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My brother snowed in & rescued (w/news clip and pics)
He went camping last weekend with a friend and they got snowed in. The cabin was a 10 mile snowshoe hike from where they could park their car. They were in a cabin with food (running out though) and a fireplace but the electricity went out and they couldn't get home for a couple of days due to trees that fell and snow blocking them in. This is what my mom told me about it:
The woman I talked to first who called M (my brother's GF), B and her husband live in Porterville. Her parents own a cabin above Bass Lake off that notorious road that leads to the Jackass Lake trail we went on several times. My brother (P) and his friend (S) were at S's grandparents cabin about 1/8 mile from the other cabin. B's parents went up there on Sunday before the big storm hit as they often do. Their names are G and D and they are both in their seventies (retired high school teachers from Porterville). G tried to get them out with a Bambi (a smaller version of a Snowcat), but the track threw the tread in the process and they couldn't make it. The old logging road was just impassable with several feet of new, powdery snow and there was no hard crust so it kept sinking. They gave up and all went back to their cabin. They had food and heat (propane heater) and the power went out from the storm.
Then yesterday search and rescue tried with their Snowcat to reach them trying to cut straight through in the most direct route. There were many downed trees, very big ones and even though they were able to build a ramp onto both sides of one with snow to travel over the tree, they eventually got to a tree which blocked them and they had to give up and go back. Yesterday, they came via helicopter, but this wasn't easy either. P cleared a 40 ft area for it to land which was very hard work. Just to get to the elderly neighbors' cabin he was waist high in snow and it took him 40 min. to go a short distance. The long and short of it is that they chose another landing site which required him to create a path for the neighbors since they weren't very steady. They did have snowshoes, but still the snow was too light and fresh so he had to try to pack it. The hardest part was getting the couple to the helicopter so they could be taken out. They made 2 trips with the helicopter.
Channel 47 was right there in their faces when they got to Oakhurst and they were on the 11 o'clock news, but I was long in bed. This elderly couple was getting low on medications and P was very concerned with the next storm which is here now today. This was the only window they might have for several weeks. The weather is very unpredictable up there. Before they left on Saturday, no snow or rain was predicted in the forecasts until the end of this week. It changed quickly with the big storm that hit them Sunday night (either Sunday or Monday). The cabin is on a hill and the terrain is very steep in places made worse by the high drifts created by the wind. Really without P's thinking and hard work, they wouldn't have been able to get out. The visibility was getting bad for the helicopter and they were almost out of fuel, so it was his quick thinking and clearing, timing and stuff that made it possible. That's what one of the rescuers said to P's GF and me. Very glad it's over! The elderly couple was very grateful to P.
Here's the news clip:
Re: My brother snowed in & rescued (w/news clip and pics)
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Here are some pics he took:
That's a lantern glowing inside a tent they put up. That was the roofline so all above that was snowfall.
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Wow! That is quite the story and really scary. Everyone is really lucky that your brother handled the crisis situation well.
I watched the video and those old people looked really drained. It's a good thing they were rescued when they were.
More (crazy) photos by brother posted today:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/19384266@N04/5560323714/
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Yeah, it's really lucky they got out without anyone getting hurt or being there much longer. Here is video he posted too. It shows him exiting the cabin:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/19384266@N04/5561721640/?v=1?ref=nf
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