Seattle Mountain Rescue (SMR) is a volunteer mountain rescue group operating out of King County, Washington. Within the county, SMR is part of the King County Search and Rescue Association (KCSARA). It is also part of the Mountain Rescue Association and frequently works with other neighboring mountain rescue units, including Everett Mountain Rescue, Tacoma Mountain Rescue, Olympic Mountain Rescue, and others.
The organization's roots started in the 1930s as an informal list of climbers helping each other. Many of these climbers served in the 10th Mountain Division (United States) during World War II. They formalized the organization in 1948.
Some of the early leaders of Seattle Mountain Rescue, notably Wolf Bauer, Ome Daiber, and Dr. Otto Trott, brought back extensive knowledge from Europe, designed new gear, and pioneered new procedures.
How Seattle Mountain Rescue is dispatched
A reporting party calls 911. (The reporting party may be the subject or his/her partner, or maybe someone in the city reporting an overdue hiker.) They tell the dispatcher that the subject is in the mountains and needs search and rescue. That will transfer the response to the appropriate people. In King County, a sheriff deputy will act as Incident Commander and dispatch appropriate units. Outside of King County, a request will be made from that jurisdiction to King County Sheriff Office for SMR's involvement. The unit is paged, and a member of the unit is preassigned to be In-Town Operations Leader (ITOL). The ITOL coordinates with the sheriff and members of the unit to deploy people into the field.