Every year, on the dizzying rocky trails of the Gariwerd/Grampians National Park in Western Victoria, hikers go missing or get stuck.
Usually, it's left to an eclectic crew of orange-clad volunteers to carry them out, wheezing and jollying each other forward under the weight of a stretcher carefully balanced between six or so bearers.
These State Emergency Service (SES) members from the nearby town of Stawell receive around 180 calls for help each year.
Many of the calls are requests to assist injured bushwalkers, but sometimes it's to attend calamitous road accidents or retrieve rock climbers from the cliffs of the famed Dyurrite/Mt Arapiles climbing routes.
But an ageing member base and an increase in visitors — drawn to the region by the newly opened Grampians Peaks Trail — means help might not always be a phone call away.
Alan Blight followed his mother into the Stawell SES branch 34 years ago. Then his wife and children came too.
He has responded to more than 1,000 requests for assistance in that time.
One he remembers clearly was a young boy who fell from a rock ledge in thick fog at Gariwerd/The Grampians. Mr Blight was one of the first rescuers to reach him.
"He was still talking to us, but I could see he was not well," Mr Blight said.
"We've managed to get him up to the surface, with the rest of the team constructing a pulley system ... but sadly he passed away about 30 minutes after we retrieved him."
Now aged 56 and the Stawell unit controller, Mr Blight remembers that tragic day because of the way the volunteers supported each other after the child's death.
The camaraderie the team shares has always attracted him to the job, "but the downside of SES [is it] can be traumatic," he said.
Mr Blight says joining the SES appealed to him because of the variety of work, and the possibility to learn new skills, "and to make a difference in someone's life".
He hopes the Stawell unit can attract new members to continue the work.
Originally conceived as a civil defence organisation to be activated in times of war, the SES grew into disaster management.
Across Victoria, SES says it has more than 5,000 volunteers, who respond to most natural disasters, as well as road accidents and bush rescues.
Mr Blight wonders if it is more difficult to attract new members to the SES today because most young people want to leave a small town like Stawell — a three-hour drive from Melbourne.
"When I started out in 1987 there was a community sense ... younger people wanted to do things for other people," he said.
"Certainly, younger people today don't see volunteering as being a high priority to them, a lot of them [think] let's get out of here."
But it's a vital time for the SES to attract new members - the last two years have been the busiest in the organisation's 70-year history.
One young member who has joined the Stawell unit is police trainee Brody Stewart.
"It's just something you can do outside of that normal routine of go to work, go play footy, go to the pub," Mr Stewart said.
"It's this other thing that you can do that really does have a positive impact on the community."
The Stawell unit has specially trained vertical rescuers who know how to retrieve people, or bodies, from the spectacular rock formations which attract visitors to the region.
Mr Stewart says the skills he has learnt and people he has met have opened up his world.
For John Hooper, Stawell unit's deputy controller, who defected from the CFA many years ago in search of more variety, the SES has provided decades of satisfying work both as a volunteer and subsequent employee.
Mr Hooper, who specialises in road rescue, hopes the unit can attract new volunteers.
He says volunteers are well supported – and importantly they can choose the kind of work they do.
But finding the time to volunteer isn't easy for everyone.
"It is difficult sometimes with [the] number of people we have to successfully do a rescue, particularly during business hours; it's not easy for them to get time off work nowadays," he said.
Now retired, Mr Hooper has decades of experience behind him. But the tracks of Gariwerd/The Grampians aren't getting any flatter, nor is the pack he wears to carry communication and hiking gear getting any lighter.
"None of us are 21 anymore," he says.
