CSAR is an association of member organizations focused on backcountry search and rescue (BSAR) in Colorado.  Our members include nonprofit volunteer BSAR teams, sheriff’s offices, BSAR teams that work as part of a sheriff’s office, and partners such as air ambulances and the national parks within Colorado.   Our mission is to provide resource coordination, advocacy, education and collaboration to the BSAR community, all in service of improving responder and rescue subject safety.   Resource coordination CSAR maintains an on-call group of subject matter experts year-round to ..read more

By Brian Chambliss, Plugged In Productions In 2019, my father went missing. He was climbing one of Colorado’s fourteen thousand foot peaks and he had gone silent. The Alpine Rescue Team (ART), an organization I had never heard of before, put on a search and rescue effort to find him. They had a group of 20 people and two helicopters searching for him for three days straight. My father was an experienced climber. He started in 1998 and over the next 21 years, he would go on to summit peaks all over the world: Aconcagua, Denali and Cho Oyu just to name a few. At the end of day three, the Alpine ..read more

by Kyle Griffin, Summit County Rescue Group. Photos by Carson Covell. “This is my first hut trip!” was a common remark among 20 strangers, soon to become friends, as they pushed open the heavy pine door of Janet’s Cabin and shuffled to the dark corners of the coat room. Janet’s, as it is commonly known, sits in the Guller Creek drainage southwest of Copper Mountain near the border of Summit and Eagle counties. My wife, Kristen, and I had been invited as the lucky guests of a fellow member of the Summit County Rescue Group (SCRG), who had booked this rustic paradise over the New Year’s holiday ..read more

By Hannah Gallagher, Lake County Search and Rescue In my professional life, I serve as a director of quality, risk and compliance for a federally funded community health center. I have also been a member of two very different SAR teams in Colorado over the last decade: one pulling resources and membership from the entire Metro-Denver area, and the other based in the small mountain community of Lake County. Both teams are full of passionate volunteers doing the best they can with the tools they have. All of these experiences have positioned me to observe the ways that groups can organize themse ..read more

Cover photo by Jack Hickisch of Arapahoe Rescue Patrol Have you ever noticed that backcountry search and rescue (BSAR) teams usually emphasize their teamwork rather than promoting the actions of individual rescuers?  For the most part, you won’t see hero stories in the news or on social media.   In the language of organizational development theory, the true definition of “team” is a group of people who have task interdependence.  In other words, it isn’t possible for one person on the team to be successful and others to fail; they sink or swim together.  That may be pa ..read more

This list was originally created by the Colorado Avalanche Information Center (CAIC) in the 2022/2023 winter season and has not been verified since then. Especially with locations labeled as seasonal installs, the practice park may not exist anymore or may not have been installed yet during the early season, so please check before you travel. Steamboat Resort Rocky Mountain National Park Winter Park Resort Arapahoe Basin Ski Area – seasonal install Keystone Ski Area Loveland Ski Area Frisco Adventure Park (by Summit County Rescue Group) – seasonal install Two Elk Lodge, Vail Resort Meadow Mou ..read more

It’s time for our annual blog contest!   This year, we would like to suggest that our membership think of the blog contest as a fundraising tool for your team.  Articles submitted to the contest will be published on the CSAR blog and your team can link to them from any platform you choose; your website, your social channels, your local media outlets, etc.  CSAR may also request your permission to submit winning articles to various external publications, giving you more public exposure for fundraising purposes. For example, we are currently soliciting articles for a column called ..read more

CSAR’s annual photo contest was judged by Matthew Eric Lit, a Colorado-based professional photographer; Howard Paul, also a Colorado-based professional photographer and a member of Alpine Rescue Team; and Anna DeBattiste, CSAR’s Public Information and Education Committee chair. You can see Matt Lit’s work here and Howard Paul’s work here. As usual, we had some great entries and it was tough to pick the winners! Here are the first, second and third place winners in each category, plus honorable mentions. Best Mission/Training Photo Category Honorable mention – By Harry Sandler, Routt County Sea ..read more

In October of 2020, a wildfire trapped hikers on the popular Ice Lakes Trail in the San Juan mountains.  Often found in guidebook lists of the best trails in Colorado, this trail is heavily trafficked in the summer and fall.  It starts at an elevation of 9,840 feet and climbs about two thousand feet to two turquoise alpine lakes: Ice Lake and Island Lake.  The trailhead is located at the similarly popular South Mineral campground. In the late morning of October 19th, San Juan County Undersheriff Steve Lorance received a call about a brush fire reported by hikers on the Ice Lakes ..read more

By Bruce Beckmann, Colorado Search and Rescue Association state coordinator and Alpine Rescue Team member EXECUTIVE SUMMARY If someone becomes lost or injured in the Colorado backcountry and is using family radio services or general mobile radio service radios (both types referred to herein as “FRS” radios), Colorado Search and Rescue Association (CSAR) designates FRS radio Channel 3.0 [462.61250 MHz] as the default during backcountry search and rescue (backcountry SAR) emergencies. If other methods of communication are not being used, backcountry SAR responders, if equipped, may default to Ch ..read more