Planning a hike?

The Ventura County Sheriff's Department suggests that you fill out a hiking plan before you go hiking.

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Santa Paula Canyon provides an excellent place to go hiking here in Ventura County. All year long the water is flowing over the waterfalls, filling the pools for swimming. There are a couple of areas of interest, but in this case we are practicing in an area called the Punch Bowl. The Upper Ojai Team trains regularly in Santa Paula Canyon and today we were practicing a using a rope system to evacuate an injured person from the bottom of the canyon. The canyon in this area is very deep and quite narrow making it difficult for the helicopter to perform a standard hoist rescue. Whenever anyone is hurt in this area both the Helicopter and the SAR team are activated to respond to the area. The photos below show the team preparing to be flown to the Punch Bowl area and the team exiting the copter. Look carefully at the helicopter and you will notice that it is in what we call a hover load. Additional training photos can be access via the navigation bar to the left.