Who Will Save Your Life in the Smokies?

"Members of Backcountry Unit Search and Rescue ( BUSAR), a nonprofit comprised of volunteers recruited for their athleticism, are often the ones who show up after you blow out your knee or get lost in the woods-which tends to happen with some frequency in a place that logs more than twelve million visits a year (more than Yosemite and Yellowstone combined)."

"The Smokies is densely forested, with nearly nine hundred miles of trail and little to no cell service. Reporting on BUSAR for a piece in this week's issue, I met or heard about people who fell off of waterfalls, or who snapped an ankle; one patient got gravely ill while staying in a remote shelter, and required a rescue mission that lasted thirty-six hours and involved, at minimum, a twenty-mile, round-trip, hike-during Hurricane Helene."

"Andrew Herrington, a former park ranger and a wilderness-survival instructor, started BUSAR a decade ago because he knew that the Smokies, the busiest national park, needed help. Each year, there are more than a hundred emergencies in the backcountry. The national parks were already understaffed, even after hitting peak popularity, when, last year, Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency cut twenty-four per cent of the National Park Service's positions."

Backcountry Unit Search and Rescue (BUSAR) is a volunteer nonprofit that augments Great Smoky Mountains National Park rescue capacity. The Smokies receive more than twelve million visits annually, have nearly nine hundred miles of trail, and often have little to no cell service. The park records more than a hundred backcountry emergencies each year, while recent federal staffing cuts removed about twenty-four percent of National Park Service positions. BUSAR increases rescue manpower by nineteen and recruits highly athletic volunteers—climbers, paddlers, runners, and mountain bikers—who meet rigorous physical standards. Team workouts are deliberately brutal and emphasize 'purposeful shared suffering.' BUSAR handled missions including a thirty-six-hour, twenty-mile round-trip rescue during Hurricane Helene.

Read at The New Yorker