Mountain Rescue Association. From the initial nine charter teams founding MRA on June 7, 1959, we have now grown to include 35 qualified mountain rescue teams representing 10 states and 2 provinces. Included in this are Alaska and four national parks. The main trend of MRA concern this past year has definitely been one of safety and safety education in all its aspects relating to the mountains and related sports. Rescue teams with active public safety programs have been asked to improve them; teams with little or no program are being spurred to get going and offered help to do it. Considerable concern has been expressed over the caliber of instructors teaching mountaineering in clubs and summer camps, the feeling being that we should be improving our “ability to teach” just as decidedly as we are improving the content of the courses. MRA has requested State and Federal aviation agencies to push for satisfactory design of an aircraft radio rescue beacon that would be energized to transmit on impact, and then to follow up with obtaining appropriate legislation. The competition among teams to develop the “perfect” rescue cable system has stimulated some ingenious mechanisms, and by consolidating their results we should soon have an extremely capable, versatile, and safe design. And so it goes; the man-hours spent in search and rescue, safety education, equipment design and testing are all truly phenomenal. And just think, these fellows (and a few gals, too) still find time to even do a bit of their own mountaineering.

Kenn Carpenter, President