Found

A Life in Mountain Rescue

By: Bree Loewen

Narrated by: Rachel Perry

Mountain search-and-rescue volunteer Bree Loewen's to-do list isn't quite the same as most people's. On any given day, it might include:

• Go grocery shopping
• Bake pie seen on Pinterest
• Figure out what to do with my life
• Rescue climbers caught in avalanche on Chair Peak
• Pick up Vivi at Mom's

A former Mount Rainier climbing ranger and trained leader in mountain search-and-rescue, Bree shares the drama and the camaraderie of this work, as well as the challenges of trying to fit her other roles as wife and mother into what is still largely a masculine environment. In a fearless voice - disarming yet laced with dark humor - Bree guides us through intense recoveries, vivid wilderness landscapes, and the warmth she discovers in motherhood, community, and purpose.

©2017 Bree Loewen (P)2020 Tantor

Couldn’t finish this book

Too much personal information for my interest. Seems like the rescue stories are just a side story to the author”s own life philosophy.

Unique tone for the subject

Factual and funny...a good mix to cover the subject. I Enjoyed listening to this book.

Captures the Mountain Rescue experience

I think Bree did a good job capturing the awkward interactions that occur due to mountain rescuers being amateurs. Both the need to balance everyday life with being available for random calls. She also touches on how the techniques are different between sport climbs and search and rescue, mostly due to extra factors of safety. That said, she does alternate between being very confident and having no confidence in her abilities. I was on one of the missions mentioned and went to a training with Bree. She is a bad ass climber/hiker and knows a ton about Search and Rescue, so it is weird for her to voice so much self-doubt on her own abilities. She attributes it to being female in a majority male environment, but everyone I saw her was in awe of her abilities and knowledge.

Good read

This story was an entertaining read. I felt that it was geared more towards moms as there were multiple side stories about mundane family life intermingled with having to drop everything to perform a search and rescue. The author seems to have some kind of complex in relation to firefighters. I’ve worked as a search and rescue park ranger, a firefighter, and a ski patroller and I’ve always seen good camaraderie between the groups. She makes it sound like people look down on her because she is a volunteer, which is not something I’ve seen that often. Other than that, it was an entertaining story about some gnarly rescues and I recommend reading if you’re interested in SAR.

Told like a story

I’m not a climber or SAR
but I enjoyed this book. Any outdoors person will enjoy.