An estimated 45,000 people visit Fossil Creek every year to hike, swim and cool off. Amid the rugged conditions and remote location's busiest time of year, search and rescue calls spike.
KNAU’s Melissa Sevigny spoke with Sgt. Steven Warburton, who says the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office has conducted 30 rescue missions in Fossil Creek since the start of last year.
That’s quite a lot, that feels like a big number.
It’s a pretty big number. It’s not our highest rescue area—Sedona takes the cake on that — but that’s an extreme high amount of calls just for one area.
Can you give me a sense, are there patterns in these calls, what’s typical for what people are calling to get help with?
Most of our calls deal with hikers in that area. Our hiker calls, the large majority of them are consistently inexperienced and then lack of preparation or planning. And then, fatigue, getting into a situation that they weren’t necessarily ready for…. We deal with a handful of injuries, sprained ankles — things like that — also, because it is rocky terrain. A handful of weeks ago, we just assisted Gila County on a drowning call out there…. But the majority is lack of food, lack of water, lack of planning.
Do you feel like you and the Gila County Sheriff’s Office have enough resources to handle the influx of calls, or is it feeling like it’s a little beyond—do you need more resources to deal with these issues?
We could always use more resources and more things to make it easier for us, but thankfully we have a great group of volunteers that just love to beat themselves up and do a lot of work for the sake of their fellow man.
You mentioned the length of time it takes to get down that very rugged Fossil Creek road, is there anything that would help you in terms of access, are there things that you could do to make it easier to access or maybe station someone down there to be ready to respond?
This number used to be a lot bigger before the Forest Service actually implemented their permit system. And so that number has dropped dramatically because the Foret Service during those peak hours for the permitting system have done a great job in regulating how many people are down there, and then they also do a great job of being down there during those peak hours. So when most people are down there, there is an employee of the Forest Service staged right there at the gate… As far as making it easier to access for us, it’s just one of those areas, I’m not sure—we could maybe pave the road all the way down there, is that feasible? I don’t think so. Nor is it necessary. I think it’s just the nature of the beast in the given area. For Yavapai County, we have handfuls of areas like that that are very remote and they’re—we just have to play the cards we’re dealt.
So what do you want visitors to the area to know?
The big thing for anyone recreating in Yavapai County, or Arizona for that matter, is spend that extra 10-20-30 minutes preparing for your day. We are always constantly telling people: bring lots of water. Brings lots of snacks or food. Be prepared. Read lots of reviews, make sure that you’re taking on an adventure that is within your skill set…. It’s a beautiful place, it really is… and it should be experienced. It’s really a hidden gem.
Steven, thank you so much for speaking with me today, I appreciate it.
Absolutely.
