If you’ve been involved in the Colorado backcountry search and rescue scene for any length of time, you most likely know the name Woody Woodward. Woody started with Alpine Rescue Team (ART) in 1988, served on its board more than once, and continues to have an operational role as a mission coordinator. He has responded to about 1450 backcountry incidents in that time and was the first on the team to hit 1000 calls.
In the early 1990s, he became involved in the Rocky Mountain Region of the Mountain Rescue Association, serving on the region board for four years. With Jeff Sparhawk, he helped to re-write the regional bylaws and the reaccreditation process. About his decision to move on from the MRA, Woody says, “Sometimes you’ve just run the gamut. You’ve done your work and you hope you built a good foundation. Plus, I was tired of driving all over the state.”
Woody became a state coordinator for CSAR (then CSRB) in 2008, serving eight one-week shifts a year on top of his work as a mission coordinator for ART. He joined the CSAR board in 2013, serving as president for a total of seven years in two stints, and serving as secretary twice. When he first joined, the CSRB board was composed of 12 directors, six of which came up for reelection every year. He and Jeff Sparhawk re-wrote the bylaws in 2014 to change the size of the board, add term limits, and redefine membership categories.
“It’s critical to have crystal-clear bylaws, not open to lots of different interpretations, and to follow them,” he says. “If you don’t follow them, don’t have them. They are there to guide you through the trouble spots.”
Woody believes in the importance of spreading out your service, making room for new people and new ideas, and opening doors in the interest of succession planning. In 2025, he stepped down from CSAR’s board for exactly that reason.
When asked what he’s most proud of, Woody mentions his partnership with Jeff in evolving CSAR to where it is now, following a vision the two of them had ten years ago by pursuing advocacy goals, the sharing of resources between teams, and the effort to educate people on who we are and the importance of what we do. He also mentions CSAR’s partnership with Flight For Life Colorado in hosting SARCon and growing its attendance since 2017.
He’s very proud of his efforts to start the Colorado Mountain Rescue Center, an effort to document BSAR history that began in 2011 after the American Mountaineering Center reached out to him for help with a six-month exhibit in Golden. “We gotta make this permanent,” he told them.
But for all of his administrative contributions to the evolution of BSAR in Colorado, Woody remains most proud of his boots-on-the-ground service as a volunteer responder. During his 36 years, he has responded to many technically and physically challenging calls in Colorado, including at least many out-of-county incidents, putting his mountain guide background to good use. He tells the story of one particularly memorable incident that still reminds him of why we do this work.
It was 2001, and Woody was on a rare break from his work with ART due to a family illness. On September 30th, a climber took a fall in a couloir on Mount Lindsey in Costilla County and as he recovered himself, he spotted the body of another climber below him in the couloir. That climber, a man named David who had served as an Army Green Beret during the Vietnam War, had not survived his fall. CSAR’s (then called CSRB) state coordinators were called to assist Costilla County with an extensive recovery operation.
A team of technical rescuers from Western State Search and Rescue, Rocky Mountain Rescue Group (RMRG) and Douglas County Search and Rescue were able to locate the body on October 2nd, but rockfall danger made it too dangerous to attempt a recovery. Three days later, Fort Carson sent in a Special Forces team, but they were turned back by adverse weather conditions before they could even get close to the body at 13,700 feet. David’s family held a memorial service in Denver, believing they might never have his body back.
On October 20th, with permission from the Costilla County sheriff, Woody put together a hybrid private team composed of current and former members of ART, mountain guides, and RMRG members who had been involved in the original attempt. He put the group on standby while an advance team of Tom Loebach and Mike Everist from ART and Woody himself drove down a day earlier to see if they could locate the body. The rockfall danger had lessened dramatically due to snow in the couloir, and the team of three located the body and deemed it now safe to move. In a 17-hour effort, they chopped the body out of the ice and lowered David 1800 feet to a location where a helicopter could reasonably land. They stood down the rest of the team and left the body with flagging so it could be located later.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t over yet. After several calls to the county sheriff and Fort Carson, the body was still there three days later. Mike Everist expressed concerns, including that temperatures were much higher at the current location, the body would easily be in view of passing hikers, and new snow might cover it up again. In an email to Woody, David’s former spouse described the family’s experience up to then. “We reconciled to David’s body being left on the mountain. I was left with the understanding that there would be no more ground efforts, but that a helicopter would be enlisted to create a rock slide that would bury the body at the basin; that is, if the natural melting of snow and movement of the rocks didn’t push the body into the basin. I have never understood the relentless feeling of a lack of closure until that moment, but we were left with no alternative but to prepare for a memorial and go on with our lives…I can only speak for myself, but I have not had a day or night that I have not been disturbed by the fact that the body was exposed. I paid close attention to how much information my son received to protect him from what I knew I was going through.”
Woody spoke with the family and recommended they hire a private helicopter, and they agreed. On October 26th, Woody and Ken Baugh from RMRG flew in the private helicopter from Centennial Airport and located the body again, which had been buried under a foot of snow. They dug David out and slid him about 200 feet to the helicopter, which then flew to Denver where David’s family waited.
It is often said that bringing a body back to loved ones is the noblest thing we do as volunteer responders. Woody agrees, and in an email later that day he said, “My only regret is that all the rescuers involved in this situation were not able to meet the family and know, firsthand, the impact that the recovery of their father, brother and friend made on all of them. Watching the son and brother at the airport talking to and touching David’s body is something I will never forget. It is a reminder of why we do what we do.”
David’s former spouse emailed Woody, “I told my son the news and what little sleep I am still getting was peaceful knowing that David had been cared for by people. I imagined him in a safe place, and as crazy as this is going to sound, I imagined him warm. I smiled for the first time this morning when I came to work. I now know what so many others go through when a loved one is missing, and the struggle that goes into putting your feelings to rest…My words aren’t adequate to express my admiration and gratitude for what your team has done.”