Snowmobile accident fatal at Cottonwood Pass
Special to The Chaffee County Times, 9-feb-22 A fatal snowmobile accident on Cottonwood Pass left one person dead Tuesday. The Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office received a distress signal at 11:09 a.m., Feb. 8, from a backcountry traveler advising of a snowmobile accident and an unconscious male in the Cottonwood Pass area, Chaffee County Sheriff John Spezze said in a press release. Chaffee County Search and Rescue and Chaffee EMS initially responded to a location near the summit of Cottonwood Pass and contacted parties who were snowmobiling in the area. A male was unconscious after being pinned beneath his snowmobile. Several people in the area at the time of the accident attempted CPR, however the victim was pronounced dead at the scene, Spezze said. The Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office responded and the investigation determined Robert E. Welland, 68 of Jefferson, was riding his snowmobile with a group of people and went out of sight from the group. When a group member went back to find Welland, he found his machine overturned and resting on top of the victim. The other rider pulled the machine off of the victim and CPR was started until EMS arrived. The victim was transported out of the area and the Chaffee County Coroner transported the victim to the coroner’s office in...Nighttime cliff rescue: Tech teams use drones on ‘spicy’ mission to aid cliffed-out hiker
Douglas P. Marsh, Chaffee County Times reporter, Sept 15, 2021 Members of the Chaffee County SAR-North’s drone team prepare to deploy their unmanned remote aircraft in a search for a stranded hiker on the Chalk Cliffs Chaffee County Search and Rescue-North capped off the high season with a daring night rescue at Chalk Cliffs on Sept. 7. The group was also activated the following morning to respond to a medical distress call from the Three Apostles basin west of Mount Harvard. Both rescues were successful. SAR-North representatives said that this season was a bit calmer than last. “We have had a little lower call volume so far in 2021 then we have in the previous few years,” said CCSAR-North’s president, Josh Schwenzfeier. “This is not due to a reduction in the amount of people in our backcountry areas.” Schwenzfeier attributed the reduction in calls to education programs and peer support due to increased numbers of hikers and climbers. “We haven’t been bored by any stretch,” said Beth Helmke, public information officer. “There have still been some spicy ones.” The Chalk Cliffs extraction was one such mission. According to SAR-North’s after-action report on Facebook, the call came in a little after 7 p.m. that a hiker without any gear had become cliffed out roughly 1,500 feet high and darkness was falling. “Tuesday’s mission was a great use of our CCSAR-N Drone and Technical Rescue Teams. The Chalk Cliffs is a tough spot to respond to due to the loose rock in the area,” said Schwenzfeier. “The Drone Team mobilized almost immediately after the page was sent out. They were...AFTER MAJOR UPTICK IN SUMMER CALLS, LAKE COUNTY SAR PREPARED FOR A SECOND BUSY SEASON
Hannah Harn, Ark Valley Voice, Feb 26, 2021 (Nice Truck!) As the COVID-19 pandemic continued and spread during the summer of 2020, more and more people found themselves looking at new options for recreation; heading from the city to the mountains for outdoors fun. However, many of these new hikers found themselves unprepared for the peaks ahead of them. While the types of calls remained consistent, there was a major spike in the number of search and rescue calls for help. For Lake County Search and Rescue, (SAR) the bulk of their 2020 calls came between May and September when they’d sometimes get two or three calls a week. John Holm, President of Lake County Search and Rescue (SAR), says the spike in calls wasn’t entirely unexpected. “Everyone had cabin fever with shutdowns in the spring, but I don’t think any of us expected it to get that busy,” he explains. “Primarily, it was lack of motivation, lack of preparedness, that sort of thing. So we would hike up to them, feed them, give them some water and motivation and walk them out.” One of the major contributors Holm sees is the restriction of travel, which has led to more people recreating closer to home. “More Coloradans are going to know about fourteeners, specifically Elbert, the highest one,” he says. “They’re going to be more likely to come up with people from out of state who are just going to throw the dart at the map and say, ‘hey let’s go there.’ People from out of state who plan to come and hike Elbert are going to plan to do it...Search & Rescue escorts hikers out of Browns Canyon
Max R. Smith, Chaffee County Times, Feb 17, 2021 As temperatures dipped rapidly Saturday evening, Chaffee County Search & Rescue-North and a Chaffee County Sheriff’s deputy were called to Browns Canyon National Monument to escort a group of hikers back to the trailhead. According to Search & Rescue’s Facebook page, rescue volunteers were paged out to Browns Canyon at 5:50 p.m. Saturday for a report of a group of hikers who had become disoriented and could not find their way back to the trailhead. A sheriff’s deputy was able to escort part of the group out, and a Search & Rescue-North hasty team met the remaining hikers who had become separated from the main group. All parties were safely out of the field by 7:45 p.m. “With single-digit temperatures and a winter storm rolling in, we are thankful for a short and successful mission,” the post...Donate to CCSARN
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