(SALIDA, Colo.) — A worker on an office hiking retreat to a national forest in Colorado had to be rescued after 14 of his colleagues allegedly left him stranded on a 14,230-foot mountain, authorities said.
“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,” Chaffee County, Colorado, Search and Rescue said in a statement.
The team-building expedition gone wrong unfolded Friday on Mt. Shavano in central Colorado’s San Isabel National Forest, according to search-and-rescue officials.
“Initial reports to our communications center indicated a group of 15 hikers on an office retreat had left the Blanks Cabin Trailhead at sunrise that morning, with a group completing summit attempts and a separate group ascending to the saddle [area of the mountain] and returning from there,” rescuers said in the statement.
While 14 employees made it down the mountain safely, rescue officials said one was left to complete the summit push alone.
The lone employee made it to the summit at 11:30 a.m., but when he tried to descend, “he became disoriented,” according to rescue officials.
Making matters worse, his colleagues descending the mountain ahead of him inexplicably collected belongings left in a boulder field to mark the path down, officials said.
“In his initial attempts to descend, he found himself in the steep boulder and scree field on the northeast slopes toward Shavano Lake,” according to officials.
The man, whose name and company were not released, used his cellphone to pin-drop his location to his coworkers, who informed him that he was on the wrong route and instructed him to hike back up to the summit to get to the correct trail down, officials said.
Just before 4 p.m. local time on Friday, he sent another location pin-drop to his colleagues that he was near the correct trail.
“Shortly after that message, a strong storm passed through the area with freezing rain and high winds, and he again became disoriented, losing his cell phone signal as well,” rescue officials said.
When his colleagues didn’t hear from him, they reported him missing to Chaffee County Search and Rescue at 9 p.m., some eight-and-a-half hours after he started his descent, officials said.
A search was immediately launched, but rescue teams on the ground encountered freezing rain and high winds that hampered their hike to the Mt. Shavano summit, officials said. The foul weather also made it difficult to operate a search-and-rescue drone in the area, authorities said.
While an aerial search continued, a rescue helicopter crew flew several search patterns over the area where the lost hiker pin-dropped his last location but found no sign of the man, who was dressed in all black clothing, leaving him to spend the night stranded on the mountain, officials said.
Rescue teams continued to search for the man into Saturday morning and summoned other teams from across the region to help.
The lost hiker regained enough cellphone service Saturday morning to call 911 and report his location, enabling rescuers to find him in a gully near a drainage creek, extract him and take him to a hospital, where he was in stable condition, officials said.
“He reported being very disoriented on his descent and falling at least 20 times on the steep slopes,” rescue officials said in the statement, adding that the hiker was unable to get up after his last fall.
“This hiker was phenomenally lucky to have regained cell service when he did, and to still have enough consciousness and wherewithal to call 911,” said rescue officials.
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