Lost Sugarloaf snowboarders return Teens cold, tired after overnight ordeal; weather, snowpack hindered search

CARRABASSETT VALLEY – A search for two teen-age snowboarders who ventured into off-limits terrain behind the Sugarloaf USA ski resort ended Sunday afternoon when they made their way to safety, apparently in good shape but cold and tired.

Soon after grooming machines had cut a trail to give searchers access to the snowy mountainside, the snowboarders hiked back to the 4,237-foot summit of Sugarloaf Mountain.

Lt. Bill Allen of the Maine Warden Service said Matt Picurro, 17, and Kevin O’Heir, 18, both of Waterville, appeared to be in good shape, but cold.

“They were wet. They tried to get a fire going during the night and couldn’t, but they got one going this morning and thawed their gloves so they could get them back on,” Allen said.

Overnight temperatures on the summit dipped to 12 degrees, Allen said.

Parents of the missing snowboarders called Sugarloaf USA after the two failed to return home Saturday night. A search operation organized early Sunday involved as many as 40 wardens, Sugarloaf personnel and volunteers.

Allen said a plane searched for the two over the remote, rugged area even though the cloud ceiling was below the summit of Maine’s second-highest mountain. A Navy helicopter that was en route to the scene was held back because of freezing rain.

On the ground, searchers on snowshoes sank waist-deep in snow 7 to 20 feet deep, and snowmobiles could not be driven in from the mountaintop, wardens said. Even one of the grooming machines brought to the area to break a trail had trouble maneuvering and sank up to its windshield in the snow, Allen said.

The snowboarders were last seen by ski resort chairlift operators, whose descriptions led wardens to believe the missing teen-agers rode their snowboards down the back side of the mountain.

But wardens leading the search were not sure where to begin looking until a pair of snowboard tracks was found Sunday afternoon, leading toward Rapid Stream Valley behind Sugarloaf Mountain, said Allen.

Searchers, who had been equipped with satellite positioning devices and had started down the trail cut by the groomer, were called back when O’Heir and Picurro turned up. Snowmobilers who had entered the valley from Kingfield were also sent back.

Allen said the teen-agers got down beyond the point where they could traverse the mountain and hit a trail that would lead them back to the lodge.

“I think they got a little sleep [during the night], but I suspect it was restless,” he said.

This weekend’s incident happened a little more than a year after two other teen-age snowboarders went off the trails at Sugarloaf, prompting a six-hour search before they found their way back down to the resort’s base.