GALLATIN COUNTY, Utah, Feb. 6, 2019 (Gephardt Daily) — Search and rescue crews in Gallatin County, Mont., rescued a Utah father and his 12-year-old son after they became stranded while hiking in sub-zero temperatures Tuesday evening.
A Facebook post from the Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office said that at 6:30 p.m., a deputy from the Big Sky community received a report from a wife in Utah reporting that her husband and son were overdue from a hiking trip in the Spanish Peaks area.
“It was snowing hard and temperatures were below zero when the deputy was able to plow his way through snowdrifts and reach the end of the road where he thought their vehicle would be,” the GCSO post said.
“At 8 p.m. he found the vehicle abandoned five miles from U.S. Highway 191 and dispatched Gallatin County Search and Rescue Units from the Valley and Big Sky.”
Twenty snowmobilers and skiers responded, knowing that conditions made it critical to find the pair quickly, the post said. At 10 p.m. the first search teams located the boy between the main road and the Spanish Creek Cabin. He was hypothermic and confused, the post said. Rescuers took him back to the highway where an ambulance was waiting while others continued the search for the father.
“At the hospital a Sheriff’s SAR deputy interviewed the boy as he warmed up and became more coherent,” the post said. “Using landmarks and estimated times, the deputy was able to narrow down an area where searchers might find the father. The boy described being able to walk on top of the snow while his father was sinking past his knees. As the boy got further ahead of his dad he eventually lost contact and became disoriented but headed in the general direction of their car.”
Meanwhile, SAR members at headquarters in the valley were using cell phone forensic techniques and GIS data to narrow down likely search areas, the statement said.
At 12:15 a.m. Wednesday rescuers on skis located the father near the Pioneer Falls Trail, a few miles from the Spanish Creek Cabin. He was conscious but hypothermic, the post said.
They transported him using a rescue toboggan to the cabin, then by snowmobile rescue sled to an ambulance, the statement said. Father and son were both flown to University of Utah Burn Center for frostbite injuries.
