Snowmobiler built a snow cave to survive

A missing Canadian teen snowmobiler built a snow cave to survive until rescuers arrived

After going missing while on a snowmobile, a Canadian teenager managed to survive by building a snow cave to stay in until he was found.

A 17-year-old in British Columbia, who has not been named, built himself a snow cave the backcountry to shelter in after being separated from his group, according to South Cariboo Search and Rescue.

At around 6:15 pm on Saturday, 100 Mile House Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) was notified of an overdue snowmobiler.

Family and friends of the teen had returned to a parking lot, but he had never showed, according to a news release from RCMP.

Some of the party remained on the hill and began searching, while others left to alert South Cariboo Search and Rescue, who contacted 100 Mile House RCMP. South Cariboo SAR eventually located the teenager, finding him "in good condition," RCMP said in its release.

"This young man did everything right after things went wrong," SAR wrote in a Facebook post praising the teen. "He got separated from his group and after multiple failed attempts to get back out of the area, the way he got into it and not knowing the terrain and area, he parked his sled in a wide-open area, walked over to a nearby treed area and built himself an incredible snow cave to spend the night."

The post continued, "When our team members came across him, he was in the shelter with food and water. This young man made our task a little less difficult by staying in place and having some backcountry winter survival knowledge."

The 100 Mile House RCMP thanked the South Cariboo SAR team for bringing the search to another positive outcome.

"We in the south Cariboo are very fortunate to have such a dedicated group of well-trained volunteers to assist in times of need," RCMP Cpl. Madonna Saunderson wrote in a statement.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a-miss...N?ocid=msedgntp

Great story!

I saw this a couple of days ago. It shows the value of some basic wilderness survival training -- he broke the "cascade failure" chain of events by hunkering down and making himself safe. And: his companions did the same when they realized they were out of their depth, raising the alarm instead of becoming lost themselves.

https://www.langleyadvancetimes.com/news...iboo-mountains/

One story I saw indicated he had food and water, but did not have the means to make fire. I'm sure that oversight will be rectified shortly.

Edit: Here's the link:
https://globalnews.ca/news/7582072/lost-cariboo-snowmobiler/

Carry a -10 rated bag, a survival kit, comm and fuel

Easy to say, though valid. I suspect the challenge is the sub-culture of the folks who go out. People who operate solo all the time are cautious and have layers of backup. People in groups, less so. The catch is, in backcountry, when it goes sideways, we all operate solo.

Carrying adequate bivvy gear should not be a problem on a snowmobile.

Agree 100%. It's a problem within the culture. I would bet that offroad adventure cultures with quads and 4x4s suffer from the same mindset.

The one thing that came to mind was that this was a teenager. While perhaps not likely that he automatically knew what to do in this emergency it came to me that his parents were the ones who trained him on how to react when separated from the group. They were the ones who instilled the smarts for this young man to cope with his situation. And when the youth was missing, his parents were the ones who followed up with SAR and were part of the solution using their emergency communications device.

As much as people gives kudos to the youth, I give as much credit to the adults in this situation.

I would agree. There was certainly some forethought involved, and enough wisdom to stay put and not make things worse.

Still, he didn't spend a lot of time in the snow cave, and he didn't seem to have the 10 essentials let alone additional winter gear. The quick rescue made this less of an issue, but there's never a guarantee of that.

100% agreed.