A four-man Riverside Mountain Rescue Unit (RMRU) team headed by locals Lee Arnson and Chad Marler fought their way down steep terrain and rugged brush to rescue a first-time deer hunter who had become stranded in the Rouse Ridge area near Anza on Saturday, Oct. 1.
“We got the call out around 9 p.m.,” said Arnson. County Sheriff’s deputies had earlier indicated the area where they thought they had heard the man. “It was a long ways off Rouse Ridge Road and a long way down, around 1,500 feet, through bad scrub vegetation,” he added.
Arnson and Marler got to the man around midnight. He was younger and uninjured. “That was good,” said Arnson, since with no injury there would be no helicopter evacuation. “After rehydrating him and giving him some food, It took about two hours to hike him back to base on Rouse Ridge Road,” said Arnson, notching another successful rescue into the RMRU logs. The hunter, from the desert, required no further medical attention.
