{"id":41677,"date":"2022-03-15T15:37:09","date_gmt":"2022-03-15T21:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/rescuers-respond-to-snowmobile-crash-in-san-juan-national-forest\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T09:02:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:02:35","slug":"rescuers-respond-to-snowmobile-crash-in-san-juan-national-forest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/rescuers-respond-to-snowmobile-crash-in-san-juan-national-forest\/","title":{"rendered":"Rescuers respond to snowmobile crash in San Juan National Forest"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Flight
Flight for Life, out of Durango, responded to a snowmobile crash that injured a man on Bolam Pass northeast of Rico. (Courtesy Dolores County Search and Rescue)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

A Montezuma County man was rescued from Bolam Pass Saturday in the San Juan National Forest after being injured in a snowmobile crash.<\/p>\n

While snowmobiling with friends, the man pitched over his handlebars and broke his leg, said Capt. Keith Keesling, of the Dolores County Search and Rescue.<\/p>\n

The group used a cellphone to call for help. DCSAR, Rico Volunteer Fire Department and Flight for Life of Durango responded.<\/p>\n

Two Rico Fire Department rescuers snowmobiled up Barlow Creek Road to the incident at 11,400 feet elevation near the Bolam Pass backcountry hut.<\/p>\n

They administered medical aid and packaged the man for extraction by Flight for Life.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a good landing zone in that area,\u201d Keesling said.<\/p>\n\n

After landing, the helicopter had to take off briefly to burn off some fuel to accommodate the patient, he said.<\/p>\n

The man was flown to Mercy Medical and the injury was not life-threatening.<\/p>\n

\u201cAwesome job by all,\u201d Keesling said. \u201cThe entire rescue was over in about two hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the group was snowmobiling in a \u201cpretty safe area\u201d from avalanche danger when the crash occurred. But he warned backcountry users of a persistent weak layer in the snowpack that has been triggering avalanches on steeper slopes in the area.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Avalanche Information Center recorded five naturally occurring slides in the Sheep Mountain area north of Bolam Pass on March 10-12.<\/p>\n

jmimiaga@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dolores County, Rico Fire and Flight for Life team up to rescue injured man<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29,199],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-41677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-san-juan-national-forest"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41677"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85057,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41677\/revisions\/85057"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41677"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=41677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}