2 snowshoers in Shirley Canyon, Squaw Valley

A husband/wife couple, 20-30 something, from Pleasanton, left Olympic Village Inn at 1000 in good weather, walking, carrying their snowshoes, well dressed with food, water, an altimeter/compass and a hand drawn map given to them by the concierge at OVI. They had hiked to Shirley Lake in the summer and wanted to try it in the winter, then take the tram down. At about 1400, realizing they were lost, and in an increasingly intense snow storm, they called 911 from a peak at about 8200’ on a cell phone that was losing battery power, saying they had strayed right and were going to backtrack.

TNSAR involvement TNSAR was dispatched and deployed from Squaw Valley Fire Station at about 1545, 3 teams- one to follow tracks up from bottom of Shirley Canyon, one to ski down Shirley Canyon from the top, and one to ski down Silverado Bowl and then cut across Shirley Canyon about halfway up. The team from the bottom came upon Dave and Jocelyn about ¾ miles up the Canyon from OVI, hiking down next to the North Fork of Squaw Creek, in good shape but tired and glad to be found. They walked out on their own and all teams were back at the Command Post by about 1800. A fine meal was had by all at Salsa’s, interrupted only by a possible search at Northstar, which was resolved by Northstar Security before fine food had to be left on the table by TNSAR.

Sheriff	Com Van	Dispatch	Truck/Command Post	Skiers	Film team
Dave Hunt	Bill Healy	Kelli Twomey Marilyn Stack Terri Viehmann	Gerald Rockwell Ray & Marty O’Brien Mike Kennett Kathy & John Chilcote Shannon Owens	John Rosetto Jim Granger Ron Driller Steve Twomey Jeff Rieger Mark Johnson Bob Wright Russ Viehmann	Tom Day Elizabeth Rogers