Mission Reports: Chinn’s Lake Wrangler

Tuesday April 19th, Colorado 4×4 Rescue and Recovery received a 911 relay call from Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Department for a Jeep Wrangler stuck in the snow on Chinn’s Lake.

Party had been stuck in the snow for a few hours, and was actively working to dig out but was not having much luck. As the afternoon temperatures climbed, it was slowly softening the snow making access to the stuck party extremely difficult. The team had to winch themselves through multiple soft snow areas which severely delayed their getting on scene.

Once finally on scene, the recovery was pretty straight forward. The jeep was mobile again in about 35 minutes time. However, everyone had to egress through the multi-hour snow fields back to pavement. It took the team about 3 hours to reach pavement after having what some might know as a “winch fest.” Every vehicle got hung up in numerous spots on the way back to the trail head.

Total mission time from departure to last arrival back home was over 7 hours.

Be sure to have a survival kit in your vehicle with spare water, food, clothing, recovery gear, and mutlitple methods of communcations. This exemplifies how it can take numerous hours for us to even reach you with deep snow in the way. Be prepared!

Colorado 4×4 Rescue and Recovery
We Recover the Rockies