At 2:19 p.m. on Tuesday, April 2, Teton County Search & Rescue was called regarding an injured skier on No Name Peak south of the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. The skier, a 37-year-old local, became injured after falling through a cliff band that hangs off the lower skier’s right section of the mountain’s prominent northeast slope.

These two photos show the skier’s tracks going into a cliff band in the lower section of No Name Peak. Photo: TCSAR

TCSAR responded with two volunteers in the helicopter, while JHMR dispatched two ski patrollers who approached from the top of the tram. Once TCSAR arrived on scene, the ship set down in the bowl below the peak, and one volunteer was able to traverse over to the injured skier and his party. The other volunteer stayed with the ship to rig for short-haul, a method of rescue in which a patient can be transported out of the backcountry via a long rope connected to the helicopter.

The team then placed the skier in a screamer suit—a full-body harness that gets clipped into the long line—and flew him and the SAR volunteers to the landing zone at the base of Teton Village, where they met an ambulance with Jackson Hole Fire/EMS.

Thanks to the JHMR Ski Patrol and Jackson Hole Fire/EMS for the partnership in helping to get this skier out of the backcountry and to higher medical care.