With years of collective experience, Juneau Mountain Rescue volunteers sometimes deal with the worst-case scenarios. That includes last summer when there were five fatalities in Juneau’s backcountry between June 21 and Sept. 16 — four of which resulted in recoveries of the bodies. The volunteer search and rescue team was intimately involved in those incidents.
KTOO’s Mike Lane spoke with Juneau Mountain Rescue Operations Chief Jackie Ebert about the organization and how to stay safe while adventuring this summer.
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The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Mike Lane: What types of situations is JMR dispatched to assist with?
Jackie Ebert: We are certified in a few different things: medical search, avalanche, and high angle technical rescue, so we can get called out for any of those types of situations. Often it happens as like we might get a call for a lost hiker or an overdue hiker, and it can kind of, any different situations progress, and it can turn into a technical mission where we need ropes, or if the person has a broken leg, then we package them up and carry them out,
Mike Lane: So your involvement can be just about anything?
Jackie Ebert: And we have we train, and we’re certified for, you know, like field response with all of those like specialties, but also we have an incident management team, and so we can deploy statewide, really, and just help organize the search and manage that as well.
Mike Lane: How can people stay safe while hiking and adventuring this summer?
Jackie Ebert: You know, last summer we kind of, we had a rough year where there was a lot of unfortunate accidents in the backcountry. One of the biggest things is check the weather, like “know before you go.” File a plan and stick to it. Let people know where you’re going using mapping software on your phone. There’s a lot of good programs out there, like CalTopo and Gaia and onX, and (it) just keeps track of where you are.
Mike Lane: Okay, what kind of training is involved with Juneau Mountain Rescue team members?
Jackie Ebert: Yeah, so we have training in kind of all all of those specialties, like I just talked about. So, in the winter we focus on avalanche, and then kind of, we always practice medical throughout the year. All of our members are certified to a special standard, like a wilderness first aid course, but I would say three quarters of us are wilderness first responders, as well as EMTs.
Mike Lane: So it’s a continual training throughout the year, depending on the weather, what you’re going to train for, right?
Jackie Ebert: Yeah, exactly, and we kind of just make sure we stay well-rounded and distribute those trainings kind of throughout the year based on the season it is. We train typically three times per month. We have a regular Saturday training, a regular weeknight training, and then a monthly technical training so that we can keep up on our technical skills.
Mike Lane: What other organizations does Juno Mountain Rescue work alongside?
Jackie Ebert: Yeah, so we work with the SEADOGS quite often, CCFR, the state troopers. So we operate kind of under their authority, so we’re always working with the troopers when we go on an admission. We also, yeah, Coast Guard, we work with a lot of the local flight companies.
Mike Lane: With the amount of time that you’ve been doing this, is there any one particular incident that kind of stands out?
Jackie Ebert: In — I might get the date incorrect — but I believe it was 2024, we had four missions within like a 48-hour period and one of them was, like, what we call multi-operational period, so it went like over two days, and just seeing how our team was able to manage all of that, I think that’ll stick with me forever and they were all successful live rescues, so that just makes you feel good.
Mike Lane: Juneau Mountain Rescue, it’s Jackie Ebert. She is the operations chief and incident commander. And thank you for coming in today.
Jackie Ebert: Yeah, thank you for having me.