Juneau Mountain Rescue team uses its expertise in steep terrain to save lives
- Jasz Garrett
- 1 day ago
- 10 min read
Over the last 43 years, responders have grown in numbers and efficiency
By Jasz Garrett
Juneau Independent
Juneau Mountain Rescue team members took a breath after summer’s end, the organization’s busiest time for search-and-rescue responses. With an approaching chilly fall weekend, volunteers still held their phones close, ready to deploy at a moment’s notice.
There was an average number of incidents this summer, but more fatalities than usual, according to operations chief Jackie Ebert. Five people died in Juneau’s backcountry, including the areas of Mount Roberts, Salmon Creek Dam, and near and on top of the Mendenhall Glacier.
Ebert joined five other volunteers from a 41-person team at Juneau Mountain Rescue’s cache in Lemon Creek on a Friday in late October for an interview. Shelves behind her were stacked high with gear such as ropes, blankets and food.
A litter, used to pull people from Alaska’s backcountry, lay on the floor. It takes about six people to carry someone on a litter, as well as six to rest, and six to scout the route. A large tire can help support the weight. The technical gear used on missions can support the volunteers and their subjects for up to 24 hours.
Founded in 1982, the nonprofit organization JMR is supported by community donations, gaming revenue and some small grants. The team operates on behalf of the Alaska State Troopers and has a memorandum of understanding with Capital City Fire/Rescue, which allows the fire department’s technical response team to direct JMR volunteers. Volunteers are typically directed to respond under the authority of the troopers.
JMR is primarily a Juneau resource, but can be asked to respond statewide for any specialty in which members are trained. Ebert said volunteers have responded to missions across Southeast Alaska and in Anchorage. She has been with JMR for 14 years and said there was more multi-agency coordination this summer than usual, as each mission required a different approach.
“Especially this summer, we’ve had a lot of multi-agency coordination with the troopers,” she said. “We’ve responded with SEADOGS, the Coast Guard, the National Guard that’s now stationed here — they have an aircraft that’s available and has helped us on missions.”
Aviation needs are usually high for JMR to reach terrain where they cannot quickly drive or hike.
In her day job, Ebert oversees the state’s wastewater discharge program for seafood processors and hatcheries. She explained the process once troopers request JMR as a resource.
She said on average, 10 to 15 volunteers are sent for a mission, but as a situation evolves, more people on standby may be asked to help. She said the number of available people depends on the time of day a call comes in.
“If it’s like four o’clock in the afternoon and people are in town, we can get upwards of 20 people available to respond to a mission,” Ebert said. “If it’s two in the morning and people are tired and asleep, it’s a thinner bench to pull from.”
Karl Bausler has been with the team for the last 33 years. He’s semi-retired and said he supports missions when he is not busy working as a physician assistant-nurse practitioner or Eaglecrest Ski Area’s ski patrol.
“When I was about 17, I was involved with the Alpine Club climbing through our high school, where I was going in Germany because my dad was in the military,” Bausler said. “We had a fatality during one of our climbing trips, and that pushed me into medical care and mountain activities.”
Andy Dietrick said his interest piqued locally. He is a field rescuer and drone operator who also manages the business Aleutians Aerial. He began his small, unoccupied aircraft mapping and surveying business in Dutch Harbor and returned to JMR three years ago after moving back to Juneau.
“I went to JDHS, and it was a senior project to learn about search and rescue,” he said. “When I came back after college, I got on the Eaglecrest ski patrol, and then have been involved ever since then. It was right here in Juneau. We have a lot of search and rescue, and hikers getting lost, and there’s a lot of trouble to find out here. When you’re active in it, and being able to use your skill set to contribute to finding others — that definitely was a calling.”
Training for everything and anything in unpredictable weather
No matter the season, JMR is “ready for anything,” Pat Dryer said. The organization trains year-round. He volunteers as a team leader while also working as an avalanche forecaster with the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities. Both he and Ebert joined JMR after serving on the Juneau ski patrol, which conducts joint training with the mountain rescue group.
“We train all of our members to be an asset in each one of these different environments that we’re working in, and we have specialists that may bring in prior experience, like a drone pilot or a climber that has technical rescue expertise,” Dryer said. “We don’t honestly know what all the circumstances are when we’re responding to these events, so we’re trying to set up our rescuers for success, no matter what they run into. That may mean we need to call in some specialists for certain aspects of the rescue, but we’re trained to be prepared for whatever may present itself.”
JMR is certified by the national Mountain Rescue Association for four broad categories.
Wilderness: Search and rescue missions in challenging backcountry terrain.
Technical Rope Rescue: An advanced search and rescue mission that involves someone wearing a harness being lowered by another team member who has created an anchor for them to secure their position. Used to rescue people from cliffs or edges, or when an injured person cannot remove themselves from a situation.
Winter Technical: Involves winter readiness, avalanche search management and incident command.
Medical
Each category has a variety of subsets. Additionally, outside trainers conduct various seminars through visits, or volunteers attend specialized training outside of Juneau. JMR is recertified every five years through the Mountain Rescue Association, enabling them to stay current with the latest developments and skills. In November, JMR will start avalanche training cycles.
Flying high to save time and lives
Dryer offers expertise in drones and avalanche search management. Dietrick joins him in being a certified drone pilot. Both worked to integrate drone operations into JMR missions beginning in 2022. It was a lengthy process to have the technology approved for use under the authority of Alaska State Troopers, Dryer said, and it is constantly evolving.
“The way we’re responding is changing with technology, to be able to locate missing persons faster, to be able to respond with different pieces of equipment that makes the rescuers more effective in the way they respond,” he said.
The drone pilots are certified by the state and the Federal Aviation Administration. A training program adheres to state protocols for the use of drones in emergency response. Dietrick said drones have become another useful tool to grab from JMR’s cache. He recalled a response to a hiker on a mountainside.
“Say you have a rescue team up in the alpine, gullies, terrain, cliffs, and we have a hiker or somebody down in that area, and you can call on the radio, and you can guide your team that is about to descend, whether into a gully or some steep area, and you’re like, ‘No, go over there. Don't go down yet. Don't go down yet. Hold – OK, go down there,’” he said.
Dietrick said drones can shave hours off response times, helping save lives and keeping the volunteering model sustainable. Before using the drone, he said volunteers could have gone into the gully and spent two hours there. He said JMR will continue to bring in new technology.
Resilient rescuers
In recent years, Bausler said, psychological first aid training has also been implemented.
“That helps us deal with people who are injured or stressed because of their predicament, to bring down the level of anxiety,” he said. “It used to be incident stress response, more after the fact, this is a little bit more proactive.”
Just as hikers need to know what they can handle and prepare for the trail, volunteers must also understand their capacity to respond. Psychological check-ins assess their stress resiliency. Volunteers undergo a periodic evaluation process and are scored from green to red.
The way a volunteer treats an individual when they are experiencing trauma has implications for how they can recover, said Brent Wittmer, membership coordinator.
“It’s really making sure that if there’s potential that you’re going to go into a challenging response, that you’re in the right place personally to be there, and just being aware of your capacity to add more stress,” Wittmer said. “We’ve all been through that training as well, and we sort of have a shared language about where you’re at and what you can handle, and that’s a big piece of how we all as a team manage that.”
To understand the perspective of subjects, volunteers will participate in mock scenarios. Wittmer once played the part of someone being rescued and realized how quickly a person can develop hypothermia in Juneau, even in the summertime.
“You might go out fast and light and then you roll your ankle and you’re sitting in muskeg, and now you're wet, and it’s in the 50s,” he said. “It gets real fast when you aren’t moving in the backcountry in our temperatures and environment. It’s sort of harsh and unforgiving here – more of the time than a lot of other places.”
Juneau’s rapidly changing weather can push even experienced hikers to be less prepared than they thought, Bausler said.
Tips for hikers
The most common calls received are lost or stranded hikers who haven’t returned from a trip, according to JMR.
Wittmer, who spends his days as special assistant to the commissioner of the Department of Administration, has volunteered with JMR for four years. He said it’s important for hikers to understand themselves – “know your limitations.” He said this is equally true for both locals and visitors.
“Someone should always know where you’re at, if you’re off the road system, if you’re hiking, you're hunting, boating, obviously, too,” Wittmer said. “We don’t get involved in that as much. But everyone thinks, ‘I’m good, it’ll never happen to me. I’ve done this a hundred times,’ but the fact that we exist as an organization means that it happens, and it happens to everyone, no matter their skill level.”
JMR volunteers suggested that hikers wear bright clothing, pack layers, and bring a flashlight and fire starter. It was also recommended to bring extra calories and plenty of water.
“A lot of these folks never know when they’re going to have the unexpected night out,” Bausler said.
After two hikers fell from Mount Roberts in September, Austin McDaniel, communications director for Alaska State Troopers, told the Independent that the Juneau backcountry is easily accessible and can become dangerous quickly. Wittmer agreed, advising that any trailhead in Juneau should be treated as backcountry because it becomes steep and slippery fast.
“As soon as you step onto a trail, treat it all the same,” he said.
He recommended downloading navigation apps and added that it's essential to keep a phone charged. An InReach satellite phone or map could also be brought along. Wittmer said that in many cases, if people knew how to navigate better, they could have gotten themselves out of a situation.
In September, Thomas Casey, 69, was found deceased after falling off-trail near the Mendenhall Glacier, according to a press release from the troopers. No details about where he was going or when he would be back were provided.
Dietrick said a common scenario is seasonal employees going out on hikes alone. He said taking a photo at the trailhead and posting it online, or sending it to a friend or family member, can make a big difference.
“If we know that you were on Thunder Mountain, or we know that you went out the road – it’s a big world out there, and there's a lot of terrain and trees,” he said. “So that's just a good one. Because then at least your friend or family member can say, ‘Yes, I know that they went up Thunder, I know that they went up to Eaglecrest and were hiking.’”
Volunteering atmosphere at Juneau Mountain Rescue
Juneau’s climate may be described as wet and harsh, but the six team members agreed the culture at JMR is warm and caring. After a hard call, members check in on each other, and they often receive recognition through increased community donations. They enjoy similar outdoor activities and spend time together outside of missions, along with hosting social events. Leadership also holds group debrief sessions after a string of challenging missions and checks in with members through phone calls.
Meredith Trainor, a board member and outreach coordinator, has been with JMR for three years. Her day job is working as chief of staff for Rep. Ted Eischeid, D-Anchorage. She said friendship built within the group also helps keep morale up.
“We had a difficult mission this summer,” she said. “I’m a newer member and I had no fewer than three people informally reach out to me in addition to the formal psychological first aid check-in. People are keeping tabs on one another. Every time that happens, it makes my heart warm.”
Bausler said besides new technology, the most significant difference he has noticed over his 33 years at JMR is the increase in personnel.
“Over the decades, JMR has grown in all of its disciplines, including the number of people that are involved with the team,” he said. “It just makes the job of finding someone that much faster and more lives saved because of the available resources and technology.”
Dietrick said the volunteering atmosphere at JMR is one of many things that make it special.
“The culture of JMR of respecting the volunteer members’ time is just outstanding,” he said. “It makes it sustainable and makes people want to be there. You know you’re going to show up and you’re going to get to work and do things with other people that want to do these things, and then you also can get back to your life. JMR, in all the years I was gone, developed that, and I just think it’s one of the cornerstones of things that I find refreshing and very valuable about the team.”
Alaska is unique in its limited resources and vast geography, Dietrick said, making JMR and Sitka Search and Rescue essential resources for Southeast Alaska. They are among four certified mountain rescue organizations for the state listed on the Mountain Rescue Association website.
People interested in joining JMR can email membership@juneaumountainrescue.org. The next candidate application period will be in fall 2026.
Next year, Juneau is scheduled to host the Mountain Rescue Association conference at the University of Alaska Southeast’s recreation center from June 11-14, with attendees invited from Canada and the Lower 48.
• Contact Jasz Garrett at jasz@juneauindependent.com or (907) 723-9356.
