Telluride BC rescue story
An interesting read on a rescue that took place in the Telluride BC.
The Telluride Watch
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Published:04/1/05
Kennett Crashes During Blizzard In Bear Creek
By Marta Tarbell
“He came close to being left,” San Miguel County Operations Commander Eric Berg says of Wednesday afternoon’s short-line helicopter rescue of noted extreme skier Scott Kennett from Contention Chute, in Bear Creek.
“It came as close as any mission I’ve ever done” to being aborted, Berg emphasizes.
So close, in fact, that “at one point, I advised him the only way we could guarantee a rescue was if he splinted his leg and crawled back up the hill.
“That’s a very difficult thing to say to somebody – that you can’t get them out because you can’t make sure the rescuers will be safe,” Berg says of an early conversation with Kennett, who hit a tree some time between 3 and 3:30 p.m., breaking his tibia-fibula.
“He called dispatch in Montrose a little after 3:30,” says Telluride Ski Patrol Snow Safety Director Craig Sterbenz, which is “just about the time we do the first sweep.”
Throughout the region, skiers familiar with the out-of-bounds Contention terrain have criticized Kennett’s decision to ski there – especially late in the day and in the middle of a blizzard that dumped at least a foot of snow.
Sheriff Bill Masters is one of them.
“That area has been deemed off-limits for a variety of reasons,” Masters says. For example: “People hike there in the wintertime, and it’s easy to knock stuff down on the people below.
“Also, it’s just a really dangerous area,” he says, “and a very difficult place to do rescues. That’s why we got a gate” installed between the ski area and Bear Creek, “and a system” that allowed backcountry skiing on relatively safe terrain, asking in return that “people obey that system,” he says, “so we could go out on rescues in an area that’s not quite that dangerous.
“If somebody chooses to be irresponsible,” he says, “and it’s a real dangerous day, at least leave the cell phone behind. We’ll find you in the springtime; that’s fine. But if you’re going to go in there, don’t call us and say, ‘You have to come get me now.’”
Initially, Berg reports, despite Kennett’s demand for a rescue toboggan, Telluride Ski Patrol decided not to go in. “They felt the hazard was far too great,” he says. “We always listen to ski patrol,” Berg adds. “They’re the experts.”
Detailed radar information and officials at the Grand Junction offices of the U.S. Weather Service corroborated the decision that “we were in a low-pressure trough” and “there was no way we could fly.”
But despite the resounding “no” on all fronts, staging areas were established in Town Park and at the airport, although, Berg says, “We really weren’t moving very fast.
“We didn’t have flyable weather,” he reiterates.
Then ski patrol’s Pete Inglis and Heidi Attenberger volunteered to ski down to Kennett.
At that point, Inglis and Attenberger “took off their hats” as ski patrollers and became Search and Rescue volunteers instead, Berg says. “That’s a decision we don’t make lightly,” he adds.
Soon, good fortune struck again, when Mike Kimball called from the county’s road and bridges department to report “that a weather window was coming in from the west.”
The rescuers scrambled to splint Kennett’s skin-puncturing tib-fib fracture; Helitrax pilot Chuck MacFarland flew over to lower a short line to Kennett.
Rescuers then discovered Kennett’s ski partner was a 16-year-old Telluride Ski and Snowboard Club freeride team skier; Kennett coaches the freeride team.
“I’m glad I didn’t know he was a minor,” Berg says, when he was deciding whether or not to send volunteers in to rescue Kennett. “It would have been even more emotional.
“For him to take a minor in there was pretty outrageous.”
Masters concurs.
“Here we’ve got an adult who’s supposed to be responsible for coaching the kids, and he pulls this stunt,” he says angrily. After the rescue, Masters says, Kennett reported “a number of tracks there in Contention – he said other people had been doing it.
“I’m not an avalanche expert,” Masters says, “but it would seem to me that any time you’ve got that much new snow, you’re probably running a risk. And I would guess it was an extreme avalanche danger day.”
Kennett, a local celebrity who’s been lionized everywhere from Warren Miller and Greg Stump ski films to Powder magazine, which dubbed him Telluride’s “best backcountry guide on the mountain,” faces civil charges for the boundary violation, as well as a two-year loss of ski privileges.
He faces criminal charges of child-endangerment, as well.
“I don’t understand it,” Berg says
“It goes back to that old adage – ‘Education by Death,’” he reflects. “Unfortunately, it sometimes takes a tragic, fatal mistake or experience to even affect some people. I’m just amazed at people out there – very competent extreme skiers who have knowledge and experience in the back country – fresh snow comes, and they just pull the blinds down. It’s selfish; they think only of themselves, that it’s their choice. They don’t think about the rescue people; they don’t think about their families, who we have to deal with after the event.
“I’m glad he lived; I’m very glad he lived,” Berg says of Kennett, who is at St. Mary’s Hospital, in serious condition.
“But I think today we’re all a little emotional and maybe a little disgusted.
“I’m very proud of ski patrol and search and rescue and Helitrax; we did an incredible job together,” he adds.
“But we were put in a very bad situation.”
