{"id":799609,"date":"2019-09-19T14:32:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-19T20:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/hunters-righted-series-of-bad-decisions-by-lost-pyramid-peak-hiker\/"},"modified":"2019-09-19T14:32:00","modified_gmt":"2019-09-19T20:32:00","slug":"hunters-righted-series-of-bad-decisions-by-lost-pyramid-peak-hiker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/hunters-righted-series-of-bad-decisions-by-lost-pyramid-peak-hiker\/","title":{"rendered":"Hunters righted series of bad decisions by lost Pyramid Peak hiker"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/p>

Pyramid Peak seen from the top of Buttermilk in December.<\/strong>
Aspen Times file<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

A Denver man lost for two days after climbing Pyramid Peak on Sunday made a series of wrong decisions, which were only reversed once he ran into two hunters who walked him out of the backcountry, sources said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe help from the hunters has to be emphasized,\u201d said Pitkin County Deputy Ryan Voss, who was incident commander during the search for Neil Brosseau<\/a>, 66. \u201cThey ran into him in the backcountry and walked him out. They didn\u2019t have to but they did.<\/p>\n

\u201cRescue personnel really appreciate the efforts of these hunters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Efforts to reach Brosseau and the hunters Wednesday were not successful. However, the son of one of the hunters posted on Mountain Rescue Aspen\u2019s Facebook page that his father and a friend walked Brosseau six miles out of the backcountry and gave up the last day of their hunting trip to help him.<\/p>\n

Brosseau was with the hunters about 3:45 p.m. Tuesday when he ran into an MRA team heading out of the field on the East Maroon Trail. The team had been part of the two-day search effort for Brosseau.<\/p>\n

Chris Brosseau told The Times on Tuesday that he was descending Pyramid Peak with his uncle and his wife Sunday afternoon when they became separated. He said his uncle was about 300 feet above him on the saddle at about 13,000 feet that leads to the mountain\u2019s summit ridge and he was yelling at him to follow them.<\/p>\n

However, Neil Brosseau inexplicably turned around and began heading back up the trail toward Pyramid\u2019s summit, Chris Brosseau said.<\/p>\n

Voss, who interviewed Neil Brosseau, said the man didn\u2019t hear his nephew yelling and had to guess the way down, then picked the wrong route.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe got disoriented,\u201d Voss said. \u201cHe never saw Chris.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neil Brosseau chose to descend a steep gully on the backside of Pyramid and soon realized he\u2019d made a mistake, Voss said. However, Brosseau could not climb back up at that point and decided to slowly descend the route he was already on. That required sliding down on his rear end, which tore up his pants and scratched his body, Voss said.<\/p>\n

He was dressed in pants, a T-shirt and a red sweatshirt and had a backpack with a rain jacket along with some water and sports bars to eat, he said. He had no light and no way to make a fire.<\/p>\n

Sunday night, Neil Brosseau slept on a mountain ledge and wrapped himself in the clothing he had.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said his main concern was hydration,\u201d Voss said, adding that he drank out of creeks and streams. \u201cHe had plenty of food with the Powerbars.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Monday, he continued to slowly descend the mountain. He told Voss he saw helicopters that day and tried to wave, but he\u2019d lost his red sweatshirt by then and was wearing dark clothes so he couldn\u2019t be seen.<\/p>\n

When he reached the valley floor, he turned the wrong direction and began heading away from the route out of the backcountry, Voss said. He ended up sleeping under a tree that night wrapped in his rain jacket, while dealing with rain, sleet and cold.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the weather came, he would hunker down,\u201d Voss said. \u201cHe tried to stay as warm as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next day Brosseau woke up when the sun hit him and eventually ran into the hunters, who told him he was going the wrong way.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said, \u2018Hey can I hike out with you guys?\u2019\u201d Voss said. \u201cAnd they said, \u2018OK.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

When the MRA team ran into him, Brosseau was in good condition and later declined an ambulance ride to the hospital, Voss said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was in good spirits,\u201d he said. \u201cHe was kicking himself for the mistakes he made and was apologizing for the efforts we had put in looking for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Voss and Alex Burchetta, director of operations for the Pitkin County Sheriff\u2019s Office, both thanked the hunters for walking Brosseau out of the backcountry. They also warned hikers against separating from members of their hiking party.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt cannot be stressed enough \u2026 the importance of staying with your climbing and hiking party,\u201d the Sheriff\u2019s Office said in a statement Wednesday. \u201cOne of the most frequent contributors to backcountry rescues is voluntary separation.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story is from AspenTimes.com<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pyramid Peak seen from the top of Buttermilk in December.Aspen Times file A Denver man lost for two days after climbing Pyramid Peak on Sunday made a series of wrong decisions, which were only reversed once he ran into two hunters who walked him out of the backcountry, sources said Wednesday. \u201cThe help from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-799609","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-24 08:07:55","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=799609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799609\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}