3 Mines Students Safe After Rescue During High Country Storm
ASPEN, Colo. (AP) - Three college students were safe Monday after being rescued from one of Colorado's most famous mountains and hiking out with volunteers in heavy snow.
The three Colorado School of Mine students — Dallas Hall, 20, of Windsor, Michael Bortnowski, 20, and Arthur Whitehead, 19, of Concord, Massachusetts — used a personal location beacon to send out a distress signal just before sunset Sunday after getting stranded on a cliff on North Maroon Peak, one of two twin peaks that comprise the Maroon Bells about 10 miles southwest of Aspen. Nineteen members of Mountain Rescue Aspen launched a rare nighttime rescue out of fear that they had suffered a fall and because clouds and snow were expected to increase.
While a Flight for Life helicopter had to turn back because of bad weather over Vail Pass, a Blackhawk from the Army National Guard's High Altitude Aviation Training Site in Gypsum, Colorado, was able to drop five rescuers on the mountain above the climbers, the Pitkin County Sheriff's Office said. The climbers turned out to be unharmed. The rescuers repelled down to the cliff and pulled the climbers to safety one by one, despite avalanches in the area. The helicopter was forced out by heavy snow, so the climbers and rescuers hiked out. They stopped at their camp to pick up their gear and tent and reached the trailhead around 2 a.m.
About six inches of new snow fell during the rescue from a storm that brought over a foot of new snow to parts of Colorado's mountains between Sunday and Monday.
The Maroon Bells are among the most photographed mountains in Colorado, but the layers of weak sedimentary rock that give them their reddish hue also make them dangerous to climb. The rock can easily come loose, causing climbers to lose their footing and fall.
Last month, Jarod Wetherell, 37, of Avon, Colorado, died after falling while climbing an unfamiliar trail on North Maroon Peak. His friend, David Richardson, 32, of Vail, Colorado, was found alive after spending two days on the mountain.
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