The weather
was real. The hikers were really lost.
While it wasn’t a reality show there is a star in this story, a cat from
DLA.
The cat had tracks.
When those lost hikers called 911
their call went to the King County Sheriff’s Office in Washington State DLA Disposition Services had
recentlyprovided a Snowcat, a light tracked vehicle designed for use in snow.
It had just been put into service
after being turned in by a Navy facility.
“We have lots of outdoor wilderness
recreation areas and perform up to 200 search and rescue missions each year,”
said Sgt. Cindi West of the King County Sheriff's Office.
Deputy Ed Christian, the lead Search and Rescue
Deputy with the sheriff’s office, called their Snowcat “an invaluable tool for
our search and rescue members and the public we serve.”
He said the two lost hikers had
made it five to six miles up a trail before they became lost and called for
help. The snow was four feet deep in some places.
West said that without the Snowcat the rescue
team would have had to use snow shoes to hike in to search for the hikers,
“Using the Cat we were able to get to the lost
men quickly. It would have taken hours
more to hike through the deep snow to find them and bring them to safety,”
Christian said.
West said that the hikers had been
ill-equipped for the snowy conditions of the trail and were cold and wet, but
otherwise okay.
Without out the ‘cat, the story
might have had a different ending.