Home

Steamboat Springs — What started out as a common snowmobile trip for a group of 10 locals on Sunday ended Monday with 21 experienced riders digging themselves out of a drainage filled with deep, dry snow.

Routt County Sheriff's Investigator Ken Klinger said local snowmobilers Ed Camilletti, Jody Camilletti, Rudy Camilletti, Samantha Johnston, Ken Nachtman, Mikey Walsh, Marlene Walsh, 5-year-old Patrick Paulsen and his parents, Terry and Dawn, were riding from a cabin north of Columbine on Sunday.

The group followed tracks into a steep drainage and got stuck in dry powder west of Elkhorn Mountain, just south of the Wyoming border about nine miles north of Columbine.

"If you get into a ravine with fresh powder, it is difficult to get out," Klinger said.

After the group called family members by cell phone, friends Sean and Jason Weber snowmobiled to the drainage at 11:30 p.m. to help dig the sleds out. Everyone eventually spent the night in the backcountry.

The Routt County Sheriff's Office was informed of the incident at about midnight Monday morning from a family member of someone in the group.

"Our communication was they were going to dig themselves out all night and maybe be out by the morning," Klinger said.

The group had started a fire and was "happy," which is why officials resisted sending a rescue team in, he said.

At 6 a.m., Frank Watson and Guy Whitlock rode their sleds to the drainage to help with the effort. Throughout the day, seven more riders (friends and family) came to help but found themselves in a similarly stuck situation.

A seven-member Routt County Search and Rescue team headed for the ravine at 10:30 a.m. after not hearing from anyone in the group all morning.

Officials were primarily concerned for the welfare of the young Paulsen.

They found the group members digging themselves out. They had no injuries or frostbite and Paulsen was fine, Klinger said.

"All these people are experienced and they are local," he said.

There was enough food and warm gear carried on the sleds to sustain everyone in the ravine, Klinger said.

If this were a group of tourists, he added, it would be a different story.

The Search and Rescue crew, which was made up of three members from High Country Snowmobile Tours, helped with the digging effort and also called for a tracked snowmachine to shuttle the group members out if they couldn't be freed.

"It was a mess," Watson said. "But everyone made it out."

By 6 p.m. Monday, the men in the group, with the help of Search and Rescue, dug all but two sleds out of the drainage and were in the parking lot on Forest Service Road 550.

The women and child were taken to a cabin nearby and were picked up by the tracked snowmachine later in the evening.

"It really wasn't that bad," said Nachtman, who spent the night in the elements. "I've spent worse nights."

He said the temperature never dropped below 20 degrees and the fire kept everyone warm.

The group was making pretty good headway in getting the sleds out when the first Search and Rescue team showed up, Nachtman said.

"But we were sure glad to see them," Watson added.

Curt Zajic, who rode to the drainage to assist the group at about 12:30 p.m. Monday, said what gave all the riders problems was the unusually dry snow, which was described as sand. It provided no traction for the sleds no matter how many times tracks were laid down.

"I've never seen anything like it," he said.

Ed Camilletti said they could have followed the ravine out, but they were in unfamiliar country and decided the safest thing was to go out the way they came in, even if it meant spending the night.

Plus, Watson said there was running water in the ravine, which made following it down even more dangerous.

"Everybody is alive; that's what counts," he said.