Homework-Fueled Whitewater Snowboarder Survival

In January 2020, two 16-year-old snowboarders went out of bounds near Whitewater Ski Resort in British Columbia and became lost overnight in a storm in the Canadian backcountry. As temperatures dropped into the low teens, they did “all the right things” by building a shelter and starting a fire in the dark, then kept it going by burning homework one of them had in his backpack.

Searchers initially had to suspend the nighttime operation as conditions worsened, but a helicopter crew spotted the boys the next morning in a valley south of the resort and airlifted them out. Rescuers later said the pair were cold and hungry but medically assessed as unharmed, escaping with only a bit of “frost nip” to their hands.

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