Originally Posted by
ratagonia
SAR is an excercise in educated guesses given a set of information that is incomplete and often has incorrect information.
SAR is somewhat thwarted when people hide from potential rescue. The couple climbed up on a ledge out of sight of the canyon floor, was probably sleeping most of the time, and there was a lot of noise in the canyon from the water, therefore they missed people that went by. SAR would assume that they would put themselves in a place where anyone going through the canyon would notice them. The report was people had been through the canyon, and not seen the people. Therefore, the next place to look is in other places where they might be, such as Russell Gulch, Das Boot and past the exit - all places people have wandered into in the past.
So, while I agree it was a bad decision not to send Bo through the Subway with a loud whistle every fifty feet, that was not the IC's choice. That the Subway was in flood and hazardous to SAR personnel to travel probably played into the decision.
Tom
