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Vail Mountain Rescue Group thrives in helping those in need

All-volunteer outfit has been called out for 170 missions over the past 12 months

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Vail Mountain Rescue Group members will head out at all hours, in all weather conditions, to help others. The group was dispatched 170 times from June of 2024 to June of this year.
Vail Mountain Rescue Group/Courtesy photo

The Vail Mountain Rescue Group this year has added 20 new members to its 76-strong group. About 100 people applied for those volunteer positions.

Group members are called out at all hours, on weekends, over holidays, and often respond in conditions that would have most people saying, “I’m not going out in that.”

Please just call, quickly

The Vail Mountain Rescue Group is an all-volunteer organization, and never charges for its services. If you need help, please call 911.

To learn more about Vail Mountain Rescue Group, or to donate, go to VailMountainRescue.org.

Group Vice President Emily Brown and Chief of Staff Rob Foster on Tuesday provided an overview of the organization’s past 12 months to the Eagle County Board of Commissioners.



While the rescue group is all-volunteer, Foster told the commissioners there’s always a mission coordinator on call. When a call comes in from the Vail Public Safety Communications Center, the mission coordinator will determine whether a team needs to be called out. That requires gathering information and doing research about what the reporting party needs.

Sometimes, it’s just directions

Foster said sometimes, if the reporting party has a good cell phone connection and just needs directions, that person can just get a map via text message. The coordinator can then track the reporting party on the way back out to a trailhead or roadway.

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If a rescue team is needed, the dispatch center will contact other team members, who gather at the group’s Edwards headquarters. Gear is gathered and members head out.

An average mission is called out just before 2 p.m., which doesn’t leave a lot of daylight in the dead of winter. The average mission lasts a little more than four hours, with just more than five members working.

From June of 2024 through June of this year, the group has been called out 170 times. Brown said the group has had some “great wins,” thanks in part to some new technology, including drones. The group has 15 members certified to fly those devices, one of which has a “drop kit” that can pick up and drop off items ranging from personal flotation devices to water bottles.

Some drones can also carry a one-way speaker that can be heard up to 100 feet away.

The group also has a sonar device that can help with river searches.

While most of the group’s 170 missions over the past 12 months have come and gone without much notice, Brown said two have stood out.

There was the search in February for missing snowboarder Connor Gill. Brown said that search involved rescue groups from around the state as well as ski patrol and law enforcement from around the region. In the end, Gill was found thanks to cell phone forensics provided by the Eagle County Sheriff’s Office and the work of Stryker, the group’s search dog.

Then there’s the 19-year-old case of Michelle Vanek, who disappeared without a trace on a hike on the Mount of the Holy Cross in September of 2005.

The group that led the search for missing hiker Michelle Vanek was, from left, Heather Parker, Jenn Pirog, Camille Rohrlich, Anya Minetz, Erika German and Emily Brown. German and fellow Vail Mountain Rescue Group member Zach Smith on Sept. 12, 2024, found items believed to have belonged to Vanek.
Vail Mountain Rescue Group/courtesy photo

In August of 2024, an all-female team went into the area. A subsequent search discovered what are believed to be Vanek’s belongings.

Brown was on that first team.

It’s a ‘spectacular story’

“That’s a spectacular story for you all,” Commissioner Jeanne McQueeney said, lauding the female-led team that solved the nearly two-decade mystery of Vanek’s disappearance.

Commissioner Matt Scherr noted that the group is community members “putting themselves in harm’s way” for others. “It’s pretty remarkable what you guys do,” Scherr said.

Commissioner Tom Boyd’s father was an early member of the group, and noted, “We’ve come a long way” since those early days.

Eagle County Sheriff James van Beek said the group has come a long way since he first took office in 2015.

“They were struggling,” he said of the group, adding that the group “really hunkered down,” and now displays a level of professionalism that’s enviable in a volunteer group.

“We know they’re a resource we can call on,” van Beek said.

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