At 7:30 one October morning, Western Mountain Rescue Team (WMRT) received a call about a hunter who had injured his leg when he fell crossing a stream. He was in a steep-walled valley at the intersection of the Beaver Creek trail and the Little Mill Creek trail and could not walk. The team had recently done another rescue in the area, and WMRT’s mission coordinator, McKenzie McConnell, quickly realized that evacuation options were challenging; they could carry him out on a trail for 20 miles, or they could use uphaul systems to zigzag 1.5 miles up the side of the valley with 2800 feet of elevation gain. The hunter was over six feet tall and weighed more than 200 pounds, so neither option would be easy, but the team opted for the uphaul.
WMRT is unique in Colorado in that it is the only team in the state whose membership is primarily college students. Western Colorado University students typically join the team in their freshman year and volunteer as rescuers for at least four years before moving on after graduation.
Thirteen volunteer WMRT members took two of the team’s trucks, along with Gunnison EMS, to the top of Little Mill Creek trail, where they found six inches of snow. EMS responders and a few WMRT members were sent into the valley to make patient contact, while a scouting team descended to look for uphaul anchor points and another team stayed at the truck to begin building rigging systems.
The first team reached the patient about two hours after the initial call and transported him by sked to the bottom of the first uphaul. It was snowing and showed no sign of a weather break; the team struggled on flat terrain, and more so once they began the uphaul. McKenzie asked for air support from local medevac helicopters, but weather and lack of landing zones prevented any of them from accepting the request. Finally, after attempting to secure other helicopter options, Gunnison Dispatch contacted CSAR to request a hoist from the Colorado National Guard and the Colorado Hoist Rescue Team. CSAR coordinators connected with Ryan White, director of WMRT.
While the team awaited a hoist decision, they continued the uphaul and sent out another page, knowing the original group of 13 rescuers would soon be exhausted. They also requested assistance from Crested Butte Search and Rescue. Nine more WMRT members and three CBSAR members responded. Weather continued to move in and out, complicating the hoist request, but it was finally approved that afternoon. The patient had been uphauled about 1200 feet at this point – only halfway up the valley walls.
It was about 6:00 pm when the Blackhawk finally arrived from the High Altitude Aviation Training Site in Eagle County, carrying rescue technicians from Mountain Rescue Aspen. The helicopter had launched at 4:00 pm, but the crew repeatedly had to find a route around the weather. They hoisted the patient and transported him to an ambulance at Gunnison Airport. Tired but relieved, WMRT and CBSAR members hiked out of the field and were back at the university at 9:00 pm that night, 13 hours after they first deployed.
“The persistence of the National Guard that day was remarkable,” said Don Johnson, CSAR state coordinator. “Due to weather, they flew for nearly four hours to make this hoist happen.”
“We would have really struggled without their support,” Ryan White added.
The hunter survived because of the seamless collaboration between local volunteers, the Colorado National Guard, the Colorado Hoist Rescue Team, and the CSAR state coordinators. This rescue illustrates the power of Colorado’s search and rescue system: local teams supported by statewide coordination, ensuring that even in the most remote, complex, and dangerous situations, help can still arrive in time.
