On Christmas night 2010, 8 TNSAR searchers rescued 9 lost snowshoeing members of the SOC. The 9 had left the Bradley Hut in the morning, planning to spend Christmas night at the Benson Hut. Sometime in the evening, about 7 pm, the group realized they couldn't find the hut and called for help, as a storm moved in. They were able to give their GPS coordinates. Three snowmobilers (Scott, Chris and Nick) one snowcat (Dave) and four skiers (Steve T., Doug R., Bob W. and Dirk) responded.

As snow started to fall, the snowmobilers towed the skiers into Coldstream Canyon, as Dave followed in the snowcat. There were many rivulet and creek crossings, one in particular took 30 minutes to fill in to the point where snowmos and cat could get across. At about 1:00 am the snowmos and cat had gone as far as they could and the skiers continued on, up into the steep ravines just to the northeast of the Bradley Hut, towards UTM 0733686/4349343. Within 30 minutes tracks were almost obliterated by snow and wind. At about 2:30 am the skiers made voice contact with the lost group. They had dug snow pits, covered them with emergency blankets and were very cold, wet and tired. 2 of them had taken their wet boots off and left them outside their shelters. It was decided that evacuation by hiking out to the snow machines was the best option and the mobilization effort started- getting frozen boots on, lightening packs, providing dry clothes. (A large pile of gear was left at the scene, hopefully team members can do a training to that area this week and schlep it out.)

The snowshoers actually performed well on the trek out, slow but steady. By about 4:30 am the rendezvous with the snow machines was achieved and the long tow and ride out began. Thank goodness for Dave, Scott, Chris and Nick- it is unlikely some of the snowshoers could have continued much farther.

At 5:30 am all searchers and victims were at the command post, where they waited for 1 hour for the victims to be interviewed and moved to the Truckee/Donner Inn.