It was a lovely day for an ultra marathon until a foot-and-a-half of snow dumped on the unprepared runners’ intended route. Local rescue teams were forced to extract more than 80 ultra-marathoners from Utah’s Wasatch Mountains near Salt Lake City on Saturday after extreme weather dumped 12 to 18 inches of snow, causing near white-out conditions during the DC Peaks 50 race, according to the Davis County Sheriff’s Office.
The 50-mile race was cut short around 9:30 a.m. when the sheriff’s office was notified of an “emergency situation” involving 87 runners competing in blizzard-like conditions, NBC News reports. Search and rescue teams descended on the area and the race was suspended. All runners were accounted for by 2:45 p.m, the sheriff’s department said. Several participants were treated for hypothermia and released at the scene and a least one person was treated for a minor injury due to a fall, according to NBC New.
“Venturing onto the mountains, trails and bodies of water at this time of the year can be dangerous because the weather changes rapidly and conditions can quickly become life-threatening,” Davis County Sheriff Kelly V. Sparks said in a statement. “Even a mild rain in the valley can translate to blizzard conditions at higher elevations.”
DC Peaks 50 is “a tough course” with approximately 12,000 feet of vertical gain and 10,000 feet of descent and is “designed to take you along trails with the best views of the area,” according to its website.
87 runners rescued after snowstorm derails ultra marathon in Utah https://t.co/PKaKwy9jFr
— CBS News (@CBSNews) October 10, 2021
Clown central… Every Skier in Utah knew this storm was coming… Welcome to the new world of idiots….
Absolutely 100% avoidable
Didn’t they even see the forescasts on snowbrains?
Snowbrains should be THE app on their phone.
Well of course ego had nothing to do with their decisions at all am sure.
This was a very well forecast storm and these people thought they were better than an incoming blizzard. They weren’t, this was 100% avoidable.