Being stationed out of Banff. Alberta, Canada, our Search and Rescue crews are always on the go. There is always some young inexperienced climbers getting into trouble....but this day was very different....
I had just grabbed my morning coffee and was planning on doing some updates to our terrain maps of the area when the call came in...."Two hikers stuck on the edge of Mile-High peak" my crew chief just looked at me and did not need to say another word.
My partner and I ran out the Huey to get her fired up to go...but thats when I noticed the weather...the clouds were down to 200 AGL. I checked the weather station and the top of the clouds were at 8500 feet AGL. This is not going to be easy I told myself but we had to go.
We got the huey warmed up and loaded the rescue supplies and headed out...
We started to ascend and followed the side of the mountain next to the rescue station. I wanted to keep my bearings so I kept the mountain in site...
We had finally got to the base of Mile-High Peak, and our ascend began to take longer and longer as we got higher. My co-pilot looked at me as if to ask if we could get that high..."They don't call it "Mile-High Peak" for nothing!" I snickered...as I continued fighting the controls to keep her steady...
Finally, and what seemed to be an hour of ascending, we broke through the clouds and I gently put her down in an opening at the peak. My partner jumped out and went to find the climbers...
We loaded the climbers into the huey and began our trip back to base. As we started to descend through the clouds, the problems began to occur...
I loaded the bases location into the GPS and the plan was just to slowly descend right above the runway and gently touch her down.
We were directly over the base so I started the descent..."I have a visual of the runway!" my co-pilot said with a huge sigh of relief...
Just as I acknowledged him, we broke through the clouds....and that is when I realized we were in serious trouble... "We descending WAY to fast!" I shouted...
My co-pilot began yelling "FULL THROTTLE! FULL THROTTLE!"
I gave it everthing she had and waited until the last possible second to flare out and try to cushion the landing....I knew this was going to bumpy...but was hoping this old bird would stay in one piece...
With a loud THUD...we hit the ground and bounced once...the skiis flexed incredibly but she stayed in one piece...
After getting her shut down, I looked back at the two hikers we had rescued and I could tell by the look on their faces, that they were not planning on visiting the Rockies any time soon....
Thanks for watching!
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