ALTA, Wyo. — Teton County Search and Rescue (TCSAR) announced Wednesday that it had been mobilized to respond to an injured skier in the Grand Targhee backcountry.
TCSAR was dispatched around 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 21, to help a 27-year-old male who had injured himself after falling off of a cornice near a ski area called Mary’s Nipple, which is located in Grand Targhee Resort. A snow cornice is an overhanging mass of hard snow on a mountain ridge, and they are often unstable. The skier had fallen approximately 100 feet after the cornice broke off of the ridgeline beneath him, landing in the basin below. The cornice area was considered out-of-bounds terrain, according to TCSAR.
Grand Targhee Ski Patrol located the man and prepared him for helicopter transport while the TCSAR heli was en route. TCSAR short-hauled the skier to a waiting ambulance at the base of Targhee. Short-hauling involves a helicopter suspending a person from a 150 to 250-foot rope. This technique is often used where conditions are too steep or rocky for a safe helicopter landing.
“TCSAR appreciates the well-coordinated response from Grand Targhee Ski Patrol, and would like to remind backcountry users to be extremely cautious of cornices while approaching or traversing ridgelines,” TCSAR posted to Facebook.
