Rescuers race to find lost skier at night as storm rolls in, California officials say

Teams looking for a lost skier after dark near Lake Tahoe followed his tracks to rescue him before a heavy storm rolled in, California officials reported.

The Tahoe Nordic Search & Rescue Team received a report of a missing skier at 9:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 9, the organization said in a news release.

“He did not have his cell phone or backpack,” the release said. “We had no idea where he could be.”

Volunteer searchers took a snowcat to the top of the mountain at Alpine Meadows ski resort in poor visibility and split into two teams, the release said.

One team found a set of tracks and began following them, rescuers said. About 30 minutes later, their shouts prompted faint replies in the distance.

They found more tracks indicating the skier was hiking uphill to try to return to the ski resort instead of skiing farther down the mountain into an area known as the Hellhole, the release said.

“Following your own tracks back up was the correct decision in this scenario,” searchers said. They found the missing skier, then trekked back out with him by snowshoes and skis ahead of a storm.

This story was originally published December 13, 2022 at 12:35 PM with the headline "Rescuers race to find lost skier at night as storm rolls in, California officials say."