A man was left stranded on a mountain by his colleagues in a work retreat gone wrong
Chaffee County Search and Rescue South
- A work retreat turned perilous last week after a Colorado man was left stranded on a mountain.
- His colleagues left him to try to summit alone and he got lost coming down, rescuers say.
- The man endured a night alone on the mountain and was only found after a massive search.
A Colorado man was rescued after getting stranded overnight on a 14,230-foot mountain during a work retreat, local authorities said.
The man, who was not named, was left to summit Colorado's Mount Shavano by himself last week after around 14 of his colleagues made their way back down the mountain without him, the southern division of Chaffee County Search and Rescue wrote in a Facebook post.
"In what might cause some awkward encounters at the office in the coming days and weeks, one member of their party was left to complete his final summit push alone," the post said.
"We see it all the time of, you know, someone's a little faster, someone's a little slower, especially on the fourteeners," the rescue group's president, Danny Andres, told the local outlet 9News.
A fourteener is a mountain over 14,000 feet high, at which the air is thinner than at sea level.
Business Insider was unable to reach out to the company, which was not named.
According to the rescuers' Facebook post, the man reached the peak of the mountain at 11:30 a.m. but became disorientated as he made his way back down.
His colleagues had removed items they'd left along the trail as markers, and he found himself on a steep boulder and scree field, the post said.
The man then sent a pin to his colleagues — who told him he'd gone the wrong way and he'd have to retrace his steps to find the right trail, it said.
Around 3:30 p.m., he sent another pin, messaging colleagues to say he'd reached the correct ridge, but soon after that "a strong storm passed through the area with freezing rain and high winds, and he again became disoriented, losing cell phone signal as well," the post said.
By 9 p.m., Chaffee County Search and Rescue South said it had been alerted and activated two teams, a drone pilot, and a helicopter.
Chaffee County Search and Rescue South
Weather conditions on the mountain made the search difficult, the group said, and the helicopter, "despite flying several search patterns throughout the area did not detect any sources of artificial light apart from search teams anywhere on the mountain."
By 9 a.m. the next morning, the searchers had found nothing and put out a call to nine other search and rescue groups statewide.
Chaffee County Search and Rescue South
But just as those groups set out, the man regained cell service and managed to make a 911 call, the search and rescue team wrote.
The man told rescuers he'd fallen more than 20 times and ended up in a gully, unable to get up. But the call allowed the group to locate him and perform a complex rescue, the group said.
"This hiker was phenomenally lucky to have regained cell service when he did, and to still have enough consciousness and wherewithal to call 911," the post said.
In recent years, company retreats have come under increasing scrutiny for overzealous team-building exercises.
Employees have been injured walking over hot coals during more than one corporate retreat. Some company retreats, such as WeWork's "Summer Camp," became known for their hedonistic excess, as multiple former WeWork staffers told Business Insider in 2019.
Industry experts recommend planning a mix of group activities combined with downtime and work-related sessions.