Kennewick man survives 17 hours lost on ski slope

A Kennewick man survived spending Saturday night on a ski slope after he fell into a 5-foot hole at Ski Bluewood south of Dayton.

Abe Cortina was snowboarding when he was separated from his friends. They told employees at the ski resort he was missing at 5:35 p.m.

“I was at the parking lot when I got the call,” said Kim Clark, general manager of Ski Bluewood.

Cortina would spend 17 hours outside overnight as people searched for him.

“We had 18 Bluewood staff searching and three public volunteers helping with snowmobiles and a tracked UTV,” said Clark. “(Life Flight) spent an hour in the air searching with night vision ... We had resources from the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office and the Walla Walla County Sheriff’s Office.”

Searchers checked the ski area, occasionally shutting down machines and yelling for Cortina. But as the temperature dropped to 23 degrees under a clear sky at 1:15 a.m., Clark said he stopped the search.

“We called it off out of safety to our crews,” he said.

Cortina later told search crews he fell in a hole, climbed out and kept moving. He eventually built a shelter from tree boughs in a thicket of trees.

“He tried to make a fire, but his lighter was broken, probably in the fall,” said Clark. “He heard our snowmobiles and the helicopter and started hiking up (the mountain).”

Cortina was discovered by a snowmobiler about 10 a.m. Sunday and taken to the ski patrol headquarters at the top of the skill hill to be examined. From there, he rode his snowboard down the hill to meet his family and friends.

“He was doing pretty good at the bottom,” Clark said.

Searches for lost skiers and snowboarders are rare and take a toll on searchers. The Ski Bluewood staff spent more 132 hours collectively looking for Cortina. The last similar search was in 2001.

“He made (three) bad decisions and a bunch of good ones that led to a very happy ending,” said Clark.

Cortina, who couldn’t be reach Monday by the herald, became separated from his group, which makes it harder to find a person. And because he kept walking for four miles he ended up outside the ski resort boundaries. Search teams went through the area of his fall three times without finding him because he left the resort.

“People need to respect boundaries at a ski resort. They are there for a reason,” he said.

And Clark said the helicopter flew over him without seeing him because he was wearing white clothes.

“We ask people to think about their personal safety and the safety of the people who will go looking for you,” he said. “We were extremely happy it turned out the way it was, and he could be reunited with his family.”

This story was originally published February 13, 2017 at 4:24 PM with the headline "Kennewick man survives 17 hours lost on ski slope."