up the ridge, if it had it probably would have seen me,” Rory said. “I was wearing a yellow high-visibility vest, and they probably would have seen the big long trail I left in the snow.”
Weather forced the helicopter back down the hill, and Rory returned to Susan and the Dodge after six hours of slogging through the snow. He dried off at the Dodge by clearing snow away from the exhaust pipe to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning, and ran the engine and the heater.
They had food and water to sustain them and bundled up for the night in their sleeping bags, which were rated for 20 degrees, more than warm enough for the weather conditions, Rory said.
On Monday, Rory brought out his chainsaw and cut down three dead trees, about the size of Christmas trees, and built a fire, but it didn’t produce enough smoke to catch anyone’s attention. They hiked around a bit and waited, but by 4 p.m., it didn’t seem like they would be found that day and Rory bedded down in the back of the Dodge.
“My confidence was diminishing a little bit, but I knew that kind of searching takes some time,” he said. “I was trying to remain positive that they were just narrowing the search down.”
At 4:10 p.m. a search and rescue team in a sideby-side off-road vehicle on snow tracks came down the hill toward them. Susan saw them before they heard it. They loaded up and rode down to the command center, where family members waited.
“I’m just happy everything turned out OK, especially for Susan,” Rory said.
He said he was thankful for all the volunteers, the majority of the people who were involved in the search, for using their time, gas and vehicles to find them.
“I’m just happy that there’s people that do that and that they’re happy to do that,” Rory said. “It’s good that those people are here, because otherwise I might not be.”
Search and rescue teams from El Dorado, Plumas, Amador and Douglas counties participated, as well as law enforcement agencies such as the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office and, for a brief time, a California Highway Patrol air unit, El Dorado County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Sgt. Tasha Thompson said.
“We have our fair share of search and rescues. During the winter, we get called out for people lost and stuck in the snow,” Thompson said. “It’s common, the Rubicon (Trail) runs up there. People try to make it back in there because there are all kinds of off-road areas.”
The search centered around the last ping from Rory’s cellphone, which came at 12:52 p.m. Sunday, and set an approximately 50-square-mile perimeter. Search teams started at both ends of Wentworth Springs and Ice House roads which were mentioned in one of Rory’s text messages that made it through, Thompson said.
“We went from there with multiple teams searching 50-plus miles,” Thompson said. “It was a long, tedious search.”
After being rescued, the Holloters were briefly checked out by medical staff at the command post, and were reportedly doing well and did not wish to seek any medical treatment, she said.
The ordeal will not stop Rory from returning to the snow to go off-roading, but it will make him more prepared, he said. He said he will likely buy a GPS and possibly a ham radio to communicate while outside of cellphone range, and will likely travel with another vehicle to help in sticky situations.
Susan is not opposed to going off-roading again, although she wouldn’t go again in the snow, Rory said.
Rory said the ordeal was embarrassing, but he is already trying to plan his next excursion.
“The Dodge is still there,” Rory said. “I’m trying to get a rescue party together to go back up there this weekend.”
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