Thursday, January 10, 2008

No sign of snowboarders near Wolf Creek Pass

Michael George and Kyle Kerschen, both 27 and from Albuquerque, drove to Colorado on Friday for a weekend of snowboarding. Their was found in the ski-area parking lot, but there's been no trace of them. High winds and more than four feet of snow have hampered rescue efforts, but today, skiers are clear. Helicopters and searchers on skis plan to survey the area.

As a long-time snowboarder who now spends more days on skis, I must note that in the past week there have been a number of other stranded or injured snowboarders in the backcountry adjacent to ski areas. Any snowboarder can tell you if you fall in deep powder, it can be impossible to get up. If you stop, it can be hard to get going again. Ski's let you at least shuffle in the snow, a board doesn't. These two guys could easily be in a creek drainage a quarter-mile from the boundary rope, but unable to move.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Add to that they did not leave a trip plan with anyone or in their car. I know it is easy to veer off the original course with our vast amount of jeep roads, but in that area they realy should have left some idea which direction they were going. Now they are searching for two needles in a very snowy haystack. I hope they make it out alive and with all their fingers & toes.