Colorado hiker stranded on mountain amid freezing rain after being left behind by coworkers at a retreat

DENVER — A group of 15 office workers left Friday morning for Mount Shavano’s summit in Chaffee County, but only 14 returned, search and rescue officials said.

One hiker was left behind on the mountain summit, stranded as strong storms passed through the area, buffeting him with freezing rain and high winds that caused him to fall dozens of times while attempting to get down 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 sunrise Friday morning, with one group attempting to reach the summit and another ascending the mountain’s saddle and returning from there, search and rescue officials said in a statement on social media.

“In what might cause some awkward encounters at the office in the coming days and weeks, one member of their party was left to complete his final summit push alone,” search and rescue officials said.

The man reached the peak of Mount Shavano around 11:30 a.m. but, when he turned to descend the mountain, became disoriented when he found that the group had picked up the belongings being used as trail markers as they hiked down before him, according to search and rescue officials.

He tried to make his way down the mountain, but he quickly got turned around and found himself in the steep boulder and scree field on the northeast slopes toward Shavano Lake, search and rescue officials said. He sent his location to the coworkers already descending and farther down the mountain, who informed him that he was on the wrong route and that he had to climb back up the slope to find the correct trail.

The abandoned hiker finally reached the correct trail around 3:30 p.m. and texted his coworkers that he was back on course when a strong storm passed through the area with freezing rains and high winds, pushing him back off course and causing him to lose his cell phone signal, search and rescue officials said.

After hours of waiting, the 14 coworkers who had descended the mountain without their final hiker called Chaffee County Search and Rescue South, and teams — including two “hasty” teams and a drone pilot — were deployed to search the mountain around 9 p.m.

“The concept of a hasty team is an initial response team of two or more well-trained, self-sufficient and highly mobile searchers and/or rescuers whose primary responsibility is to check those areas most likely to produce a subject first,” according to La Plata County Search and Rescue. The teams are usually familiar with the terrain and able to search the area quickly and efficiently.

Working from the man’s last known location, teams focused on clearing the trail and drainage areas.

During the night, the high winds and freezing rain made reaching the summit unsafe and presented many difficulties for the drone operator, search and rescue officials said. A helicopter team also searched from above but was unable to 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 Control Cañon Helitack and Colorado Search and Rescue joined in the search.

As teams began entering the field for a large search effort Saturday morning, 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 had fallen at least 20 times on the steep slopes during the storm and, after the last fall, was unable to get back up.

The 10 agencies in the field worked to extract the man from the gully and — after stabilizing and evaluating the hiker — transported the hiker to the hospital for further care. The full extent of the man’s injuries was not available Tuesday.

“This hiker was phenomenally lucky to have regained cell service when he did, and to still have enough consciousness and wherewithal to call 911,” search and rescue officials said. “Though he was located in a tertiary search area, it would have been some time before teams made it to that location on their own.”