EL DORADO COUNTY, Calif. – Three motorists found themselves stranded overnight Monday on Mormon Emigrant Trail after becoming stuck in heavy snow. All were found safe on Tuesday after a search and rescue mission was conducted by multiple agencies.

On February 17, the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office (EDSO) put out a request for search and rescue assistance in finding the three people who had spent the night outdoors. The initial report said there were two separate parties involved, both of whom became trapped in approximately six feet of snow on the closed road. The first party was stuck about six miles north of SR88, and the second, who was attempting to rescue them from the Sly Park side, also became stranded about 8.5 miles north of SR88.

Mormon Emigrant Trail is in the Eldorado National Forest in El Dorado County, and is 24.5 miles in length, stretching from Sly Park to SR88 with an elevation of 6,000 feet. It closes for the winter as it is not maintained.

The Amador County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO) was one of the agencies responding to the search on Tuesday. The Search and Rescue coordinators deployed with the department’s Snowcat and command and control teams. They reached out to their partners at PG&E to request a second Snowcat and additional operators. ACSO said PG&E did not hesitate to assist, and Caltrans joined in the search and provided a snowplow escort for the team fighting through blinding snowfall, high velocity winds, and near-zero visibility.

The stranded people, two men and a woman, spent a harrowing night in the sub-freezing wilderness, and communication with them was diminishing as their cellphones lost power.

EDSO was able to provide GPS coordinates. At 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, the two Snowcats pushed into the area where the stranded people were. Onboard, they had two EDSO Search and Rescue (SAR) volunteers, one ACSO SAR volunteer, a PG&E Snow Cat operator, one PG&E Snow Cat Operator, and one ACSO Coordinator Sergeant.

“The trek was brutal!” said a post on the ACSO Facebook page. “The heavy machines became stuck multiple times, requiring rescuers to dig them out by hand in the middle of a blizzard and in sub-20-degree temperatures. The snow drifts, at times, exceeded the height of the Snowcats themselves, and the road was never visible, covered in six plus feet of snow, but the team pressed on.”

After a grueling six hours to travel six miles in the heavy snow and harsh conditions on Tuesday, rescuers were able to reach the first stranded motorist. At 8:30 p.m., the team was able to extract the motorist from his vehicle, which was buried in snow, and placed him into the warmth and safety of the Snowcat.

Showing minimal signs of hypothermia, the male subject asked the team to continue the rescue efforts as his friends were in the second stranded vehicle. The team pressed on to the second stranded vehicle, covering the last two and a half miles in approximately one hour. The second vehicle was buried in even deeper snow, and after approximately 15 minutes of digging, the team was able to extract a male and a female subject from the vehicle. The male and female subjects showed signs of hypothermia. Using the trail the team had created, they were able to extract all three individuals back to Highway 88 in a fraction of the time.

Two of the people rescued were transported by CAL FIRE, and one subject by Amador Fire Protection District (AFPD) personnel and they were taken the 17 miles to Cooks Station, where American Legion Ambulance (ALA) personnel were waiting. All three were then transported to Sutter Amador Hospital by ALA where they were treated and subsequently released.

ACSO said, “This was a community effort! We want to extend an incredible thank you to PG&E and their operators. Their generosity in providing a second Snowcat and technical skills were critical to the success of this mission. We also want to thank our partners at Cal-Trans, CAL FIRE, AFPD, ALA, and the USFS for their support and standby assistance.”