LITTLE COTTONWOOD CANYON, UTAH – November 19, 2015 (Gephardt Daily) ─ A 48-year-old snowboarder is uninjured after a seven-hour rescue operation to retrieve him from a steep cliff in Little Cottonwood Canyon.
The man snowshoed into the isolated area Wednesday afternoon in search of a good location to snowboard. He was physically prepared for conditions according to Lt. Lex Bell of the Unified Police Department, but made a “mental miscalculation” about his ability to get back down.
The snowboarder called for help around 3:30 p.m. and crews quickly spotted him high above Little Cottonwood Road, but had difficulty reaching him. In the end, Bell said, “It took some technical rescue efforts, including rope work, to get him out of the area where he was stranded.”
Twenty county and state rescuers, members of the Wasatch Back Country Rescue and Alta Ski Patrol all participated in the successful effort to get the man off the mountain around 10:30 Wednesday night.
Bell’s advice is to “always go with a partner” when venturing into the back country. If the snowboarder had been injured or lost cell phone service, rescuers would have had no way of locating him or even knowing he was in need of help.
Conditions are considered unstable right now because it’s early in the season and avalanche danger is high.
