# Missing Wolf Creek Snowboarders found



## Suburban Blend (Feb 23, 2008)

*circa 98*

I was at a photo shoot there and was asked to go out of bounds. I declined due to my spidey sense. A big drama ensued as the party of famous riders and photographer got lost. They found there way out about 2 am.

Note: never get in above your head, especially due to peer pressure. YOU CAN DIE! I've been called out many a time and so be it. I love looking at my kids today and know that I made the right choices. Always go with your gut. Trusting someone elses route finding skills.... is sketch unless they are a professional guide.


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## killclimbz (Aug 10, 2007)

Some of us have plenty of backcountry experience and are not guides...

Experience counts for a lot. Using your head is huge. From just about anywhere that you access out of bounds at Wolf Creek you can get to an access road or the highway. Not saying it's easy, but even if you are stuck post holing you can make it. The thing is if you are outside of your comfort zone you may not even try. Just like the lost Keystone Snowboarder. He was gone for a day or two when he got lost out of bounds at Keystone. If he had of just kept going down he would have hit a road that took him back to the highway. I doubt we'll ever know what truly happened to these guys, and it doesn't really matter or change things.


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## Suburban Blend (Feb 23, 2008)

Where is the road?

Google Earth Blog: Ski Resorts and Snow Reports in Google Earth

Bummer that Rider tech lost their icons. It'll soon come.


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## killclimbz (Aug 10, 2007)

From San Juan worm who is a local in that area.



> you can get to the road from the back.
> its just a haul.


Off the South (and west side of the resort I assume) you would have to head west out of the area. It gets really flat but there is a forest service road that 'bilers use back there that would get you out. Same thing if you loop around to the east. I just read that they were found 900ft below the boundary of the resort. So in their case it would have been worth the effort to climb back up to the resort. 900 vertical in that region is no easy feat, especially post holing, but it can be done how ever slowly. 
Knowing that a road lies to the North I would have made a beeline for that if I felt I couldn't make the climb. 

It always amazes me when people get "lost" on Berthoud Pass. There is a freakin' highway that splits the pass. Just head towards it and you will come out at some point. Almost every year, someone spends a night out freezing their ass off though. It's not so simple at Wolf Creek. On the North Side it can be very difficult to get back to the road. Huge cliffs, ravines, all sorts of pains in the ass to get around. The south side though is not nearly as bad with this, unless you find yourself in the Hourglass area. Most of the terrain is flatter making for some slogging, but you will get to the highway eventually. There is no way these guys would have been near the hourglass terrain.


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## killclimbz (Aug 10, 2007)

The bc there sucks bigtime. If we have a meet down there I might just spend the whole time in it proving how bad it sucks.
































Yep, hate that place.


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## killclimbz (Aug 10, 2007)

The first three shots are all from the same area. It's amazing, but as the picture suggests avalanche danger can be very high there. Not only is it a threat going down, but getting out of the danger crosses several paths. Even in high conditions there is a fairly safe way to do it going down. The problem is getting out, you are exposed for a long time. The good news is that there is plenty of other terrain that is safe and reasonable to do even in high avalanche danger times. Hint: don't ride suicide bowl...


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## Suburban Blend (Feb 23, 2008)

Crazy how flat it looks on google maps


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## Guest (Jun 17, 2008)

yeah, that really looks like it sucks.


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## Guest (Jun 17, 2008)

I remmeber back in january when the news came out, RIP guys, I think I was actually in Colorado at the time. That first week of january was pretty intense out there, that one kid died in Breck he was from the UK, came with his family for a vacation and flew back in a dead. Then there was also that guy that created the avalanche in Vail pass and died burried.

I have yet to do some real BC. My time in the slopes is kind of limited, just enough to pay at the resort and back in a plane. It would be nice to try it out, but until I move up north and I get proper BC training I don't think I am in shape do it.


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## killclimbz (Aug 10, 2007)

I am not exactly sure where Knife ridge drops you out of the resort. Reagrdless, if you look West at the map you can see where the highway splits the canyon. They probably dropped somewhere towards the south end of the resort and to the west. Probably 2-3 miles from the road at a guess. You can see that if you go due North of the ski area it does get fairly flat. The caveat is that 'bilers roam all over that area, so there are bound to be well established trails at some point. Of course they were there during heavy snowfall, etc. It wouldn't make life easy, but you can certainly get out. It also sounds like it was a hell of a storm when they got lost. The probably did not intentionally go out of bounds. I would guess that the lack of experience in this sort of situation was probably their undoing. Most things you hear about being lost in the backcountry is to stay put. That is great on a summer time hike, but in the winter if you are not prepared to spend the night out, it's the worst thing you can do. At that point, you need to pick a direction that would get you back to safety. In this case the resort or highway. 

Also, reading into this more, it sounds like one of them may have gotten buried, leaving the other person by himself. As one boarder was found by a tree with his board nearby. Sounds absolutely horrifying and sad.


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## Guest (Jun 17, 2008)

As much as I love this sport and as much as I prefer to die doing something I love rather than in a bed, I don't think this is a way that any of us would like to die. What a horrible death, alone and scared, gush....


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## Suburban Blend (Feb 23, 2008)

When I worked at Alpine Meadows in Tahoe, some kid had fallen into a tree well. He was riding alone out of bounds! He struggled to unstrap himself. As he did he noticed something odd...a bear nose! He ran out of there shedding gear as he went. Later as he was reporting this to the Ski Patrol and an older lady came in to return all this gear she had found while snow-shoeing. And yes she noticed the sleeping bear, but did not know if the bear had eaten the owner of all this gear.


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## Guest (Jun 17, 2008)

That is some scary shit, I can't imagine what I would do if I saw myself in that situation...


Lucky him that he managed to get out of the tree well.


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## killclimbz (Aug 10, 2007)

Hahaha! People crack me up getting all scared of the bears in Colorado and California. News flash, they are black bears (some call them brown bears because of the coat, but they are all the same). Same bears you find on the east coast. Basically oversized dogs. Now you don't want to corner one, or get between mom and her cubs, but generally they are pretty timid. A full grown adult is seen as something to be avoided by them. They definitely do not want to get into it with us. Now a grizzly bear on the other hand, something you can run into in Wyoming and Montana. Well let's just say that is scary.

*Of course falling into a bear den is the definition of cornering a bear. I definitely would not want to wake that one up. Contrary to popular belief you can do that to a hibernating bear. Not good at all.*


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## Guest (Jun 17, 2008)

haha, good stuff. only cuz he got out though. that bear wasn't gonna wake up.


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