They knew there were a lot of navigation issues on Kit Carson Peak and Crestone Peak, for instance, and that they often happened when people were coming down a different way than they’d gone up. “We know where certain things happen.” It also validates some of what they already had observed about the dangers of hiking in these places but had not tracked, Howard said. “It helps us with our mission preplanning,” Howard said. “So while you celebrate that you made the summit, you still have to get home.” Mapping mission data highlights terrain traps and other critical information that rescue teams can later use, according to Howard. They're tired, they just want to get down.” People need to remember that getting to the top of a mountain is only half the trip, Thomas said. (Courtesy of Custer County Search and Rescue) “The best thing to do when you're descending and you realize you’re off route is to regain that elevation,” she said. 450 600 Custer County Search and Rescue member Cindy Howard aboard a UH-60 helicopter en route to a mission on Crestone Peak in July 2015. It's easy to make mistakes up there.” Longtime CCSAR member Cindy Howard said problems often occur when climbers get off route after reaching a summit. “It’s just (that) the terrain definitely leads to being confused, especially at that altitude, and you're tired (and) dehydrated. “It's not that these people don't know what they're doing,” Thomas said. The number of rescue missions for people who were on their way down was more than double that for those going up. She found incidents often clustered in certain areas, usually when climbers were descending from the summit. The map she created shows where fatalities, lifesaving and other kinds of missions happened and includes other information about each situation – like the number of people in the group and what they were doing on the mountain. It’s a project that started last year when Emily Griffith Technical College student Kim Jones Thomas began mapping six years of search and rescue mission data for the Crestone group. Now, Custer County Search and Rescue – which responds to calls for help in the backcountry of the Wet Mountain Valley near Westcliffe, about an hour west of Pueblo – is using GIS mapping technology to identify dangerous climbing patterns on the five 14’ers: Crestone Needle, Crestone Peak, Kit Carson Mountain, Challenger Point and Humboldt Peak. Known as the Crestone group, these peaks regularly claim the lives of climbers and hikers and are the site of dozens of rescue missions. (Courtesy of Kim Jones Thomas) Five spectacular 14,000-foot peaks in Southern Colorado’s Sangre de Cristo Mountains are also perilous.
Search and rescue data shows dangerous patterns Most incidents in Sangre de Cristo Mountains are clustered together 1000 753 Kim Jones Thomas stands on the summit of the 14,203 foot Crestone Needle, in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains on Sept.
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