As Coloradans, we’re no strangers to wild winter weather. But the winter storm on March 14th was truly historic with upwards of five feet of snow falling in a single day in some locations, and wide swaths of I-70 shut down.
As mountain rescue professionals, we know that emergencies do not stop for bad weather. Alpine had already run two calls that day, pushing team snowmobiles to their limits in the deep and unconsolidated powder.
By the time the third call came in for the day, after 10 PM, only a few members had the ability to respond. The call stated that a person near Blackhawk had been plowing roads near his property for several hours before breaking down. This individual was miles from home and lacked proper clothing or equipment. With temperatures dropping into the single digits, he initially dug a snow cave with a plan to bed down for the night before realizing he would likely freeze to death.
When her father did not let her know he was safe and home, our subject’s daughter knew something was wrong and called the Gilpin County Sheriff’s Office from her out-of-state residence. This call set into motion an overnight epic mission to save her father’s life.
The weather had continued dumping snow throughout the day, and members worked with the Colorado Department of Transportation to access closed parts of I-70, for once eerily silent and free of traffic. Members began arriving in Blackhawk at the junction of Highway 119 and Missouri Gulch Road around midnight. A team from Timberline Fire had arrived earlier and attempted to make progress up Missouri Gulch Road in a tracked UTV to no avail. The snow was too deep and unconsolidated for them to make it more than a quarter of a mile up the road.
Hoping snow machines might have a better chance of plowing through the snow, Alpine sent a hasty team of two up the road to attempt to make further progress. Our subject’s last known point was a little over two miles up the road, and urgency was building to find him. At this point our patient had been able to contact his daughter, and she could hear panic building in his voice as he realized his situation was becoming dire and he was becoming increasingly exhausted wading through chest-deep snow. His daughter worked to keep him calm and helped members of Alpine to attempt to better pinpoint her father’s location.
Unfortunately, the snow was too deep even for snow machines and with the building urgency of the situation, another plan was needed. Three members volunteered to begin skiing up the road to locate our patient. Even on skis, the rescuers were breaking trail through knee to hip depth snow. Making headway was extremely physically taxing and slow going. Progress was made in increments of 100 feet, with a member breaking trail before pulling off to the side in waist deep snow. Operations also began working with the ski team to formulate an evacuation plan. The patient’s physical condition was unknown, and there was no guarantee additional personnel would be able to make it up the road until the morning.
Beyond the huffing and puffing of the ski team, the night had a deafening silence. Members stopped every 500 feet to call out the patient’s name, straining their ears for any reply. For over four hours, the team slowly broke trail up the road, continuing to call out to the patient while attempting to conserve what little energy they had. Finally after 4 AM, members heard a weak response to their yells. Suddenly filled with adrenaline, the skiers powered up the last hill to where they could see a light shining and found the patient who had collapsed and come to rest on his back, completely exhausted and severely hypothermic. When he was found, the subject was on the phone with his daughter saying his final goodbyes. Members talked briefly with the daughter and let her know that her father had been found and that the worst would be avoided. The ski team worked to stabilize the patient, and warmed him by getting him off the snow and wrapping him in insulating layers to prevent further heat loss.
As information funneled into command, Alpine operations was able to contact Gilpin County Road and Bridge and request a heavy front-end loader to respond and begin slowly carving out a path for snowmobiles to follow behind. The ski team waited with the subject for another hour while the brave Road and Bridge member cleared snow off the road. Finally, the ski team saw the lights of the front loader followed by a convoy of snowmobiles and could breathe a sigh of relief knowing the hardest part of the night was over. Members loaded the subject into the Timberline Fire UTV and rode out on snowmobiles, exiting the field around 7AM.
In the end it took the three members over four hours to ski two miles to reach the subject. Without the lifesaving support provided by the skiers, he would not have survived until morning.
Alpine extends a heartfelt thanks to George Baker, the front-end loader operator who assisted with this call. His bravery and skill made the early morning evacuation of our patient possible.