Search and rescue technology in Colorado may be getting a significant upgrade

Daytime temperatures had reached the low 50s in the lower reaches of Summit County, Colorado last week, and it’s worth emphasizing that the ‘lower reaches’ of said county still flirt with 10,000 feet above sea level. Snow was gradually melting off, seasonal grasses had begun to emerge, and mud season was slowly giving way to spring and summer.

At the higher elevations, however, there still sat ample snowpack, though that rarely deters the hardiest of Colorado’s mountaineers and climbers. Quandary Peak, the highest point in Summit County, features an east route that’s graded as just a Class 1 climb, though that grade is reserved for when no winter conditions are present. In other words, as 14ers go, Quandary sports one of the easiest walking routes to the top of a 14er in the entire state…when no winter conditions exist.

While the East Ridge is considered an easy Class 1 hike when there’s no snow around, that’s far from the only route to the top of the Tenmile Range’s highest peak. There’s also a route up through the Cristo Couloir on its southern face, a route that 14ers.com grades as a Difficult Class 2…when no winter conditions get in the way.

Get in the way they did for a pair of Colorado climbers last Wednesday, however. A pair of “well equipped” Front Range residents needed rescue from Quandary by the Summit County Rescue Group after they had fallen several hundred feet into a couloir and could not get out, as the Ryan Spencer of Summit Daily relayed . Quickly realizing they were stuck, they called search and rescue requesting help, and fortunately both were rescued and escaped serious harm after an 8 hour rescue mission.

Quandary Peak, located a handful of miles south of Breckenridge, Colorado, is in an area that while remote typically has consistent cell service. That worked in this duo’s favor, obviously, and helped search and rescue pinpoint their location and assess routes to get to them in short order.

It goes without saying that much of, if not the vast majority of Colorado’s backcountry and wilderness is not located in areas with fully functional cell service. And for those who choose to recreate in those areas without the likes of Garmin inReach, Apple’s Emergency SOS, or other advanced satellite technologies, that makes pinpointing those in need of search and rescue an infinitely more difficult task.

That makes the innovation by Spain-based technology company CENTUM that much more intriguing. Dubbed Lifeseeker, it’s currently being tested by Durango, Colorado helicopter company Colorado Highland Helicopters in airborne search and rescue operations, and if its availability picks up steam it will almost reverse much of what you were once told to do when lost, or in need of help, in these scenarios.

Olivia Prentzel of the Colorado Sun notes that Lifeseeker operates almost like a miniature, mobile cell tower, and when activated it can pick up signals from all cellphones within a 3-mile radius. So, if it’s attached to a helicopter and those missing persons did their initial due diligence to give someone, somewhere a heads up to the general area in which they’d be hiking, there’s a very good chance Lifeseeker can quite literally identify the exact location of those persons’ cellphones.

Of course, that would only work if those persons had their phones turned on, something that we’ve typically been told not to do when there’s zero service in order to save battery for later. If your phone is not turned on and actively trying to connect to a tower, Lifeseeker’s mobile tower isn’t going to provide much help. So, if this technology – which is still seeking approval by the FCC – becomes one that’s widely used, it will be vital to emphasize to all folks venturing into backcountry areas with zero cell service to get their phones turned back on if they’ve been lost for awhile and they hear a helicopter.

This is hardly as precise as, say, Life Alert’s I’ve fallen and I can’t get up! That said, Life Alert wouldn’t work worth a damn in the wilderness anyway, and this technology, if implemented, could well go a long way towards an imperfect, impractical ask of search and rescue teams in some of the most remote areas of the continent that much more successful. It’s simply a matter of a) knowing if and when this technology gets implemented for search and rescue and b) knowing that your cellphone can become a beacon if you’ve been lost long enough for someone to be looking for you.

That’d be a monumental step in the right direction for one of the most difficult jobs out there.