Posted inEnergy, News, Outdoors

Colorado’s energy czar, wife are recovering after a 1,000-foot fall while climbing in Rocky Mountain National Park

Will Toor was thinking he was at the end. He was pretty sure his leg was broken. He was shivering uncontrollably in the snow high in the mountains. He’d watched his injured wife limp away to get help two hours earlier.  Every few minutes he’d holler for help.  Then, in the distance, he saw two […]

Posted inNews, Outdoors, Technology

“We can’t broadcast through a mountain”: Digital dead zones getting in the way of Colorado’s first responders

BAYFIELD — There’s a digital dead zone in Fire Chief Bruce Evans’ 282-square-mile district in southwest Colorado, right up where the Upper Pine River Fire Protection District brushes against wildland and national forest. No cell coverage. No internet access. Even the radio goes quiet. For Sean Caffrey, at the Crested Butte fire department, signal cuts […]

Posted inNews, Outdoors

An overdue Colorado hiker may not have picked up rescuers’ phone calls because he didn’t recognize the number

LEADVILLE — A Colorado search and rescue team is urging people who are late in returning from the outdoors to answer their phones if they get repeated calls from an unknown number after spending hours looking for a hiker who never knew they were the subject of a search. According to the Lake County team, […]

Posted inNews, Outdoors, Outsider

When people die in Colorado’s outdoors, sometimes friends are the ones to find them

A week after Vaughn Fetzer was reported missing on Blanca Peak, the fourth highest mountain in Colorado, friends found his body in an unstable area. Rescuers spent several days in freezing temperatures searching near vertical cliffs and scree fields but suspended the mission after a search team member was injured by falling rock in a […]

Posted inNews, Newsletters, Outdoors, Outsider

Stress threatens Colorado search and rescue teams as calls for help climb during coronavirus

 As 17 men and women bored into the cement-like snow, even using chainsaws to grind into the ice, an avalanche released behind them, burying their exit road.  “That really showed us how reactive the snowpack was — just riddled with uncertainty and you really just didn’t know,” said Leo Lloyd, a 36-year veteran of La […]