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Skier rescued from back of
Big Mountain
Jan 05, 2005
By CHERY SABOL
The Daily
Inter Lake
A cold, wet skier from Fergus Falls, Minn., was rescued from the
back of Big Mountain late Monday night.
About 40 people participated in rescuing Jeff Sturgin, 22, after
he and others skied out of bounds, said Tom Snyder. Snyder is
the coordinator of search and rescue through Flathead County
Sheriff's Office.
The skiers went off the back side of the mountain between 11
a.m. and noon Monday, Snyder said. The four skied down to the
west of the Gray Wolf Ski Run on the north side of the
mountain's Chair 7 area.
"The rest of the group came back; he didn't," Snyder said.
They skied down several more times, looking for Sturgin, and
notified Big Mountain Ski Patrol at 3 p.m. that they couldn't
find him, according to Big Mountain's Brian Schott. The ski
patrol searched for Sturgin and then called the Flathead County
Sheriff's Office, search-and-rescue teams and the Flathead
Valley Nordic Ski Patrol.
A command post was set up at the mountain's fire station, Snyder said.
Nordic Ski Patrol searched the top of the mountain. North Valley Search
and Rescue sent snowmobiles up the Canyon Creek area at the back of the
mountain. Flathead County Search and Rescue sent snowmobilers into
Hellroaring Basin.
After about 10:30 p.m., the North Valley team found ski tracks and shut
off their snowmobiles so Sturgin could hear them yelling for him.
"They got a verbal response," Snyder said, but they were still a ways
from finding and rescuing Sturgin.
Nordic Ski Patrol had also found tracks.
At about 11:20 p.m., rescuers found Sturgin, "very, very cold" and wet,
in a gully west of the survival cabin near the snowmobile trails in the
Canyon Creek drainage. Nordic Ski Patrol and the North Valley team got
him into dry clothing and took him by snowmobile to the bottom of Chair
7, where groomers worked to get him to the command center.
Snyder said he was just minutes away from breaking a window in Sturgin's
car and cutting out part of the seat for a search dog to scent when
Sturgin was found. ALERT helicopter flew a few circuits around the area,
but was stymied by low clouds, Snyder said.
In all, he found a lot to praise in Sturgin's rescue.
"It was a really good team effort, following the clues, getting the guy,
checking him out, bringing him out," Snyder said.
One of the clues was provided by the mountain's ski-pass scanning. It
records skier's entrances onto chair lifts. In this case, the system
verified what Sturgin's friends had said about where and when he was
last seen.
"That technology helped us reaffirm our primary search area," Snyder
said.
Sturgin didn't need hospital attention. A doctor with Nordic Ski Patrol
found him to be cold, but unhurt.
Snyder said the incident is a good lesson on minding the boundaries on
Big Mountain.
"This was not an accident," he said.
"Don't ski out of bounds. Those ropes are there for a reason."
Reporter Chery Sabol may be reached at
406-758-4441 or by email at
csabol@dailyinterlake.com.
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