TCSAR Rescues Injured Hiker on Mount Glory

Jackson, Wyo. — Just before 2 p.m. on Sunday, July 16, TCSAR was notified regarding an injured male who was hiking on the Mount Glory bootpack. The 70-year-old man from Idaho Falls was about three-quarters up the trail when he injured his knee and could not continue. The man was hiking with a companion, and both were fit and had experience in the backcountry. However, hot temperatures on the south-facing slope, little shade, and the steep, loose trail made for challenging conditions.

The response from TCSAR called for several volunteers to hike up the trail from the Teton Pass summit. They carried water, energy drinks, and the wheeled litter. Volunteers located the patient about an hour after the emergency call and provided initial patient care. They then packaged him for transport down the mountain in the wheeled litter.

Due to the steep aspect, the team used a rope belay while other volunteers wheeled and carried the litter down to the parking lot at Hwy 22. Transport to the road took about 1 hour. The man declined an ambulance ride and instead decided to self-transport with his companion to higher medical care.

The effort involved 20 volunteers and took 3 hours, 57 minutes to complete.

In its 30th year, Teton County Search & Rescue Adopts New Logo while Reflecting on the Past

Jackson, Wyo. — Since it was founded in 1993, Teton County Search & Rescue has seen many changes. Technology, gear and equipment now allow the recreating public to go faster and farther into the backcountry, placing new demands on rescuers. As of this summer, another change includes the team’s logo, the third such iteration in TCSAR’s 30-year history. The new logo is intended to be clean, modest and instantly recognizable, with the silhouette of the Tetons as the anchor. A red sky represents “Rescue Ready,” and helps tie in the colors and heritage of the previous logo that represented the team for three decades.

A specific skill or rescue profile was avoided on the new logo due to the many different ways the team responds. While TCSAR has become known for its helicopter operations, that alone would ignore all other rescue skills the team possesses. 

Encompassing all of what TCSAR does and has accomplished after 30 years is a difficult task, but ultimately, the Tetons remain the bedrock for the team and its unbreakable connection to the community. TMBR, a Jackson-based creative agency, designed the logo in coordination with a small group of TCSAR volunteers and TCSAR Foundation staff. The final version was presented to the team, which gave its approval.

TCSAR’s first logo was brought on by Alan Merrell, who started the team in 1993 at the direction of Roger Millward, the Teton County Sheriff at the time. That first logo included a bugling elk. The elk continues to be on the logo representing the Teton County Sheriff’s Office. The SAR elk lasted only a short while before local artist and TCSAR member Diane Benefiel designed what many consider to be the original TCSAR logo. 

Volunteers with TCSAR’s founding class gather for a party in 1994. Alan Merrell is front middle, holding the cake. Diane Benefiel, the artist for TCSAR’s first official logo, is to his left. Photo: TCSAR archive

Benefiel, a graphic designer and artist who worked at the Jackson Hole News from the late 1970s until 2000, became a TCSAR volunteer in 1993 along with her husband, Keith. Soon enough, Alan asked Diane to design a new team logo. One of her original designs included a compass with the Indian Paintbrush, Wyoming’s state flower. (Similar themes were considered during the new logo design process.) Alan was not convinced, and asked her to go back to the drawing board and include a climbing rope with a double fisherman’s knot, and an image of a high-angle rescuer in the Tetons.

“The reason he wanted a high-angle rescuer was he felt it was indicative of the difficulty and high level of skill the team could perform,” Diane said. “He knew that if we as a team could master high-angle rescue, we could do any rescue.”

As Diane recalls, Alan also believed that by dedicating training to high-angle rescues, everyone on the team would have a job, which would help the young team build structure, trust and unity.

“When it came to the knot,” she said, “they knew that a correctly tied knot would save someone’s life, and that symbolized the trust everyone had for each other.”

As a rescuer, Diane knew the knots and how to draw them. 

“I’ve always liked bright colors,” she said. “The ropes are bright colors for obvious reasons, and the black was just for contrast. I liked the circle because I liked round patches. In the end, Alan liked it, too, and the team adopted it.”

Ever since, Diane’s illustration has represented TCSAR on all team-issue gear and apparel, mission equipment, stickers and letterhead, social media, snowmobiles, UTV’s, trucks, and a helicopter. The patch even made a pilgrimage to space aboard the International Space Station.

NASA Astronaut Andrew Morgan snapped this photo of the TCSAR patch while aboard the International Space Station at the end of 2019.

Diane appreciates and understands why the team would want a new logo after 30 years. “It’s a new team, it’s a new look,” she said. “People forget the old, but if you keep a record of it in the hangar, people will be able to remember it and feel the nostalgia.”

TCSAR Responds to Three Calls in Two Days

Jackson, Wyo. — Teton County Search & Rescue volunteers responded to three calls between July 7-8, making for a busy few days that covered nearly their entire service area.

Just before noon on Friday, July 7, a local woman in her 50s was hiking with her dog on the History trail when she came down with a lower leg injury. TCSAR responded with a team driving the RZR (a utility terrain vehicle) up the Old Pass Road. The volunteers located the patient, splinted the injury, transported her in the wheeled litter back to the RZR, and drove her down the Old Pass Road to her vehicle. The team completed the mission in 2 hours and 30 minutes.

TCSAR uses the wheeled litter to help transport an injured patient out of Teton Canyon, on the west side of the Tetons. Photo: TCSAR

At 7 a.m. on Saturday morning, July 8, the team received a call regarding a cyclist having a medical issue at Mosquito Lake off the Union Pass Road. TCSAR volunteers responded by driving a SAR truck towing the RZR on a trailer to the north access of Union Pass Road. They then drove the RZR down the dirt road to Mosquito Lake, where they met the patient and his riding partner, who were both visiting from out of state. The team then drove the men, with their bikes loaded on a bike rack attached to the RZR, out of the backcountry and back to Jackson for higher medical care. Due to the remoteness of Mosquito Lake and the long drive, this mission wrapped up in 8 hours, 32 minutes.

As that rescue call played out on Saturday, TCSAR received a call at 12:25 p.m. from the west side of the Tetons. This concerned a visiting man in his mid-60s who had sustained a lower leg injury while hiking on the North Teton trail of Table Mountain. The man’s companions were able to provide initial treatment but required further assistance from TCSAR to get out of the backcountry. Volunteers drove to the trailhead and entered the backcountry on foot carrying the wheeled litter. Once on scene, they packaged the man in the litter and wheeled him out about a mile to the trailhead. The mission took 5 hours and 5 minutes to complete.