In my lifetime, I’ve only once called for search and rescue help, and it happens to have been for my “missing” husband Scott some ten years ago. Scott had been invited by our daughter’s boyfriend, Chris, to climb a technical route on Vesper Peak, and had gladly accepted this challenge as an opportunity to learn to know her suitor. What Scott didn’t know was that Chris had specifically planned this climb to ask for our daughter’s hand. The climbing route turned out to be wet, which made the ascent significantly more difficult than they expected. When they were hours overdue, I called Mark Glidden, the chair of our mountain rescue team at the time, and expressed concern. Mark helpfully suggested he could informally call our SAR coordinator, Charles, to see if he might be able to just send someone to the trailhead without raising a fuss.

“OK, but no general callout yet, Mark” I pleaded. “Scott will never forgive me if they are just overdue.” To my horror, minutes after hanging up, my SAR pager went off: “One of our own overdue on Vesper Peak.” Helvete! Scott is not going to be happy about this. Swedish curses were rolling off my tongue. I envisioned my compatriots on the mountain rescue team grabbing their gear and heading out on the Mountain Loop Highway. Thirty minutes later, Charles called me to say that a ranger east of the Cascades had picked up a garbled radio communication late in the afternoon: “…let…. know climbers on Vesper OK, but delayed.” I confirmed this sounded like Scott, and thankfully the SAR mission was called off. I still cherish this story though. Given the circumstances, Chris ended up proposing at a later, more opportune and less stressful, date. Scott approved, and we still love our son-in-law very much. We adore our two grandkids.