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Comment by jonah | Hacker News Reader

The quest he mentions as inspiration - Tom Mahood's "The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans" - is a fascinating read and worth your time.

https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hu...

I first read it seven years ago and similar to the author, it inspired me to join my local Search & Rescue team which has been incredibly rewarding. I highly recommend doing that to anyone who wants to combine a love of the outdoors, specialized skills, serving the community, and helping people in their worst moments. (And doesn't mind getting up at 3am in pouring rain and going out and pushing through dense underbrush for hours!)

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If anyone is unable to access the otherhand.org site, it's available on the WaybackMachine https://web.archive.org/web/20240604123006/https://www.other...

The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans (2012) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40568151 - June 2024 (2 comments)

The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans (2012) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34676129 - Feb 2023 (147 comments)

The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32871761 - Sept 2022 (3 comments)

The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans (2012) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23582417 - June 2020 (75 comments)

Hunt for the Death Valley Germans (2015) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19263057 - Feb 2019 (38 comments)

The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12019567 - July 2016 (61 comments)

The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9723065 - June 2015 (1 comment)

Is there a fitness test for SAR? Do you train to stay fit enough for it?

Yes. It varies from team to team. Ours is a 4.1 mile hike (with 2,500+ ft. Elevation gain) carrying a 25 lb pack in under 2 and 1/2 hours.

I'm also a volunteer firefighter and the "pack test" level of Work Capacity Test for wildland firefighters is 3 mi on flat ground carrying a 45 lb pack in 45 minutes.

It is pretty important to be in shape as you are often carrying a lot of gear and don't want to bonk and cause an issue that would jeopardize yourself, your teammates, or the mission.

Edit: to answer your second question, my wife and I hike recreationally just about every weekend and the team often hikes during trainings and does a weekly casual hike as well.

Thanks for this info. This is something I've been thinking about doing in a few years (once the kids are further along). Seems like a very cool thing to do.

Feel free to email me if I can answer any questions.

By the way, does anyone know why the site stopped being updated in 2019? Besides Death Valley Germans there were other interesting articles in there, about other Search & Rescue endeavors, Area 51, an interesting take on Bob Lazar etc. I hope the author is OK and in good health.

I don't know why he stopped updating his site, but I believe he is fine and posts to this forum sometimes: http://perryscanlon.com/MSJinfo_phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=....

His latest post is from a year ago: http://perryscanlon.com/MSJinfo_phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6....

It's been a long time since I read that, and I still think about it from time to time. I suppose it's time for a re-read

why is it asking me to sign in to read this?

It was fine when I read the first five or so installments, then I got a random authentication request, which I couldn't see the cause of, but seems like it may have been triggered when I chucked an image. My guess is that during the time I was viewing the site, the owner decided they would lock it down to people who were authenticated. Shame as I was just getting to the point of progress!

It’s accessible via the Wayback Machine, fortunately.

Curious. Maybe it was hugged to death and he or his ISP locked it down to cut down on bandwidth. Or maybe decided he didn't want a bunch of people reading it right now?

https://web.archive.org/web/20200621094606/https://www.other...

The site was posted here and probably other social media in the last day or so. More than likely it's to prevent the site from getting hugged to death.

Prevent?

As someone who has spent a fair bit of time around Death Valley, it really helped to illuminate how someone with no point of reference about the environment could really get themselves in trouble.

And how devastating heat stroke can be. Just look at poor Michael Mosley recently.

Ouch, I'm sort of annoyed that the author was inspired to be long-winded and have 16 or more parts to his story. I'm up to part 2 and there's a fear of disappointment that it'll be a boring waste of time. (In comparison to the Death Valley Germans story, which was captivating!)

I just finished the ROV series of posts. It was sufficiently captivating. I enjoyed his narrative - I can see that he was inspired by Mahood's writing style as well as his quest.

It's really good. Keep reading.

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