Distinctly Montana Magazine

w w w . d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m 43 wiggles, including fish being retrieved by an Orvis rod. Little freshwater sharks is what they are. The search-and-rescue vets loitered at the scene for two days, then drove home. The New York relatives of two of the victims were indignant that officials had so blithely thrown in a wet towel. The sheriff tried to explain that this wasn't a burbling stream meandering through Central Park, that it was "as re- mote as Siberia." The relatives nonetheless demanded that grappling hooks be thrown. The sheriff patiently informed them that hooks might never even hit the bottom, given the hellish current, and might instead pull the thrower to his grave. One month later, a lone victim was found. He was 43 miles downstream. • • • I came to realize that Darbrarians accept outdoors may- hem with equanimity, and it induced me to drive 25 miles to Hamilton, our county seat, to talk to the Ravalli County Search & Rescue team. Turns out that a gentleman had recently driven his vehicle off the curlicued Skalkaho Pass to descend—far from inten- tionally—600 feet to a rocky conclusion. "When we arrived, the guy's car was pancaked," said Burleigh Curtis, president of Ravalli County Search & Res- cue. "A lot of ropes, carabiners, clips, and rappelling was in- volved. When we winched down, the guy was like, 'Hey, glad to see you, dude. What took so long?' He wanted breakfast. I began laughing. It was a lesson about assuming a guy is dead. Then he isn't." Burleigh is 69. He is compact, sturdy, wears wire-rim glass- es, and chews on toothpicks. His military-cut brown-and- gray hair makes him look like your last phys-ed teacher. He's been rescuing inattentive valley adventurers for 22 years in the kind of wilderness that might forgive a mistake but usu- ally portends a memorial. "Our most dangerous rescues are in fast-moving water," he told me. "We look for an eddy to form upstream of the stranded car or boat. You can't do anything from below, be- cause the vehicle is too likely to drift down on you. But an eddy in front, we can dive on that." Every year, Burleigh rescues five or six motorists who've driv- en into our otherwise picturesque Bitterroot River. He never in- quires as to their method of entry, which mystifies me. It's like not asking what Sean Penn ate during lunch with El Chapo. Ravalli County Search & Rescue comprises 25 burly Burleighs, specialists in mountaineering, orienteering, swift-water recov- ery, scuba diving, helicopter basket lifts, scent-dog training, off- road driving, CPR, and interrogation. The latter comes into play because the initial 911 call is often vague. "Ninety-nine percent of our calls are from friends or rel- atives, not the subject," Burleigh explained, steadfastly avoiding the term victim. "For instance, a wife will say, 'My husband left and never came back.' I have to question her, attaching a numerical THE SEARCH AND RESCUE TEAM COMPRISES 25 SPECIALISTS IN MOUNTAINEERING, ORIENTEERING, SWIFT-WATER RECOVERY, SCUBA DIVING, HELICOPTER BASKET LIFTS, SCENT-DOG TRAINING, OFF-ROAD DRIVING, CPR, AND INTERROGATION. THE MISSING MEN WOULD HAVE TO DECOMPOSE UNTIL THEIR CHEST CAVITIES FILLED WITH GAS, THEN THEY'D FLOAT AND MAYBE SUMMERTIME RAFTERS WOULD FIND GRISLY CARCASSES THAT SPOILED THEIR VACATIONS BUT SUPPLIED A VIVID TALE FOR A LIFETIME.

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