Party Like a Rock Star Party Like a Rock Star

The other day I was reminded of a rescue that my teammates and I went on a few months ago. It was along the Pacific Crest Trail, and a woman and her dog had gone missing. There were many aspects of this that seemed off to us- she had been traveling the PCT for months at that point, so it's not like she didn't know what she was doing. She had her dog and a "friend"- some guy she had blogged about who had joined her for the last 100 miles along for the ride. She had logistics support, and had already returned to a hotel to wait out a snowstorm at one point. So our guess was that she was out along the trail somewhere, Barry White crooning away in her tent with her and her "friend" blissfully unaware of the rescue effort under way to save her. Scott and I headed out to Snoqualmie Pass, and the entire way were confused about exactly what we were doing out there, but still happy to do our part.

Upon arrival at search base, we were asked if we could travel down the PCT. Yeah. From Snoqualmie Pass to Stevens Pass, the PCT is close to 70 miles long and we had no interest in an endurance hump, or overnighting in the field that evening. The weather was starting to sock in, and as it turned out I HAD to be back in Seattle the next morning to hop on the phone and deliver a brief I was working on for our US Coast Guard project. While not in the cards, the search administrators did a good number on peer pressure to see if we could in-fact stick around and were fairly disappointed when we had to politely decline.

Still, we were assigned to the PLS (Point of Last Sighting)- a campground roughly 10 miles in from where we could pick up a side trail in order to save a long and tedious hike along the PCT. Driving I-90 out and around, we passed through the town of Ronald- where the TV show Northern Exposure was filmed. Funny how a show based in Alaska was filmed in a little town outside Seattle, but there it was and you can still see the houses that the moose walks right by in the trailer.

Stressed out by the deliverable and several telcons that I had first thing in the morning, we stepped off onto our side trail just as it got dark. Off Scott and I go, hunting for them until the wee hours of the morning. Breaking trail and pressing through thick brush, we searched along the snowline and admired the stars which were clear enough that we could make out the Milky Way and even an occasional meteorite. When we came up empty handed, the team decided it was time to return to base and finally popped out by our car and drove home.

Returning to my loft at 03:30, I finalized a powerpoint, made the telcons from 07-10:00 and then proceeded to work the rest of the day as if nothing had ever happened.. surely not as if the ~20 miles of speed hiking and lost hiker hunting had occurred. No weird post-allnighter buzz, lagging exhaustion, shakes, etc etc. How, you ask? Four Rock Star Energy Drinks. Seriously. Four. That stuff is like liquid speed. How it works is beyond me, but I'm telling you that maybe either a SMR teammate or a guy with newborns invented it. I swear to you, they scare me. I didn't even feel like I had been up for close to 40 hrs including a rescue through the backwoods of Washington, worked on some dry-ass powerpoint and then talked for an eternity on a telcon by the time I crashed that next night. The only side effect I noticed? I thought it was great to TM everyone I knew with "party like a rock star, party like a rock star" .

Scary..

So there. I have now done my part for mankind and passed this hidden gem of information on to the world. A day later, the woman was discovered quite literally in her tent with Barry White going. Not surprisingly, she was confused about why exactly this rescue had been called out on her despite being a day overdue. Seems that after a few months alone along the PCT, it was pretty exciting to spend time with a guy that she was digging on and who had come to see her. Crisis averted, she was safe and doing well. And in the process I learned a valuable lesson- when you need some fast energy in a way that will keep you up despite the level of energy exerted, Rock Stars the way to go. It may require a biohazard label and I'll only drink it on heavy exertion occasions because of that, but it has worked like a charm for our team on more than one occasion now. Driving back from a Mt Olympus 30 hour nonstop summit climb, several of us drank Rock Stars and were able to get safely home.... man that stuff is crazy.

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