Single Mountain Bike Rider around Miller Lake Road

At about 1:00PM on Friday, November 29, Peter Street, visiting from England, left his daughters house on West Lake Blvd to go for a mountain bike ride. He had indicated that his plan was to ride up the Miller Lake Road, and loop back via Barker Pass or General Creek. The weather was clear and mild for the season. Highs in the 50’s, but lows dropping into the 20’s overnight. When Peter didn’t return by night fall his daughter and son-in-law reported him missing to the Placer County Sheriff. Since the Miller Lake Road straddles the Placer and El Dorado County Line resources from both counties were brought into the search. Due to the many miles of roads in the area, and the lack of confidence in the route Peter may have taken, the SO called in motorized units first to conduct hasty searches of the area. The Placer County ATV SAR team was brought in about 9:00PM. These teams ran the dirt roads west of Tahoma and Homewood. In addition, an air scent dog worked the lower section of Blackwood Canyon. About 2:00AM, 4WD teams from Placerville arrived to conduct more detailed searches of the jeep trails, looking for tracks.

TNSAR involvement TNSAR was paged out at 4:30AM on Saturday morning. A and B skiers were to stage at the Miller Lake Road at 6:30AM prepared for mountain bike and foot searching. The 4WD teams were reporting bicycle tracks on the road to Lake Richardson. This would indicate that Peter was making the loop to the General Creek trail. Since the 4WD’s were following the track, a team of four riders (Nordic 1) rode up General Creek in hopes of intersecting Peter or his track. If there was no luck, Nordic 1 would be in position to join the search for tracks higher up the Miller Lake Road. Randy Sharp and Steve Hoyt (Nordic 2) checked the lower General Creek area where there is a network of dirt roads which are used for cross country ski trails in the winter. At about 10:00AM Eagle 1 (Placer County Helicopter) reported sighting Peter near Bear Lake, and that he appeared to be in good condition. While Eagle 1 found a LZ, and signaled Peter to meet them there, Nordic 1 continued in that direction (just in case). About half the 2 miles were covered when they reported that he was aboard and in route to the Coast Guard Station at Lake Forest. Evidently Peter was in good condition. He had intended to make the loop up the Miller Lake Road then North over Barker Pass to Blackwood Canyon. Deep snows on Barker pass turned him back, and he ran out of daylight in the vicinity of Bear Lake. He then spent a cold night out in his riding clothes, with only the light from the display of his digital camera for comfort. He knew generally where he was, and intended to backtrack in the morning, but was rescued instead.

Sheriff	Com Van	Dispatch	TNSAR members
Paul Moyer Fred Carry Dan Ingalls	Larry Clark Jake Dutton Brian York	Jackie Thomas Marilyn Stack Marty Schoonmaker Amy Horne Kathy King	Jim Rienstra Jim Granger Steve Twomey Mike Kennett Jim White Randy Sharp Steve Hoyt Glen Poulsen Dirk Schoonmaker