Crested Butte Search Dog Team helps neighboring County with Missing Hunter

By Shara Rutburg

 The rotors of the Huey helicopter echoed through the frigid morning air as the craft made a slow sweep just above the trees near the Flat Tops area of Garfield County. As the chopper rose with the sun and the rotors thudded off into the distance, Sue Purvis and her husband Dave Rowe heard only the crunch of their boots on the deadfall timber and the panting of their search dog, Tasha.

A 62-year-old Arizona hunter was missing for about 60 hours by the time the Crested Butte locals began following their black Labrador across the rugged search area on Thursday, October 14, 1999. “Everybody feared the worst,” said Rowe. “We were 95 percent sure we were looking for a dead lost hunter.”

The search team over the past several days included nearly 60 people, hundreds of thousands of dollars of military aircraft, ATVs and night-vision goggles. But a crucial link in that team worked without engines or light sensitive eyewear, fueled only by biscuits and the love of the search. Once again, the naked, and in this case freezing, nose of a dog was critical in a search mission.

Tasha is certified by the Search and Rescue Dogs of Colorado (SARDOC), a volunteer group that oversees search dogs in the state. Across the country, more and more often, search and rescue and law enforcement organizations are calling out the dogs. Last year, SARDOC dogs found six people. They also played a major role in four other missions by directing the searches.

Tasha and Purvis have trained for thousands of hours, to achieve avalanche and wilderness air scent certification. They passed rigorous SARDOC testing that is a combination of doggie SAT’s and EMT practicals. The two attend various train­ings throughout Colorado with other teams as well as practice different scenarios on their own four days a week. To Tasha, searching is a game, a quest rewarded with hugs from Purvis, an occasional canine cookie or time with Tasha’s favorite toy.

On Wednesday, October 13, Sue Purvis was stirring a pot of spaghetti for din­ner when she got the call to report to the search scene by 6 a.m. the following morning to join the search for Donald Steer, who got lost while hunting with his son and grandson. Within an hour, Purvis and her husband Dave Rowe - who serves as the team’s navigator - had thrown together their equipment and were on their way to Glenwood Springs. There they began the first part of their mission — a search for a hotel that allowed dogs.

Purvis, Rowe, and Tasha left their hotel at 4 a.m. Thursday morning. A little over an hour later, Purvis strapped on Tasha’s pink work harness and clicked on the dog’s orange search light. When the three arrived at the incident command cen­ter, situated at the last place the hunter was seen, it was still dark. No one was there. They could see their frozen clouds of breath and Steer’s ATV, surrounded by yellow crime scene tape. Purvis and Rowe evaluated the maps and grids of the previous days’ searches and based on wind direction and their knowledge of probable behavior of lost hunters. They gave Tasha a whiff of Steer’s sock and the com­mand “go find!” and took off.

The team set out to make a wide circle from where Steer was last seen. During the days they trudged for about eight hours following Tasha’s lead. “The trees were so thick the men in heli­copters could not see down through them,” said Ron VanMeter, public information officer for the Garfield County Sheriff’s Department.

“There were such heavy dense trees and dark shadows, with five to six feet of deadfall that being able to have the dogs on the ground was extremely helpful,” said Incident Commander Lanny Grant.

At work, the little Lab was constantly in motion. Following a trail invisible to humans, she zigzagged through the brush and over downed trees, her tail wagging in overdrive. Twice during the day she “alerts,” signaling to Purvis she has picked up Steer’s scent. She abruptly turned into the wind, nose into the air and paused for a fraction of a sec­ond, enough to tell Purvis she was onto something. Tasha, and another search dog who had worked the previous day, pointed down into a steep canyon. Steer’s fami­ly, however, insisted that the man would not have walked down such steep terrain.

“We were exhausted by the end of the day,” says Purvis.

“But it’s difficult to get up the nerve to say ‘no’ to the family of the missing person,” says Rowe.

“The dogs had indicated travel toward the edge of the canyon,” said Grant, who called off Tasha for the evening due to wind conditions. Meanwhile, Steer’s son’s co-workers from an Arizona power company were driving up with infrared equipment to join in the search the next morning. As they sped north through the night, the Air National Guard whose helicopters had been searching during the day, and who base their high altitude training in nearby Eagle, opted to search for Steer after dark as part of a previously scheduled training mission.

Slowly sweeping the canyon the dogs had pointed toward, a guardsman peered down from the Huey through night vision goggles and noticed a white spot in the dark. It was Steer’s campfire. Hovering lower, they were able to see the lost hunter waving his arms, but the tight trees and limited visibility made it impossi­ble to land.

At 10:21 am. Friday morning, the Huey performed a three foot hover and deposited a medic to attend to Steer and another person to clear enough space for the helicopter to land. Even so, the pilot had to balance one skid on a log to be sta­ble enough to perform the rescue.

Searchers learned that Steer had become lost after he followed an elk down into the canyon. After realizing he was not fit enough to return the way he came, he began to work his way down. Steer had matches, a couple of candy bars and a tin of Vienna Sausage. The second day he was lost, he also had a ruptured appen­dix.

Steer was transported to Valley View Hospital, where he was operated on upon arrival. After a week’s recovery from an appendectomy, exhaustion, and dehydration, he returned to Arizona.

“The doctor said he probably wouldn’t have made it another 24 hours,” says Grant.

“It turned out the guy did everything his son swore he wouldn’t,” says Rowe. “We asked ‘would he head down a canyon?’ and he said ‘no.’ ‘Would he walk through difficult deadfall?’ ‘No way.’  ‘Would he follow an elk alone?’ ‘Oh, no, he’d come back to get us,’ the son said.”

Steer was rescued nearly 3,000 feet lower than the point where he was last spotted, about 12 miles into the canyon. People getting stuck in canyons is not unusual, according to Rowe and Purvis. Five days after Steer was found, they were called out on a similar search in Gunnison County. The lost hunter was spotted down in a canyon by a plane before they set out.

“There’s nothing more gratifying than helping people,” says Rowe, when asked why he and his wife and their dog volunteer so much time helping and training to help strangers. “Sometimes it’s finding live people; sometimes it’s helping families find closure. Unfortunately, a lot of work in search and rescue is body recovery.” “Plus, it’s a good excuse to explore different areas,” says Purvis.

“And we wanted our dog to have a job,” says Rowe. “So she doesn’t get fat sitting on the couch in our condo.”