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We accept the names of people who are interested in joining Larimer County Search and Rescue throughout the year.

If you are interested in joining LCSAR, contact the Applicant Coordinator via e-mail at lcsar@larimercountysar.org

In the e-mail please include your

• Name
• Address
• City, State, Zip Code
• Home phone
• Work phone
• Cell phone
• E-mail address

You will be contacted around December and advised of mandatory orientation sessions in January. At the Orientation session you will be given an application to attend BASART, our basic search and rescue training. When you submit the completed application, you will be scheduled for an interview. After all the interviews are complete, all applicants will be contacted and advised of their application status. BASART classes begin around March 1.

By Colorado State statute the Colorado county Sheriff is responsible for Search and Rescue in their county.

No, we are un-paid search and rescue professionals and we all have regular jobs in the community. To reiterate, we do not have any paid positions on the team.

No we have no paid positions on the Team. We are 100% unpaid.

We receive excellent financial support from the community by way of individual donations, foundation grants and fund-raising events. We are a registered non-profit Colorado Corporation and all donations are tax-deductible. Our members pay for their own equipment and the other miscellaneous costs like gas, food and medical training. When we have an incident the Sheriff will pick up the tab for our gas and if it goes beyond 12 hours he usually has food delivered. The debate continues in many venues about the cost of SAR and billing those who get in trouble. We believe that charging the people we help will only delay the call that requests our service, and time is always critical when people are lost and injured. We are fortunate to have that good community support and our expenses are usually very minor.

You will need to own around $1,500.00 of personal equipment. This may seem high but experience has shown us that the higher quality gear that will hold up in tough conditions is a better long-term investment, and that means spending more money. BASART training is $150.00. Yearly membership dues and fees are $35.00. We try to do a lot of carpooling but there will be extra gas money involved while you join us in our frequent explorations of the county and region. If you are a gadget freak you may want to consider a 2nd mortgage on the house cause there are lots of gadgets in our business but that's your choice. Simpler is probably better.

We say that the average active person will spend about 400 hours each year doing something related to SAR. We have training classes on the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of every month from 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm. Administrative meetings are on the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays from 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm. The 4th and 5th Wednesdays occasionally will be used for medical training. At least 2 weekends a month are scheduled for field training exercises which typically last at least 8 hours. We have at least 2 big fund raising events each year that are 2-day and 6-day long projects. Public Education classes are taught weekly at various locations and venues in the community and typically take 2 members at least 2 hours per class plus drive time. TNT's or Tuesday/Thursday Night Technicals occur every other week for 3 - 4 hours in the evening and focus on special and technical skills that require more frequent refreshing.

Search dogs are a very valuable tool in SAR work. Search and Rescue Dogs of Colorado (SARDOC) has all the information you need to see how dogs are integrated into SAR situations and how you can get involved. All of our team members who are also dog handlers are required to be members of SARDOC and must pass all SARDOC testing. We can tell you that dog handlers choose and own their own dogs. Handlers spend at least one day a week training with their dog. It takes an average of two years to fully certify a search dog and handler team. Any of the larger breed working dogs usually are a good choice for a search dog but you can't tell for sure until you begin the training. Check out SARDOC's website at www.sardoc.org

No, we provide all the training you will need to become a basic search and rescue specialist.

All of our advanced field ratings require a rating of advanced First Aid or First Responder and you will be expected to obtain that training on your own. However, as funding permits, we often can pay all or part of the normal fees associated with this training. Continuing Education medical training is also a part of our regular curriculum to help our members maintain their medical ratings. We encourage members to become EMT's but only if they have an interest in pursuing this higher skill level and want to spend the additional time and money. A fair number of our missions do not involve medical complications, but when they do, the appropriate medical resources are dispatched to the scene. The medical resources that can be dispatched to assist us are an ambulance from the nearest hospital, one of the county Quick Response Teams, or Air Life of Greeley. The patient is then transported to the hospital by the appropriate medical resource. Do to the inherent dangers of our profession we recognize that medical assistance may be needed for us and since much of our training is in the back country we like to have medical people close by. We are happy to report that we only see an injured SAR person about once every five years. We practice our medical skills frequently but putting them to use in a real medical emergency is a rare occurrence.

We have a Memorandum Of Understanding with the Larimer County Sheriff that requires us to keep personnel and equipment available at all times for emergencies in the county but SAR Teams throughout the Rocky Mountain Region assist one another whenever extra resources are needed. This mutual aid also extends outside the region to the national and international arena. Our specialty is mountain search and rescue and we do not currently do any urban SAR training although we have been effectively utilized on evidence searches in the urban setting. We can also assist during floods and plane crashes in the wilderness.

The Larimer County Dive Rescue Team are the water rescue professionals. We have joint training practices where we review those skills and teamwork exercises that are common between the groups but we try to keep our feet dry at all times!

We have a very active Public Education Program that focuses on preventive search and rescue. We believe one of our fundamental responsibilities is to give everyone in the community the knowledge they need to prevent outdoor emergencies before they happen. We also expect our members to help with fund raising, with our own internal training, with maintaining our technical equipment and vehicles, and with the numerous administrative tasks that keep the business running smoothly.

A friend or family member of the lost subject will call 911 to report an overdue person in the back country. Dispatch will notify the on-duty Sheriff's Emergency Services Specialist who will page the on-duty LCSAR SAR Manager and they will begin planning the response based on the time of day, weather, condition and age of the lost person and several other factors. The rest of the Team will be paged with basic information about the situation and resources will begin heading to the incident.

We can't really anticipate when a call will come or what it will be about. We have just as many calls during the week as we have on the weekend. We tend to get more calls in the evening and they will last until morning. We usually don't spend more that 12 hours on searches or more than 6 hours on rescues. But, sooner or later, you will be on a rescue that begins on Wednesday at noon and ends at noon on Thursday.

Much of the personal equipment we require our members to own is basic, good quality hiking, camping, and climbing gear but there is a possibility that the equipment you currently own will not be ideal for our situation. We spend a lot of time in BASART talking about the pros and cons of all types of outdoor gear. We don't require that you own anything before you start, and in fact, would recommend that you wait until you get this information from us in class before you make any new purchases or try to decide whether the gear you already have is appropriate.

Basic Search And Rescue Training is a 3-1/2 month long period of time that starts in late February and goes to early June during which time you will be required to attend Wednesday classes from 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm. and weekend field training exercises at various places in the county. The weekend exercises typically begin at 8:00 am on Saturday or Sunday and can go all day. A few of the classes will begin around 5:00 pm and go into the night so you get familiar with the not-so-unusual late searches and their associated hazards and complications. Training occurs most but not every Wednesday or weekend during this period. A final field exercise that comes just before graduation lasts almost 24 hours and begins on a Saturday afternoon. It is designed to bring together all your recently learned SAR skills and test them in real-time under tough conditions. After successfully completing BASART testing and training you will be qualified to respond to SAR incidents in spring, summer and fall, below timberline. You may then continue to take our classes and develop additional skills to acquire rescue, snow, and leadership ratings.

We have mostly 25 - 45 year old men and women but we have many members that are under 25 and a several that are over 45. The under 25's are usually college students and it is difficult to balance good study habits with a busy SAR schedule but a few have managed that challenge very well. Our 45+ members are usually very fit and are always trying to keep up with the youngsters.

We have Mechanical Engineers, Nurses, Computer Techs, Artists, Biologists, Mechanics, Machine Operators, Knife Makers, Police Officers, Accountants, Attorneys, Moms, Dads, Teachers, ... maybe a list of jobs that members haven't had would be shorter?

The most common response we get to that question is that people want to give something back to the community and this allows them to do that and enjoy the outdoors at the same time. Most of us are also fascinated and challenged by the outdoor skills that we use to do search and rescue.

No! The Larimer County Search and Rescue, Inc. logo is a Registered Trade Mark. Only LCSAR members are authorized to display the logo with decals, stickers, patches, embroidery, etc. We do not trade, sell, or give away patches.

Choosing a career in search and rescue rescue can lead to a very rough road.

Most search and rescue positions in this country are on a volunteer un-paid basis. Many  people involved in search and rescue have primary paying jobs in other fields to make a living.

However, there are several job types that can have search and rescue as a  secondary duty to the primary responsibility. Park rangers and sheriff officers are such careers. The primary job of these careers is often law enforcement. Search and rescue is a small part of the life of rangers and deputies. Another avenue is to join the military. The Coast Guard is very involved in marine search and rescue. The Air Force also has pararescue personnel that perform search and rescue work as their primary responsibility.

The key to getting into such a position is to have years of experience in many fields, including several years as a law enforcement officer, many years of  mountaineering, several years of volunteer search and rescue work, and some  experience in emergency medical training.

Education can play a very crucial role in landing such jobs. A good candidate might have a college or university degree. For rangers, natural  science is the key - biology, forestry, geology, etc. For police work, social science is desired as well as psychology.

Paid jobs that include seach and rescue as a duty are very competitive and  hard to find. If you choose to go down this path, be prepared for disappointment: long application processes, lots of competition, tons of politics, ....

If you truly want to get into search and rescue, we would suggest the  following:

1. Stay in school. Go to college. Attend a university and get an education that will provide you with a good paying job.
2. Gain experience in mountaineering, rock-climbing, hiking, backpacking, cross country skiing, winter mountaineering, desert, etc. Take classes. Good search and rescue people have many years of experience. There is a saying in the search and rescue community - You are a mountaineer first and a rescuer second.
3. Join a volunteer search and rescue team. Contact the local sheriff to ask  about teams in a particular area, or search the world wide web. Quite  frequently, you can attend a college or university in a mountainous region that has a search and rescue team, gaining valuable experience while getting your education.
4. Be patient. Search and rescue is something that requires talent that is acquired over years. You cannot take a 3-month course and be set to save the world despite what some organizations will tell you about their training.

The following article appeared in the Fort Collins Coloradoan, Fort Collins, Colorado in the Soapbox column in December, 1999. The article is in response to a letter to the editor regarding the frustration people, untrained in search and rescue, were feeling in not being allowed to help out in the search for the missing 3 year old Jaryd Atadero on the Big South Trail in the Poudre Canyon in October of 1999.