how Killington Search and REscue defected

In March, the town of Killington lost 17 of the 18 members of Killington Search and Rescue (KSAR). Members of the volunteer team, many of whom had been working together for nearly a decade or more, either resigned or let go.

As of press time in late April, the town was still trying to fill their roles.

The mass exodus came after the new fire chief, Chris LaHart, asked the KSAR team to stand down on a day when a call for help came in from a lost Pico skier. Chief LaHart stated the team did not have the certifications or training records needed to satisfy fire department insurance mandates. He also noted that KSAR’s ropes and other equipment (lighter gear, designed for nimble backcountry rescue) did not meet the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) standards, a standard one SAR expert quipped stands for "Not For Practical Application."

The town had only recently tapped LaHart to occupy a new paid position overseeing what had been all-volunteer fire fighting, EMS First Respone and SAR teams. The new fire chief moved from North Carolina with 32 years of fire fighting and military experience.

In a letter to The Mountain Times, the former

KSAR volunteers wrote “the team has expert institutional knowledge of the local area and is trained and experienced in a variety of wilderness situations, all weather, and available on a 24/7 basis, 365 days per year.” travel to another part of the state to help out in specific emergencies. “We’ve had our Stowe swiftwater team go to Southern Vermont to help out in some flood cases,” says Clymer.

While Vermont is a relatively small state, the need for these teams has become more and more crucial, especially as the number of people accessing the backcountry on skis, bikes or on foot, has risen. “The last couple of years, our call volume at Stowe Mountain Rescue has gone through the roof,” says Clymer.

“When I first joined the Stowe Mountain Rescue team, we clicked along at maybe 25 calls per year. Covid came along and we bumped up to nearly a 50% increase in calls – 42 calls in 2020. Then in 2021 we saw calls in the mid 60s, then in 2022 we were getting calls in the high 60s. Last July, there was a period when we were called out 13 of 15 days and it was not uncommon for us to have two rescues a day,” he says.

As Clymer notes, the number of calls to his state office have increased as well. However, as he notes, “My role at the state is “search” and much of what I am doing is helping locate people who are

The volunteers also noted that Chief LaHart had summarily dismissed two female leaders of the group and that he had “created a toxic intimidating environment for female members.” The volunteers suggested that KSAR be removed lost or missing. The rescue teams are the ones who are responding to say folks who know where they are but may have broken a leg or in a situation where they can’t get out. The job I do depends entirely on the many good people Vermont has out there on the ground."

THE RISE OF SEARCH & RESCUE

In 1980, Neil Van Dyke, at the time a local innkeeper and outdoorsman in Stowe, formed Stowe Mountain Rescue to help with the increasing number of accidents and rescues among skiers, ice climbers and hikers in the rugged terrain in Smuggler’s Notch.

Thanks to its rigorous training and highly experienced volunteers, the organization has since earned a reputation for being one of the best in the country. It often gets called to assist with other rescue operations, even those out of state, such as a search in the Adirondacks. It operates alongside Stowe’s other public safety offices and is funded by the town and through donations.

Other search and rescue teams operate under different structures around the state, many providing the administrative and insurance that volunteer groups need to operate.

The non-profit Rescue Inc. was formed in 1966 in Brattleboro by EMT volunteers and now serves as an umbrella organization for many rescue teams, including technical wilderness rescue, around southern Vermont.

The Upper Valley Wilderness Rescue, works with authorities in both Vermont and New Hampshire when someone is missing in the wilderness. The from Chief LaHart’s oversight and operate independently. The former members of the KSAR team also asked that the equipment that Chief LaHart had deemed inadequate, be returned.

On March 20, the situation was discussed at a meeting of the Killington Selectboard, which sided with Chief LaHart. Chief LaHart offered to reinstate members who could provide documents showing they had the certifications he felt they needed.

In a letter that was read aloud at that meeting, Neil Van Dyke (who founded Stowe Mountain Rescue in 1980 and who served as the Vermont Search and Rescue Coordinator for 10 years) wrote: “It appears they are evaluating KSAR using NFPA standards, which not a single wilderness backcountry SAR team in the country uses as a standard. If memory serves well, there’s even language somewhere in the NFPA standards that say ‘these do not apply to wilderness rescue.”

Van Dyke’s successor, Drew Clymer, who attended the meeting in person, noted: “There’s high technical rescue and there’s backcountry search and rescue,” Clymer said. “Those are completely different skill sets and I think they’re becoming conflated. The gap that’s currently existing in your re- organization began in 1995 as a student community outreach program set up by students at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. It wasn’t until 2019 that the program reorganized as a 501c3 non-profit in New Hampshire.

For nearly 10 years, Killington Search and Rescue operated largely independently, in conjunction with the local volunteer fire department. However, the town reorganized the fire department and search and rescue services and in January 2023 placed the municipal entity under the supervision of a newlyhired paid fire chief, Chris LaHart. After a dispute with the new chief, 17 of the 18 volunteer members of the search and rescue team left.

“The challenge in building mountain SAR teams is there is a rigorous training process,” says Clymer. “While they may not need all the skills, certifications and equipment that a municipal fire or police team need, they do need to know how to negotiate the backcountry and get people out of there safely.”

Finding volunteers who have those skills and are prepared to do extensive training such as the three-times a month gion is backcountry rescue.”

He also noted that there were at least six skiers who had been lost in the Killington backcountry since KSAR team was deactivated. “There’s a glaring hole in backcountry rescue right now,” said Clymer.

At the meeting, Chief LaHart called for “100 volunteers to give 4 to 5 hours of their time." He offered to train them.

In a letter to The Mountain Times, the Killington Selectboard and town manager Chet Hagenbarth wrote: “Killington Search and Rescue has suspended operation temporarily due to the lack of certification and training.”

The letter also stated “Killington Search and Rescue is currently accepting member applications and has a goal of being active around June 2023. Training for new members has been scheduled and the Town welcomes all applicants, including former members.” trainings that Stowe Mountain Rescue does, is increasingly difficult.

In the meantime, the former KSAR members were still meeting and training on their own. In late April they announced their team would join the Brattleborobased Rescue Inc. but continue to serve the Central Vermont community, including Killington. As of press time, the town had yet to respond.

“Historically, mountain towns are where there have been strong search and rescue teams,” says Joel Blumenthal of Rutland. Blumenthal was a long-time member of the disbanded KSAR team.

“Killington’s team was like a family and we all trained together because we loved the work,” he said. “But there are more and more people going out in the backcountry at Brandon Gap and on the mountain bike trails at Poultney or in Rochester. Those towns don’t have the critical mass or insurance to set up search and rescue teams of their own.”

Is the answer a paid team of search and rescue personnel? For Clymer, the answer is a clear “no.” “The people I know who do this, do it out of a sense of duty and love for what they do. You could never pay them enough to do this – it’s an on-demand job,” he says.

“My wife and friends know that if I get a call in the middle of dinner say at a a friend’s house, that I leave. My phone is never ‘off.’ You get the call and you go. It’s just like that,” says Clymer.