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Steamboat Springs — Had people managed to get lost last weekend along the stretch of U.S. Highway 40 that crosses Rabbit Ears Pass, or buried under the 2 or 3 inches of snow that partially covered the rocky terrain, there likely would have been good news.

The army of search and rescue volunteers that canvassed the area would surely have found them. They’d have found their gloves and goggles, skis and boots and followed those clues to what hopefully wasn’t just a body.

Under the thin layer of snow, the odds would have been in the rescuees’ favor.

The day’s searchers can only hope any real calls go as well, however, and they can only hope the morning’s training session helps them if they are called to duty.

 Practice to be perfect

It’s not prime season yet. That will come in three, maybe four weeks as the snow piles up and Steamboat Springs’ population swells with the influx of skiers and snowboarders.

For local rescuers, though, it’s the perfect time to prepare, to plot, to plan and to rethink. That was the idea behind last weekend’s training session.

“When there’s so little snow, it’s pretty unrealistic,” said Jim Linville, a 14-year search and rescue veteran from Routt County. “So, what we tried to concentrate on is how to work as a team. It’s real important everyone know what they’re doing and how to get lined out.”

The “avalanche” area, where three skiers were thought “buried,” was a somewhat snowy, somewhat muddy slope off the edge of a parking area along U.S. 40 on Rabbit Ears Pass.

Rescuers from Grand and Routt counties assaulted the slope, first working their way to the bottom and then setting up a search pattern and sending different groups to different tasks.

A picture began to emerge. A pair of ski tracks leading away from the debris and into a nearby thicket of woods indicated that one lucky soul had skied away.

Paraphernalia from the other two began to point to their likely location. A pair of goggles was found here, a glove there and a ski pole somewhere else.

Each was marked with a flag. On the slope, it didn’t look like much of anything, but 100 yards back from the base of the hill, the clues added up and leaders began to point it out. Soon, rescuers had pinpointed both lost skiers, and had there been more than a dusting of snow, they could have begun digging.

“It went really well,” Routt County Search and Rescue’s Darrel Levingston said. “We weren’t pushing our limits on this one, but it went well.”

The work was important for the Routt and Grand county units, which will face recertification tests in the spring.

They are members of the Mountain Rescue Association, which certifies fewer than 100 such groups in the country. To maintain that connection, they will need to be ready.

 More than a quiz

Of course, search and rescue volunteers don’t sign up for the job to satisfy a desire to take a test.

It’s about helping people and saving lives, and that was the real goal of last weekend’s exercise.

Simply working alongside new faces can help, Linville said.

“Just working with another team can be helpful,” he said. “You’re looking for confirmation about what you’re doing, as well as new ideas.”

One idea that emerged last weekend was the flags that leaders could observe from the base as clues to the location of the skiers. Steamboat-based searchers have long used such a system, but the Grand County searchers used separate colored flags to designate different things.

“We’ll probably adopt that,” Linville said. “It works.”

Finding what works in terms of avalanche rescues has becomes increasingly important for local volunteers. After years without a single avalanche fatality, Routt County sustained three in the past seven years.

It wasn’t previously thought a major problem in the area because of the lack of extreme terrain, especially compared with some of the backcountry slopes found in Summit County and around Vail and Aspen.

Linville said any slope with a 30- or 45-degree angle could be dangerous. As backcountry skiers and snowmobilers have become more and more daring, they’ve stumbled across increasingly risky territory. Those tasked with rescuing them in an emergency have started to prepare accordingly.

“The primary thing we can do is getting six or eight team members lined up as a hasty team,” Linville said. “You need to have people that are highly skilled in finding beacons, with spot probing and who understand avalanche terrain, where it’s safe to enter and where it’s not.

“We have people who are very qualified to do that, but we haven’t worked much together as a hasty team. This time of year is great for that.”