THE RESCUER

Name: Jon Wehse

Lives in: Stowe

Age: 56

Primary Sports: Skiing (alpine, tele and backcountry touring), mountain biking, trail running, kayaking, and ice climbing.

Occupation: IT service provider, Stowe Mountain Rescue volunteer

Jon Wehse has spent the last 30 years in the IT industry, but he comes alive in the mountains. He has lived and played in Stowe since 2007. In 2016 he joined Stowe Mountain Rescue. He’s been the Team Chief for the last two years and credits former chiefs Neil Van Dyke and Doug Veliko for mentoring him.

What made you decide to join Stowe Mountain Rescue?

I’ve been on the team since 2016. Each of us comes to SMR with some sense of giving back to the community. We all love to recreate in the backcountry, and we all recognize that accidents happen there. It takes a special person with special skills to commit to a Search and Rescue squad (SAR). It can almost be described as a calling and requires a huge heart and a sense of selflessness. When you join SMR, it’s a full commitment.

That said, you don’t just join; you have to be selected. We have a rigorous process which starts with a lengthy application and culminates in a boardstyle interview. If you pass, you start a three-month observation period followed by a six-month probationary period.

It’s a little like trying out for a sports team except in this case, social skills are just as important – maybe more so – than technical or medical skills.

The nine-month process is intended to ensure that candidates have the right attitude, desire, and wherewithal to join an elite mountain rescue team.

For me, it was a multi-year process, as I needed to convince myself I was capable of being on the team. In contrast to most of the team at that time, I was not a rock or ice climber, and that part was really uncomfortable for me. I had a huge learning curve, but I was strong and willing to support the team any way I could, even if my sole role was to be a pack mule.

What do you have to do to become a member?

We tend to accept candidates who love the outdoors, but specifically the backcountry, are extremely physically fit, have a local’s awareness of terrain primarily in the Stowe area, are good natured and team-oriented, and have a willingness and desire to learn. We don’t require medical certificates although we do require people to become medically qualified.

We also don’t require rope work or rock or ice climbing skills. We can train almost anyone for any situation, but the key is you have to really want to be part of the group. We have 15 active members, and the team is super tightknit and hyper-focused on helping those in need in the backcountry, any time of the day or night, and in any weather.

Many SAR teams have a similar mission, but we are the only fully certified Mountain Rescue Association team in New England which is a pretty big deal. We choose to keep our team small, and mandate high participation based on the technical nature of our calls. It takes a long time to become a full member, so we ask everyone to commit to five or ten years.

Neil Van Dyke was an outlier because he was on the team for 42 years, but we have a number of people who have been with us for over ten years. However, we’ve also had some turnover so now half the team has been with us for eight years or less. They may have less experience, but they have good skills.

How many and what kind of accidents do you respond to in a typical year?

On average, we get maybe two backcountry ski or snowboard accidents with leg or hip issues, two to three lost skiers or snowboarders who need assistance, 20 to 30 litter extractions with leg issues, four or five water events involving flood support or swimming hole accidents, and five to ten hikers who need assistance because they are either lost or poorly equipped.

Our primary jurisdiction is Stowe, but we’ll go wherever we’re asked and that can include the Cambridge side of the Notch and the western side of Mt. Mansfield. Three to five times a year we get called to Waterbury or Camel’s Hump and occasionally there will be a random call further afield like Montgomery. Every once in a while, the Vermont State Police will call us for a big search, so last fall we sent people to the Breadloaf Wilderness and several years ago we were helicoptered into the Adirondacks to find a missing kid.

What are the essentials that you carry for winter rescues?

Let’s start with what we wear. GoreTex jackets and pants, mountaineering boots, gaiters, spare hats, several pairs of gloves, and spare undergarments and middle layers for ourselves. We also bring warm and dry clothing for the person we are helping, including boots if we know that they’ve been out in the cold for a long time. We bring warming devices ranging from hand-warmers to body blankets, some kind of fire-starter, a litter, headlamps, food, and water. Depending on the situation we may also bring crampons, micro-spikes, or snowshoes, as well as ropes, harnesses, and helmets for high alpine cliff work.

What about summer rescues?

You need some of the same gear minus the snow and ice equipment. Remember, it can still get quite chilly in Vermont, particularly at high altitude so you still need warm and dry clothing. However, you also need to carry lots of water and electrolyte packets. In both seasons we carry small emergency shelters as a last resort if we have to stay on the mountain overnight.

What are the challenges for rescues in both seasons?

Probably the most challenging issue is dealing with a dynamic event, regardless of the season. What starts out as a pretty benign incident can quickly go sideways due to subject’s health or condition, the weather, or the distance from an ambulance. Wet hikers in the winter can become hypothermic very quickly if they stop moving so a simple walk out can become an extended stay with a fire to warm the subject. A person experiencing mild chest discomfort can become a cardiac event in the blink of an eye. We don’t have the tools to treat cardiac issues in the field, so we work very diligently at rapid extractions.

Do different team members have different assignments or is everyone capable of performing all the duties?

We come from diverse backgrounds and interests and have different but overlapping hobbies and skill sets. Some of our members are big rock and ice climbers, some are more backcountry hikers and skiers, and some are really comfortable in moving water. The common element is that each of us can survive in the backcountry without needing too much assistance and we apply our physical abilities and skill sets to the rescue skills.

We recently revamped our training curriculum, but the basic elements haven’t changed. Members typically fill a support role which requires supervision for the first two to four years. They need to have basic rope skills, and the ability to handle the litter in a team environment and drive a truck. More advanced skills are required to be considered a full rescue team member. These skills typically fall into the category of managing complex rope system tasks without supervision or handling a litter on a cliff. There is an advanced skills element for our more senior members, where designing systems to fit the situation are paramount. Lastly, we have a leadership element where we train for mission lead roles. Each mission is different, so when we plan roles for that mission, the mission leader takes into account each responding member’s skills and capabilities and builds the response plan as necessary.

Running a team is more than just showing up for the mission. We have a vehicle officer responsible for keeping all vehicles (two trucks, two trailers and three ATVs) operational, an equipment officer who’s responsible for ensuring our ropes and technical gear match our mission and are mission-worthy, a terrific public affairs/communication officer who does a fantastic job relating our activities to our social media followers, a guy who does data analysis, and a training team that ensures we have the right skills to meet the mission and prepares monthly trainings that push us out of our comfort zone and have us continuing to explore the local area. As I said before, it’s a team sport.

What are some of the most rewarding rescues your crew have performed?

In December 2022, two 20-year-old college students left the Barnes Camp parking lot for an aggressive six-mile round-trip hike with 1,400 feet of elevation gain to Sterling Pond up in the Notch. They were long-distance runners and extremely fit, but they decided to walk on the pond, and one fell through the ice up to her knees. With drenched boots, they decided to head directly to the top of Spruce Peak, but the lifts weren’t running, and no one was there.

Their iPhone sent them down via the Long Trail which had deep, unpacked snow. An hour after they’d gotten wet, panic began to set in. They called a friend who called Stowe Ski Patrol but that didn’t help because they didn’t know where they were. They saw the Mountain Road below them and tried to go straight down to it and got stranded on a cliff over a gully. By the time we got involved they had been walking for nearly two hours, and one was in bad shape.

One of our teams went in from below and another went from the top off Spruce. The women were found hanging onto trees on the edge of a 40-foot cliff. The one with wet feet had taken her socks and shoes off and was in a semi-lucid state. The team immediately repositioned them to a safe space under a cliff face, built a fire and stripped them of their wet clothing. Neither one was appropriately dressed. Three hours later, a new set of boots arrived, and the team was able to extricate both women on foot back up the ravine with some limited rope systems.

The women bounced back quickly because they were physically fit but their errors included poor route planning, inadequate clothing, and not calling for help earlier. We had been considering a Plan B where we would have placed each woman in a litter, hauled them over the cliff via complex rope systems and then slid them out of the gulley for about 900 vertical feet but luckily, we didn’t have to execute that plan.

What about winter rescues?

I also have vivid memories of my first year on the team when there was a man in his 70’s skiing the Bolton/Trapp trail on a very cold day with drifting snow. He called his wife to say he was going slowly because he was breaking trail but that he’d be home by 5:00. At 7:00 pm he still wasn’t home, so she called the Vermont State Police, and they dispatched us.

We went in on snowmobiles from Nebraska Valley and snowshoed from there. The snow was so deep that I dumped our sled at least four times on the way. It was the middle of the night and with the trees full of snow, sound doesn’t carry well. We found him about 100 yards off the trail. Exhausted, he was lying in the snow and told us he had said his prayers and shut his eyes, fully expecting not to wake up. We were very lucky to wake him and have him respond to us after 15 minutes of yelling. Having such a potentially life altering event on my first year was a gift.

Have there been any rescues that didn’t end well, and would you be willing to discuss them?

Unfortunately, we deal with one or two fatalities each year. They fall into three categories: One is typically an extremely unhealthy person who experiences a cardiac event on a hike, another is often a young, energetic person who made a split-second decision that didn’t turn out so well, and finally, there are those who did something relatively routine, but the conditions changed resulting in a very detrimental situation which they couldn’t survive.

We had to deal with a swimmer who drowned at Bolton Potholes because the water was aerated and running fast and he couldn’t surface, a snowboarder who suffocated in a snow well at Stowe, a Stowe skier who took a wrong turn and fell off a cliff and someone who slipped after turning back from jumping off a rock at Bingham Falls.

What should hikers carry with them at all times?

Knowledge of their intended route and the surrounding area, a map which can include a smartphone app as long as there is also an external battery charger, a headlamp, warm clothing, rain gear, more water than you think you need, and a small insulation pad.

What about skiers? What should they carry if they are going to go off trail?

Pretty much the same except that knowledge of terrain is probably more important. A hiker can usually just turn around, but a skier or snowboarder can’t always climb back up the terrain. The small insulation pad is more critical in the winter. It’s going to be a while before we get there, so keeping the patient away from snow is important.

What are some of the common mistakes that skiers and hikers make that get them into trouble? Inadequate planning such as starting too late, adventuring, too big, and not heeding the weather by packing the wrong gear. Poor decision making causes a lot of trouble and includes things like not understanding the inherent risks. This is particularly true for skiers and snowboarders in challenging terrain. Other bad decisions are not recognizing when it’s time to go home, and following ski or snowboard tracks into the woods without knowing where they are going. This year, SMR had to rescue two snowboarders on a steep pitch at Spruce and had to talk a guy back into skiable terrain after he ventured into the backcountry.

Poor clothing choices are also a problem. Cotton kills in the winter and some synthetics aren’t great because they can freeze and stick to your body. Keeping your feet dry and wearing proper footwear is critical. We typically buy shoes with Gore-Tex. Another common mistake is not calling for help soon enough. We might be able to help someone over the phone but if they wait too long, they can get into more trouble and need physical assistance.

Should we charge people for rescues?

The legal answer is that Vermont has a statute that allows people to be charged if their actions willfully put their rescuers in a high-risk position. The truth is that 99% of the people we help just got in over their heads and need assistance. If we were to charge people, there is a fear that they wouldn’t call for help and they might die. Three weeks ago, we pulled three kids out of the woods on Spruce, and they admitted they had hesitated before calling us because they didn’t know how much it would cost them.

Seventeen members of the Killington Search and Rescue team recently submitted a letter to the town saying they had no confidence in the town fire chief. Any comment?

I don’t have first-hand knowledge of the recent leadership and personnel issues facing KSAR, but I have worked with that team and know they have passion. They are truly mission-oriented, care greatly for the subjects they help in the backcountry, and they are good at what they do. I’ve never heard of any personnel issues affecting their team prior to this.

It takes a tremendous amount of energy and time to develop a backcountry SAR team—each member must be willing, able, and motivated to perform the mission—and it takes years to develop to a mission-ready state. To have that capability eliminated over personnel issues within a span of a few months is a shame. The loss of a team in such dramatic fashion over the issues presented is rare and hurts the Vermont SAR community greatly.

What makes doing this work so gratifying?

First and foremost, the team environment. This is not an individual sport; we don’t succeed unless we perform as a team. We train constantly, at least once a month, so we practice technical skills and teamwork regularly. The members of the team are truly some of my closest friends. It has to be this way because we will literally put our life in each other’s hands when we execute some of our maneuvers.

Gratitude from the people we help is also part of it. Not everyone is in a lifeor-death situation, but most people are extremely grateful that we helped them out of a bad situation, and many don’t even know we exist, particularly since most are from out of town or even out of state. —Phyl

Newbeck