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P/SUNNY Temp: 65 °F Wind: WNW at 10 mph Monday, June 23, 2003 SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map EXTRA HomeLife Magazine W3 Magazine Jobs @ Mail Tribune Tempo A & E Oregon CarZone Wellness Connection Real Estate Newspaper in Education Prime Times Outdoor Journal Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People CLASSIFIEDS Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Find Everything E SOUTHERN OREGON Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar ABOUT US FAQ What's New Advertise Home Delivery Classified Ad Contact Us Media Kit Email Story to a Friend June 16, 2003 Captain Joe Puckett consults his GPS in the Ashland watershed. Mail Tribune / Andrew Mariman As hiking season gears up, so does search and rescue By SARAH LEMON Mail Tribune As hikers get ready to head for the hills this summer, search and rescue teams across Southern Oregon prepare to find those who inevitably wind up lost. Ronald Harwood, who was found Saturday evening after wandering the Umpqua National Forest for five days, is one of the fortunate ones, deputies said. "Surviving in the woods for five days, he’s very lucky," Capt. Joe Puckett of the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department said Sunday. Harwood, 45, of Winston, was in good condition Saturday other than being hungry and dehydrated and suffering from blistered feet, searchers said. He disappeared around 5 p.m. Tuesday while carrying camping equipment from a vehicle to a remote campsite near Twin Lakes. Advertisement Harwood left the main trail, thinking he had found a shorter route, said Sgt. Jim Perham, of the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department. When Harwood realized that the cutoff was, in fact, taking him away from the campsite, he tried to forge his own trail across country and got lost, Perham said. It’s a scenario that’s all too familiar for search and rescue officials, who routinely search Southern Oregon’s forests for missing hikers, hunters and mushroom pickers. Jackson County searchers last month found three people who went missing in the woods over Memorial Day weekend. "... These people were just day-timers, and they got out there in the evening and got disoriented," said sheriff’s Sgt. Pat Rowland, who heads up the department’s search and rescue division. None of the three was dressed for cooler evening temperatures in the hills above Ashland, he said. Tiffney Ann Garland, 35, of Central Point, was treated for hypothermia and released after searchers found her around 1 a.m. on May 25 in the forest off Dead Indian Memorial Road. She was reported missing about three hours earlier when she wandered away from her boyfriend while they were picking mushrooms. About eight hours later, searchers found two Ashland residents who got lost the previous evening while mountain biking in the Ashland watershed. Crews communicated with 20-year-old Will West Bridges and 17-year-old Ashley Nicole Brewer via cell phone throughout the night. The two had taken shelter under an outcropping of rock, but were cold when searchers located them near Neil Creek. "If they didn’t have that cell phone, we wouldn’t have found them," Rowland said. Although searchers find most missing persons within several hours, they stand a much better chance of being located if police are notified right away. Each hour that passes increases the amount of territory searchers must comb, officials said. Signs that someone has passed through an area can be obliterated with enough time and exposure to the elements. In the case of missing Grants Pass hiker Darlene Barnes, a long lapse between the time she was last seen and the time she was reported missing hindered the search effort, officials said. Barnes went missing the afternoon of Sept. 1 in the Sardine Creek area near Gold Hill. Friends and family waited for 30 hours before notifying police. Described as 5-2, 110 pounds, Barnes was last seen wearing a white tank top, greenish pants and tennis shoes. A cancer patient who had been undergoing chemotherapy, she had very short brown hair. She was not carrying her medication. Searchers also have been unsuccessful in locating John Winslow, Robert Bobo and Edward Chester Nye, who were last seen in the woods. Winslow, 71, of Medford, disappeared on Nov. 7, 2001, while hiking near Mount Ashland. Winslow is described as 6 feet tall, 160 pounds. He has a gray beard, gray hair, blue eyes and was last seen wearing a red peaked hat and possibly an olive-drab jacket. He reportedly was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Bobo, 40, of Prospect, was last seen on Oct. 2, 1998, at a remote campground near Woodruff Meadows outside of Prospect. He was gone the next morning when a friend came to pick him up for the opening day of deer season. Bobo is 5-7, weighs 145 pounds and has blue eyes and brown hair. Edward Chester Nye, now 39, was last seen in June 1978 outside Butte Falls while on a church youth group camping trip near the Middle Fork of the Rogue River. He told his brother that he was going fishing downstream and never returned. Reach reporter Sarah Lemon at 776-4487, or e-mail [email protected] . Printer Friendly Version Email Story to a Friend Subscribe Archive: Click to Search Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2003 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. 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