Routt SAR Responds to Three Hunter Emergencies in 14 Hours

Rifle —Three calls. Fourteen hours. One hunter found hypothermic and unable to walk in eight inches of snow.

The obvious take is that the weather was bad. The first significant storm hit, temperatures dropped, and hunters got in over their heads. That’s the story most people will tell. It’s comfortable. It blames the sky.

But look closer at what actually happened, and the narrative shifts from "unlucky weather" to "avoidable exposure."

Routt County Search and Rescue was paged three times in a span that barely covered a single day. The first call came shortly before 3 p.m. on Oct. 14. A hunter was overdue in the Dunckley Pass area near Rio Blanco County. Six inches of snow were already on the ground, and more was falling. Deputies from the Rio Blanco County Sheriff’s Office and Colorado Parks and Wildlife officers found the hunter just after dark. No major injury reported, but the clock was ticking against the light and the cold.

Then came the second call. Just 30 minutes after that first search wrapped, another hunter in the Bears Ears area north of Hayden was separated from their party. Darkness and snow did the separating. The hunter made a 911 call right before their phone died, giving rescuers coordinates. That was the only lifeline.

This one got ugly fast. The hunter was found frigid and couldn’t walk. Rescuers from Routt and Moffat counties, along with Memorial Regional Health EMS, packaged the person in a hypothermia wrap. They hauled that wheeled litter nearly 1,500 feet up a hill through eight inches of snow to an ambulance. Read that again: 1,500 feet of uphill drag in deep snow while the patient freezes. That’s not a "weather event." That’s a logistical nightmare born of poor planning for the conditions.

The third call came in the early morning hours of Oct. 15, back in the Bears Ears area. This time, Moffat County emergency services reached the subject before Routt County Search and Rescue could fully dispatch. The injury was severe: a tree fell on the hunter while they were sleeping in a tent.

A spokesperson for Routt County Search and Rescue stated, “It’s our understanding that a tree fell on a hunter while sleeping in a tent.”

The team urged the public to remember the "three Ts" on any backcountry adventure: Training, Trip planning, and Taking the essentials. “Being prepared in weather conditions like these can be a matter of life or death and help can be many hours away,” the team stated in their Facebook post.

Make no mistake, the weather was a factor. But the pattern here isn’t random bad luck; it’s a series of preventable scenarios where equipment and planning failed to match the environment. The first hunter was overdue when snow started. The second had a dead phone in the dark. The third got hit by a tree while sleeping.

The short version? You don’t need to be a professional to survive the first storm of the season. You just need to respect it.

The team is out there, dragging litters up hills in the dark, running on fumes and volunteer hours. They’re asking for one thing: bring what you need so they don’t have to carry it for you.