Rescue team parachutes to remote Alaska river, rafts across to reach hunters

When a group of civilian hunters found themselves trapped by a rising river above the Arctic Circle this month, an Alaska Air National Guard team had to use just about every backcountry rescue trick in the book to get them out.

In a span of a day-long rescue that extended into night, the Anchorage-based 176th Wing flew an HC-130 to the most remote corner of the state, where a team of pararescuemen, or PJs, parachuted near the missing hunters, according to a release from the Guard. There, the PJs rigged a rope system across a rising river, then ferried the group of stuck hunters to safety on a raft the HC-130 crew dropped under its own parachute.

Once on dry ground, the team even started a campfire to get the group warm before a civilian helicopter arrived.

The rescue began, as most do in the age of satellite phones, with a call for help to the Alaska Rescue Coordination Center at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. On the other end of the line was a group of hunters on the Kukpowruk River, one of the most remote and inaccessible spots in the state.

The Kukpowruk is one of the rare rivers on Earth that flows entirely above the Arctic Circle. It runs on the northern side of the state’s farthest-north mountains, and its mouth flows into the Arctic Ocean roughly 120 miles from the nearest town.

In Lower 48 math, the rescue was roughly equivalent to first responders in New York City responding to an emergency in Atlanta, Georgia.

“Using coordinates provided through the hunters’ two-way satellite communication device, the HC-130 crew reached the search area, visually identified the hunters’ tent and spotted their flashlight,” the Guard’s release said. “With a low cloud ceiling limiting operations in the area, 212th RQS PJs conducted a low-altitude jump with a pack raft to reach the stranded hunters.”

Packrafts are single-person, inflatable kayaks that are a common backcountry tool in Alaska. Deflated, the boats can easily be carried in a small backpack.

The HC-130 crew also airdropped an additional raft and survival equipment near the site. On the ground, the PJs — who frequently train for both swiftwater and high-angle rope rescues — rigged a line that they used to ferry the hunters across the river.

“The PJs then started a fire to help warm the hunters while they waited for extraction,” the release said.

Air Force PJs used a similar rigging of an overhead line to transport rescuers, supplies, and, eventually, 13 boys trapped hundreds of feet up a flooded cave in Thailand in 2018. 

A civilian helicopter from Utqiagvik — Alaska’s farthest-north town, formerly known as Barrow — eventually arrived to put up the PJs and the hunters, where the HC-130 was able to land.

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