Alaska is a state that’s famous for showing a decidedly hostile face to those who underestimate the ruggedness of its climate and wilderness. This is what seven stranded hikers discovered the inconvenient way this past Thursday. Fortunately for them, the U.S. Coast Guard wasn’t too far off for an eventual helicopter extraction.
According to Alaska State Troopers, a Coast Guard helicopter had to be flown in on Thursday to rescue the seven people after they had been iced in at a cabin located a distance of just 20 miles (32 km) from the community of Emmonak, along the Yukon River in the western part of the state.
According to the troopers, the group wasn’t in any immediate danger since they were “adequately supplied with food, water, shelter, and necessary supplies” before their Thursday evening rescue. They simply had no way of getting out of their refuge on their own.
In many contexts, a distance of 20 miles may not seem like much for fit adults to travel, but in Alaskan winter conditions, such an undertaking can quickly become a lethal effort under the wrong circumstances.
In this case, the hikers had already been scheduled by a U.S. Army helicopter rescue on Friday morning. However, a Coast Guard Helicopter managed to make an unexpected space in its maintenance schedule for a preemptive extraction on Thursday night.
According to Petty Officer 1st Class Ali Blackburn, a Coast Guard spokesperson, The Guard chopper had originally been held up by mechanical troubles in Nome, Alaska, several dozen miles across Norton Sound to the north of Emmonak. It was however able to overcome these problems earlier than anticipated and after also getting a clear weather window, took off for its rescue mission.
Since this is more the Coast Guard’s purview than the U.S. Army’s, the helicopter was sent off to provide the quickest possible option for the campers.
As state troopers’ spokesperson Austin McDaniel explained, “Safely extracting the group as quickly as possible was a top priority for all of the agencies involved in this operation.”
Blackburn later explained that the individuals were rescued without major difficulties and that none of them were injured. All seven were then taken to Nome for a medical review.
The campers in question consisted of a party of hunters from the community of Pilot Station who were on their way down the Yukon River when the ice began to form across the water. These otherwise experienced individuals come from a community that traditionally has its hunters travel down the river from the state’s interior to the coast for annual fall seal hunts.
Four of the members of the rescued hunting party are themselves volunteer search and rescue operatives with the Pilot Station search and rescue team. Possibly because of this, they were able to act decisively in not continuing down the increasingly icy river. Instead, using an emergency communications device that they had, they contacted Emmonak Search and Rescue with their location and were then told how to find the fish camp cabin.
It was here where they stayed the night of October 28th only to see that the river had iced over by the next day. The ice was on the one hand too thick for further canoeing but too thin for using a snowmobile. With no overland routes to the site of their cabin, helicopter rescue quickly became the only safe option.
Troopers first heard of the stuck hikers on Friday the 29th at 5:15 p.m. On Sunday the 31st, they were able to airdrop a supply of food and medication for the party. This was followed by a Coast Guard drop of additional supplies that include a radio. Why the hikers weren’t simply picked up earlier during the supply airdrops remains unclear, though the Coast Guard and state troopers mention weather difficulties.
Pual Fancyboy, head of the Pilot Station rescue team that the hunters belong to however criticized the Coast Guard’s efforts and called the waiting time before rescue “unacceptable.”
Emergency helicopter services for people trapped in places where no other vehicle or on-foot rescue could reach are a common occurrence throughout the United States. Though they’re often handled by assorted police and government emergency service agencies, these types of flights are also frequently delivered by private helicopter and flight charter services such as Fair Lifts.
Photo Credit: Taylor Bacon/U.S. Coast Guard