A snowboarder who took a wrong turn over the edge of a famous glacier in Colorado and plummeted roughly 100 feet was rescued after spending more than three hours stranded on Monday.
The unidentified 27-year-old snowboarder took his ill-fated fall while trying to descend the Skyscraper Glacier, a famous permanent snowfield near Rollins Pass in Colorado, around 2:30 p.m., according to the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office.
His 100-foot fall was thankfully halted after he collided with a bergschrund, a small crevasse formed on the glacial ice.
Still, he wasn’t spared and reportedly sustained “serious injuries,” officials said, though they didn’t specify how exactly he was harmed.
The intrepid snowboarder was stuck at the bergschrund until the Colorado Search and Rescue Association, with assistance from the state’s National Guard, was able to reach him around 5:45 p.m., according to the sheriff’s office.
The rescuers’ efforts were stalled by the sum-odd 300-foot path of glacial snow that they had to wade through to reach the snowboarder.
They rigged the snowboarder in a secured stretcher and rescue basket before airlifting him off the glacier.
The boarder received much-needed medical assistance even as he was being hoisted into the air, the department said.
He was placed in a medevac helicopter and taken to a nearby hospital for treatment around 8:10 p.m., a staggering six hours after his fall.
The rest of the rescuers, though, weren’t out of the woods just yet. They had to hike back out of the field and concluded the mission closer to 1 a.m. Tuesday morning, according to the sheriff’s office.
As the home state of the renowned ski capital of America, Colorado has seen countless snow sport mishaps.
In December, more than 100 snowboarders and skiers at the Winter Park Resort were left stranded after a chairlift broke down in the middle of the day.
The resort-goers were stuck hanging in the air for hours and had to shimmy back down to the ground on ropes.
In January, a veteran skier was found buried alive in an avalanche off the beaten path at a resort they’d been visiting for more than a decade.
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