Snowmobiler rescued from the Greystokes area Sunday

Photo: Ed Henczel

A snowmobiler is safe and warm this morning after spending 8 hours in the freezing cold of the Greystokes Provincial Park area overnight Sunday.

Ed Henczel with Central Okanagan Search and Rescue tells Castanet the snowmobiler was late arriving for a poker run in the Greystokes area, but chose to ride alone and somehow got off the trail and buried his snow machine in the fresh powder.

Once the snowmobile came to rest, it was completely stuck and the rider was unable to free his machine.

"He did the right thing and stayed with his sled," says Henczel.

The rescue call came in around 7 p.m. Sunday night, long after the poker run had wrapped up, but other participants noticed there was still a truck and trailer in the parking lot.

"The Kelowna Snowmobile Club was amazing. They know the trails, and we know search and rescue, so together we probably covered almost 500 kilometres of terrain," says Henczel.

The search was hampered because of conditions. Henczel says it was blowing snow on one side of the mountain and a full moon on the other. Luckily, the lost sledder was on the moonlit side, and he was found with his sled around 3 a.m., cold but otherwise in good shape.

"He did the right thing, in that he stayed with his machine, that made it easier to find him. However he was sledding alone and he did not have a radio or a proper shovel to dig himself out of trouble," says Henczel.