Thursday March 28, 2024 at about 7:55pm, The Curry County Sheriff’s Office 911/Dispatch received A call from Garmin International, was received Thursday, March 28th, by Curry County Sheriff’s Office 911/Dispatch, reporting that an SOS alarm from subscriber Ryan Olsen of Coos Bay had been received just before 8:00pm.
The report was that a group of fourteen individuals were hiking the Rogue River Trail near Tucker Flats and the Rogue River Ranch, and that the group of four adults and ten juveniles were all wet and cold due to the inclement weather and that some of the boys had blisters on their feet and not able to continue.
The Sheriff’s dispatch was able to make contact with Randy Shelman of Coos Bay, who had been with the group earlier but had left to hike out one of the boys that wasn’t feeling well.
It became obvious as it began to become dark, that a rescue plan would have to wait until daylight the following day Friday, March 29th.
Search and Rescue and Curry County Sheriff’s deputies teamed up with the U.S. Forest Service, who was very familiar with the upper Rogue River and trails, and deployed the Forest Service Boat at Foster Bar, navigating the river to Gleason Bar, about four and a half miles from the Rogue River Ranch.
From there the team hiked the trail and found the group near the Rogue River Ranch.
After checking medical status for which turned out to be sixteen individuals, they hiked back down to the U.S. Forest Service boat.
Part of the team were then transported back to Foster Bar where the Sheriff’s marine boat was staged before the two boats went back to the remaining subjects and transported them all back to Foster Bar where they were shuttled down river by vehicles.
