Today is a beautiful day at "the canyon" and one of our days off as well. When we ran up to the park HQ this morning, our timing was just right to be able to watch the San Antonio PD's air rescue unit practicing for a wilderness extraction. This is a new unit for the police and they are training their crews for removal of injuries or victims from tall buildings, traffic accidents, factory complexes, and even from wilderness parks.

 With this park being mostly wilderness with access mostly by bicycle or on foot, it would be very easy for a visitor to become injured or have a health problem while more than 5 miles from the visitor center or the nearest road and distances that exceed 10 miles are not impossible. 

The park has trained people available at any time that the park is open, but we do not have air capabilities so this is a great addition to the preparedness of the park staff. The SAPD is using our park as a base of operation for the practice of extraction techniques from brush and timber, as well as rugged canyons and other difficult terrain. 

Since the park is not open to the public on Tuesday through Thursday this is the time that training is done here. Being our day off, we were able to have a front row seat to watch the entire operation. Pam was rather disappointed in that they never offered her a chance to play the victim and ride out in the rescue basket! I must admit that I would have loved to get into that harness and ride the cable up to the helicopter or even perhaps over to the landing zone, although I think that I would prefer that to a ride in the basket. I'm not sure about letting them lower me into the trees and heavy brush, as the crew members were taking turns in doing. 

Returning to the volunteer village, we came by just in time to see one of the feral pigs and a litter of young as they were about to cross the road. These pigs have become a serious problem in much of Texas. They disappeared into the brush too quickly for me to get any pictures.