A Steamboat Springs man who broke his leg and spent eight nights stranded in the Routt National Forest was found Monday morning after a short search spurred by friends who noticed he was gone when they returned from their “mud season” vacation.
Charles Horton, 55, was in fair condition at the Yampa Valley Medical Center, suffering from a broken right leg, minor frostbite on his toes, hypothermia and dehydration, hospital officials said.
“I’ve been in search and rescue for 15 years, and this was definitely the longest that anybody has been out and shown up alive, so yeah, it’s a thrill,” said Jim Vail, the incident commander for the Routt County Search and Rescue team.
Horton, who could not be reached for comment, broke his leg April 17 while on a day-long ski tour in the isolated mountains near Chapman Reservoir in Rio Blanco County.
He managed to build a fire the first night but couldn’t keep it going. He then spent his days warming himself in the sunshine and inching on his bottom toward the trailhead and passed the nights shivering on beds of pine boughs, Vail said.
Over the week, Horton crawled almost a mile but still had about two more to go.
Caught out in a wet snowstorm Sunday night, Horton “knew he wasn’t going to last too much longer,” Vail said.
Although the certified massage therapist had told friends that he wanted to go into that area, everyone – business associates, his girlfriend in Moab and his landlords – was out town last week during “mud season,” the mountain-town term for the snow-melting weeks between winter and summer.
Sunday afternoon, Gigi and John Walker returned from a spring-break trip to Utah and discovered that their tenant and close family friend was missing.
Their daughter, Chula Wheby, had tried April 18 to call some of his friends to check on him, but none was in town. Given the independent Horton’s propensity for taking off without notice, though, she didn’t think much of his absence.
“First thing Sunday afternoon, we went into his apartment to see if there was any sign of him,” Gigi Walker said. “His plants were all dried up, and there wasn’t any water in the sink. I was trying all these little detective things to see if there was any indication he’d been around.”
The Walkers called the Routt County Sheriff’s Department and suggested the area near Dunkley Pass as a likely spot to search.
A patrol officer found Horton’s parked car about 7 p.m. Sunday, and members of the volunteer rescue group assembled Monday morning.
“We went out with the attitude that we were looking for a person that could still be alive,” Vail said.
About 10:30 a.m. Monday, as searchers attempted to dig out one of their stuck snowmobiles not far from where he lay, Horton blew on a whistle to attract their attention, his voice muted by severe dehydration.
“He was remarkably reserved, calm and collected. It wasn’t like he freaked out,” Vail said.
A longbow hunter, Horton had taken a wilderness seminar from famed survivalist Tom Brown Jr. a couple of years ago, Gigi Walker said, and was proud of his backcountry skills.
At the hospital, Horton was said to be in good spirits, relieved that his ordeal was over and thankful for the efforts of his friends and rescuers, said Sgt. Anthony Mazzola of the Rio Blanco County Sheriff’s Department, who joined the collaborative search effort.
“This is the stuff books are written about,” Mazzola said, “the human spirit and the will to live.”
Staff writer Steve Lipsher can be reached at 970-513-9495 or slipsher@denverpost.com.
