Statutory Duties of the Sheriff’s Office: Search and Rescues

One of the most exciting, and in my opinion, rewarding, duties of our county sheriff’s office is the conduction and coordination of search and rescue missions.

Here in Carbon County, we are blessed to live in such a vast and geographically diverse county. However, the sheer size and topography of our county makes certain aspects of our job difficult, such as search and rescue missions.

According to Wyoming State Statute, the sheriff’s office is responsible for the coordination of all search and rescue missions within our county. Luckily for us, Carbon County has a robust team of volunteers that make this statutory responsibility manageable.

When it comes to search and rescue organization in Carbon County, the county is basically broken into two halves: east and west. Being so large and geographically diverse, a split organization makes the management and dispatching of searchers much easier. Our Carbon County search and rescue teams are comprised of one-hundred percent volunteers who utilize their own resources (i.e. snowmobiles, four-wheelers, trucks, etc.) They truly define the meaning of “selfless service.”

Carbon County has already logged seventeen (17) search and rescue missions for 2023. This puts us just behind Bighorn County (19) and ahead of both Sweetwater (15) and Albany (11.) The majority of our search and rescue missions are executed in the Snowy and Sierra Madre Mountain Ranges in the southern half of our county. However, this does not mean that we don’t have search and rescue missions in our northern half. Seminoe Reservoir, Miracle Mile, and the wilderness areas south of Rawlins all have their fair share.

The most common type of search and rescue mission we execute are lost snowmobiler incidents in one of our two southern mountain ranges (Snowy Range or Sierra Madres.) These missions can be extremely dangerous, as the weather conditions are rarely good (blowing snow, sub-freezing temperatures) and the search areas are often extremely remote.

I’d like to take a moment to thank all our search and rescue members, both past and present, for their service. Without their dedication to the mission and their selfless act of volunteering their time and equipment, our search and rescue operations would be nonexistent. Thank you!

As always, thanks for reading. If you have any questions, please email us at ccsheriff@carbonwy.com or find us on Facebook at Alex Bakken-Carbon County Sheriff.

Thanks!

Sheriff Alex S. Bakken.