Search & Rescue

Last month, a woman from Bethel started a late afternoon hike in Southcentral Alaska that turned into a survival mission that spanned three days.

After the skipper’s girlfriend brought him to a rock, a fire department volunteer on a paddleboard completed the rescue.

Authorities credit good Samaritans on the scene with helping in the rescue.

Westfall thanked his training with the Alaska Marine Safety Education Association to help him maximize his odds for survival.

Deteriorating weather had ended search efforts for the day about an hour before Kiefer was found.

The woman contacted her husband, telling him she had been charged by multiple bears and had used bear spray. Shortly after that, she stopped responding to phone calls and messages. 

The first month of climbing season on Denali has seen more search-and-rescue calls than there are in some entire years.

The flamingo riders weren’t worried at first.

A group of 12 mountaineers were rescued Tuesday from a glacier in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park by the Alaska National Guard.  

The pair of New York pilots had crashed their Cessna 182 into a mountainside at 6,000 feet — hard enough that one of its wings was gone, and their gear was scattered across the mountainside.