Grand Teton National Park (WY)
Stranded Kayakers Rescued From Snake River By Moonlight

Rangers rescued two local kayakers from the Snake River during an operation that took place by moonlight last Thursday night. Dave Muskat and Ann Marie Letko became stranded a half hour after sunset on an island between two channels of the river near the historic Bar BC Ranch after Letko struck a snag, flipped her kayak, and lost it to the current. A search was begun for the pair around 7 p.m. after a call for help came in to the interagency dispatch center. Muskat said that he was unsure of their exact location on the river. That uncertainty, coupled with the late hour, caused rangers to use the headlights from their patrol vehicles in an effort to pinpoint the kayakers’ position on the river. In their search for the boaters, two rangers traveled by foot along the riverbank south from Schwabacher’s Landing, while two other rangers hiked from Glacier View turnout on Highway 26/89/191 and began searching upstream toward Schwabacher’s Landing. Four other rangers drove along a gravel road on the west side of the Snake River. After searching for well over an hour, the rangers eventually found the kayakers and launched a raft to rescue them from the island. The rescue operation concluded about 9:35 p.m. after Muskat and Letko were driven by patrol vehicle from the Bar BC area to Moose Landing. The current flow on the Snake River between Deadman’s Bar and Moose Landing is running about 635 cubic feet per second, which means that a river trip requires a significantly longer period of time to complete than during the higher flows of summer and early fall.