‘Unprepared’ hiker rescued after getting lost wearing only a cotton sweatshirt for warmth

The hiker was found ‘alive but very hypothermic’ after spending seven hours in a severe snowstorm

The hiker was found ‘alive but very hypothermic’ after spending seven hours in a severe snowstorm (Chaffee County Search and Rescue North)

An “unprepared” hiker who was wearing only a cotton sweatshirt for warmth was rescued from the Colorado Rockies on Thursday, authorities said.

The hiker was found “alive but very hypothermic” after having spent seven hours in a severe snowstorm without food or water, according to rescuers.

The individual, whose name has not been released, was trying to summit a 13,000-foot ridge near Mount Princeton on Wednesday when bad weather moved in, search and rescue officials said in a post on Facebook.

“When inclement weather moved in the hiker found themself unprepared; out of water, with no food, wearing only a cotton hoodie and no way to warm themselves,” the statement read.

“With darkness approaching and hypothermia setting in the individual decided, rather than take the same way down the best plan was to bail down an avalanche chute to try to get to a road.”

Around 25 rescuers were deployed (Chaffee County Search and Rescue North)

An avalanche chute is a natural path down a slope created by frequent avalanches.

Around 25 search and rescue team members were deployed to look for the stranded hiker as a severe snowstorm blew in.

Authorities were not able to obtain GPS information from the hiker’s phone so the rescue team knew only that the hiker was in an avalanche chute east of Cottonwood Lake.

They eventually found the individual after a team member spotted footprints in six to eight inches of freshly fallen snow, and began to follow them, rescuers said.

Chaffee County Search and Rescue team members came upon what they thought was “an unusual looking rock” at 2am, six hours after they initially learned that a hiker was stranded.

“Upon further investigation it was determined it was not a rock but the subject sitting upright in a fetal position covered in snow,” a statement said.

The team spent three hours warming the hiker up before beginning the process of getting them down the gully at around 5am.

Ropes were used to lower the hiker one section at a time until they were able to walk down the remaining stretch of the slope to an ambulance waiting to check them out, the rescue team said.

It comes after Colorado authorities found the decomposed bodies of three hikers who may have been missing since the winter in July.