In the past two weeks, Gallatin County Sheriff Search and Rescue (GCSSAR) has received six calls from south of Big Sky and four outside of West Yellowstone. MTN News spoke with one of the volunteers involved in some of these rescues about why he continues to answer the call.
“Most of the calls we've had in the last month are all snowmobile rescues, either broken bones or lost, and needed help finding their way out,” says GCSSAR Big Sky Section Manager, Mark Bradford.
Bradford says he joined GCSSAR because he wanted to do what he thought someone else could do for him.
“I joined Search and Rescue a long time ago. And one of the reasons that I wanted to do it was I always felt like if I was injured in the backcountry that, you know, I'd want me to come rescue me,” says Bradford.
He says weeks like this are no walk in the park.
“I always tell people that if they want to join Search and Rescue, that, you know, it's never when you're sitting around on a Sunday afternoon waiting for a call to come. It's usually when you have a kid's basketball game to go to or it's Christmas Eve and you're trying to go to church, that you have to kind of jump in and, you know, go to action,” says Bradford.
Last year, GCSSAR's annual report says there were 140 missions, 36 searches, and 89 rescues. Captain of GCSSAR, Scott Secor, says that although call volume is high, it's about the same as last year so far.
“This year is actually right in line with last year, but to be fair, last year was a record year for us,” says Secor.
Secor believes the influx of population around Gallatin County is why these rescue numbers continue to grow.
"I think with the amount of people moving to Gallatin County, you have to assume that the influx of population mixed with the access to the outdoors that we have here, those two things combined together just creates kind of the perfect storm for a high call volume Search and Rescue,” says Secor.
Secor says it's important to keep communication devices handy as well as travel with a partner in the backcountry and recognize all the hard work the volunteers do to keep you safe.
“It's nice when people recognize the good work that our volunteers are doing and really realize that they're going out at all times of the day at all hours to rescue complete strangers,” says Secor.
