Big Horn Co. Search & Rescue state’s second busiest in 2025

Local foundation, volunteers step up as funding cut 

Big Horn County Search and Rescue took on 54 missions in 2025, up by 24 from the year prior. This continues a trend of increased calls as the department also faces hefty budget cuts. 

“Little old Big Horn County almost always finished in the top four of the busiest of the 23 counties (in Wyoming),” Sheriff Ken Blackburn said. This year, the county took second, just behind Teton County in mission numbers. With prairie, mountain and water rescues, sometimes in isolated wilderness areas, Big Horn County S&R responds to just about every type of call. Blackburn guessed that the only reason S&R’s numbers for the year weren’t about 10 higher has been the warm autumn and lack of snow. 

Big Horn County’s S&R squad is supported by roughly 60 volunteers who take time off work to get certified and trained, plus take on personal expenses of fuel and transportation when county vehicles are unavailable. 

“These men and women are just absolutely phenomenal because when the chips are down, when the weather is bad, when everyone else is running out, those guys are saddling up and riding in to help their people. And they’re doing it on their own dime, largely, and they’re doing it for their fellow man,” Blackburn said. 

The team is divided into North and South squads that work together and independently.  Last year they helped with stuck boats, dirt bike and horseback accidents, stranded motorists, altitude sickness, a head-on collision with a semi-truck, a camper on fire, snowmobile wrecks, a deadly fall into Hole in the Wall in Devil’s Canyon, and a suicide, to name a few. 

On the South side, S&R helps firefighters with vehicle extrications and fills their air packs. 

“I think that travel and tourism has promoted so much of Wyoming that people are coming to Wyoming more and exploring more and exploring deeper and getting into trouble,” Blackburn said of the increase in calls. Many times, visitors are unaware that a backcountry satellite or radio frequency communication device is needed for emergency calls independent of cell service in rural Wyoming, and sometimes, even those are faulty. 

“I think additionally, these extreme sports post-COVID have become more and more enticing, and I think for us particularly in Big Horn County, we are the first real large wilderness area west of the Mississippi that people can get to,” Blackburn said. 

Cloud Peak Wilderness Area has been the subject of several high-profile rescues in years’ past, with 2025’s largest mission encompassing the 20-day search for missing hiker Grant Gardner. The 38-year-old Minnesota man summited Cloud Peak on July 29 and was reported missing Aug. 1. Big Horn County S&R alone put in an estimated 1,023 volunteer hours, not including volunteer flights and assistance from Sheridan, Johnson, Washakie, Park or Teton counties and other organizations. 

After an extensive search over rough terrain including helicopters, tracking dogs, Forward Looking Inferred Radar tracking and electronic device tracking, the search was called off on Aug. 20. A professional climbing team from North Carolina discovered Gardner’s remains a week later under a ledge, and in October, the Big Horn County Coroner’s office ruled the cause of death to be blunt force trauma to the head, a tragic accident. 

“That’s part of what we’re looking at; we’re seeing the complexity of the searches is increasing and the expense of these searches are increasing,” Blackburn said. 

Big Horn County accrued roughly $65,000 to $75,000 in expenses on the search. Had all the volunteer work been paid, Blackburn estimated it would have surpassed $500,000. This comes as county programs across the board took budget cuts, with Search and Rescue’s dropping from $106,913 for 2024-25 to $50,000 for 2025-26 due largely to property tax cuts. 

To make up for the expense, Big Horn County will request the cost of the Gardner search be covered through the governor’s Search and Rescue Council fund, supported through donations from hunting and ORV tags. Blackburn, who currently chairs the council, estimated about $250,000 is added to the fund a year, with about $1.5 million kept in reserve. 

“But as you can see, one expensive search can wipe that out,” Blackburn said. 

“And that brings up the question, do we charge the public? ... It’s really difficult to charge the public when you’re a county agency.”

Recently, the Big Horn County Search and Rescue Foundation, about three or four years in the making, became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. It is anticipated that the foundation will help cover costs typically funded through the county budget. Most of S&R’s expenses are currently related to maintenance, when Blackburn noted ideally, they would include growth. 

“[The foundation] has been a real blessing in this time where we have been cut so hard economically from our county budget,” Blackburn said. “That’s probably the only thing that is allowing us to survive, and it’s unfortunate, because that was developed to augment the county budget, not replace the county budget and become a crutch for these cuts.”

Board Chair Natalie Wardell is joined by Carrie Hunt, Shauna Tranas, Gretchen Saam-Anders, Jim Minchow, Dennis Woodward and Brooks Jordan as the foundation looks to host a dinner and auction in 2026 to benefit both the North and South squads. 

For example, the foundation recently helped cover dry suits at $1,200 a pop for swift water rescue training after four North Squad volunteers were certified. The former suits were so old that when the volunteers tried them on, they actually fell apart. 

“That’s something where we just have to have it,” Wardell said, citing three water rescues last summer alone. 

“Obviously, I think public safety is paramount and I would go on record and say that public safety needs to be maintained,” Blackburn said. “We’ve been able to do it this year, but what’s going to happen next year if we have to absorb even more extensive cuts without any reimbursement from the state?”