A group of 15 office workers headed to the summit of Mount Shavano in Chaffee County Friday morning, but only 14 returned, search and rescue officials said.
One hiker was left stranded on the mountaintop as violent storms swept through the area, battering him with freezing rain and high winds that caused him to fall dozens of times as he tried to escape the mountain. according to Chaffee County Search and Rescue South officials.
The 15 hikers were on a work retreat and left the Blanks Cabin Trailhead at dawn Friday morning, with one group attempting to reach the summit and another climbing the mountain’s saddle and returning from there, search and rescue officials said in a statement on social media.
“In what could cause some awkward office encounters in the coming days and weeks, one member of their party had to complete his latest top performance alone,” search and rescue officials said.
The man reached the top of Mount Shavano around 11:30 a.m., but when he turned around to descend the mountain he became disoriented when he discovered that the group had retrieved the belongings used as route markers as they hiked down ahead of him , according to search and rescue officials.
He tried to descend the mountain, but he quickly turned around and found himself in the steep rock and scree field on the northeastern slopes toward Lake Shavano, search and rescue officials said. He sent his location to the colleagues who were already descending and further down the mountain, who told him he was on the wrong route and that he had to climb back up the slope to find the right path.
The abandoned hiker finally reached the correct trail around 3:30 p.m. and texted his colleagues that he was back on course when a strong storm passed through the area with freezing rain and high winds, causing him to veer off course and lose his cell. phone signal, search and rescue officials said.
After hours of waiting, the 14 colleagues who had descended the mountain without their last hiker called Chaffee County Search and Rescue South and teams – including two “hurry” teams and a drone pilot – were deployed to search the mountain around 9 p.m.
“The concept of a rush team is a first response team of two or more highly trained, self-sufficient and highly mobile searchers and/or rescuers whose primary responsibility is to control those areas where a subject is most likely to be identified first found.” according to La Plata County Search and Rescue. The teams are usually familiar with the terrain and can search the area quickly and efficiently.
From the man’s last known location, crews focused on clearing the trail and drainage areas.
During the night, high winds and freezing rain made reaching the summit unsafe and caused many problems for the drone operator, search and rescue officials said. A helicopter team also searched from above, but could not find the man.
Around 9 a.m. Saturday, crews from El Paso County Search and Rescue, Fremont Search and Rescue, the Western Mountain Rescue Team, Chaffee County Search and Rescue North, Park County Search and Rescue, Teller County Search and Rescue, Arapahoe Rescue Patrol, Division of Fire prevention and suppression Cañon Helitack and Colorado Search and Rescue participated in the manhunt.
As crews took to the field Saturday morning for a major search, the missing hiker regained enough cell service to call 911, search and rescue officials said. The man was found above the North Fork drainage, in a gully below Espirit Point. He told search and rescue officials that he fell on the steep slopes at least 20 times during the storm and was unable to get back up after the last fall.
The ten agencies on site attempted to remove the man from the gully and, after stabilizing and evaluating the hiker, took the hiker to the hospital for further care. The full extent of the man’s injuries was not known Tuesday.
“This hiker was phenomenally fortunate that he regained cell service when he did so, and that he was still conscious enough and had the means to call 911,” search and rescue officials said. “Although it was in a tertiary search area, it would have taken some time for teams to reach that location on their own.”
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