Three people stranded on a steep, exposed stretch of the Sierra Buttes were hoisted to safety after a satellite SOS call reached authorities around 2:30 p.m. Sunday. The rescue required a helicopter crew to lower one of its own team members onto the cliffside before all three could be pulled up and flown to a landing zone where deputies were waiting.
According to sierradailynews.com, the Sierra County Sheriff's Office received the notification from the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services, which had relayed an SOS activation from a Garmin inReach satellite communication device. As reported by CBS News, the three people had made a distress call using the device after becoming stranded on the mountain, which sits roughly 80 miles northeast of Sacramento in the Tahoe National Forest.
A Multi-Agency Scramble Up the Mountain
Sierra County deputies launched a search-and-rescue operation and requested mutual aid from Nevada County's Search and Rescue Mountain Rescue Team, along with a helicopter from the Washoe County Sheriff's Office RAVEN unit based in Nevada, the same report notes. Per CBS News, about 20 members responded from the Nevada City and Truckee areas, according to the Nevada County Sheriff's Office.
The RAVEN crew located the three stranded individuals on a steep, exposed section of terrain south of the lookout tower, the sierradailynews.com account states. From there, the crew lowered a rescue team member directly to the group rather than attempting a ground approach, the same report notes, a step that underscores just how precarious their position was.
Hoisted Off the Cliffside
All three were then hoisted from the cliffside and flown by helicopter to a designated landing zone where deputies waited, per the same account. Authorities did not provide additional details about the three individuals or what led to them becoming stranded, according to 2news.com.
The Sierra County Sheriff's Office expressed appreciation to the Nevada County Sheriff's Search and Rescue team, the Washoe County Sheriff's Office Search and Rescue team, and the RAVEN helicopter crew for their work, CBS News reported. The Sierra Buttes top out at 8,591 feet, and the sheriff's office noted that the difficult terrain and hazardous location made a helicopter hoist rescue necessary, per sierradailynews.com.
A Familiar Call for the Region's Rescue Crews
The Washoe County Sheriff's Office describes its RAVEN unit as trained in high-altitude technical rescue, a capability built around equipment including an internal Goodrich electric hoist with 250 feet of useable cable, according to the Washoe County Sheriff's Office. That setup has put the unit at the center of several recent Sierra-region operations.
In January, Hoodline reported that the same regional response network helped rescue a mountain biker lost in the Sierra Buttes, who was secured and flown to the Town of Downieville by a California Highway Patrol helicopter working alongside Nevada County fire crews. RAVEN has also served as backup for other emergencies in the area; in a separate Pacific Crest Trail medical call, the helicopter was placed on standby in case a hoist rescue became necessary while a CareFlight helicopter ultimately landed near the patient and flew them to a hospital in Truckee, sierradailynews.com reported separately.
Farther south, the dangers of Sierra terrain were on stark display in April, when a climber fell 500 feet down a rugged slope on Mount Baxter and suffered multiple broken bones, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. That climber and a companion were stranded at 12,400 feet and also used a Garmin InReach device to call for help, with a California Highway Patrol helicopter deploying the next morning to attempt a hoist rescue.
