A father and his teenage son spent Thursday night with Summit County Rescue Group members on Quandary Peak outside Breckenridge after losing the trail and calling for help. The pair started their hike at 10 a.m. Thursday, according to Summit County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Mike Schilling.

Around 8:30 p.m., sheriff’s deputies dispatched to a report of cliffed-out hikers. Schilling wrote via text that the pair had planned to climb the more difficult west ridge and descend the easier and more popular east ridge of Quandary, but they got off-route during their climb.

“We were able to have a helicopter swing up there and see where they were,” Schilling said. “That was absolutely a dangerous spot.”

A Flight for Life helicopter took Summit County Rescue Group members partway up the mountain, dropping them off in a saddle where they could hike up to the father and son. Schilling said the group camped on the mountain overnight because it was getting dark, they were in a dangerous location and the pair was cold and tired.

“They built a makeshift shelter high on the mountain, and everybody hunkered down,” Schilling said. “(The father and son) didn’t have a lot of warm clothes, because, of course, they planned to hike during the day.” 

Rescue group members provided the pair with extra clothes and shelter to make it through the night. Friday morning, a Black Hawk helicopter from the High-Altitude Army National Guard Aviation Training Site in Gypsum assisted with extracting the father and son from the mountain.

“After they did that, the winds really started kicking up this morning,” Schilling said around 11:30 a.m. Friday. “For safety reasons, once they got the father and son off, (the helicopter) went ahead and hit the road, and then the rescuers are just now hiking back down on their own.”

From the time the pair called for help Thursday to when they got off the mountain, Schilling said, the rescue lasted about 15 hours.

Schilling, who said he is speaking to the media about the mission on behalf of the rescue group while their public information officer is out of office, thanked the group, Flight for Life and the high-altitude aviation training site for their work.

“Without the helicopter resources, it just makes these things, you know, take way more time, and it introduces a whole nother aspect of danger,” Schilling said.

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The father and son “did a lot of things right,” Schilling said, by starting early in the morning and having devices with them that allowed them to call for help. He said they found themselves in a precarious position but called for help and were found quickly.

“It’s super important that people don’t hesitate to call for help when they need it,” Schilling said. “Oftentimes, when people hesitate, then darkness sets in and things get even more difficult.”

The pair did not face adverse weather besides high winds and cold nighttime temperatures, Schilling said, and rescuers recorded no injuries to the father and son or rescue crew.

The Summit County Rescue Group advises those recreating in Summit to always carry the 10 essentials, which can be found on SCRC.org and include things like navigation tools, food, water and weather protection.