Three Substance Rescues in One Summer at Conundrum Hot Springs

A backpacker at Conundrum Hot Springs needed help on September 16. A storm grounded the helicopter, rescuers walked in, and the carryout turned into an all-night problem. Here is what Mountain Rescue Aspen is asking hikers to understand about altitude, hot water, and what you drink.

Conundrum Hot Springs is one of the friendliest-sounding destinations in the Elk Mountains. There is no technical climbing, no exposure, no route-finding crux. Just a long walk up a beautiful drainage to 102-degree water at more than 11,000 feet.

That is exactly what makes it a problem. On the evening of Wednesday, September 16, sixteen Mountain Rescue Aspen volunteers were walking into that drainage in rain and lightning because a 29-year-old backpacker could not breathe right, and the helicopter could not come.

What happened at Conundrum Hot Springs

According to Mountain Rescue Aspen’s release, reported by the Denver Gazette and The Aspen Times, the call came in on Wednesday afternoon by satellite device. The backpacker’s companions reported that he was having difficulty breathing and involuntary muscle spasms, and that he needed medical attention right away.

Before anyone started hiking, rescuers established two-way communication with the group and confirmed the party’s exact location. A hasty team went in. More rescuers staged at the trailhead.

An air ambulance was requested. Rain and lightning in the Conundrum drainage made the flight impossible, so the aircraft held on standby while additional MRA teams walked in to support a nighttime carryout in a worsening storm.

The teams reached the patient by early evening and found him stable, alert, and able to walk short distances. Two nurses who happened to be at the springs had already provided initial care. After talking it through with rescuers and medical personnel, the patient and his group decided to stay at the campsite overnight rather than accept a litter evacuation in the dark.

So the rescuers turned around and hiked the eight miles back out. All teams were off the mountain by 10 p.m.

The helicopter that could not fly

Compare that to the same trail in July. On July 1, MRA got a text-to-911 call at about 6:46 a.m. for a hiker near Conundrum with severe abdominal pain who could not walk. CareFlight of the Rockies launched, and the helicopter reached the hikers by about 7:50 a.m. That mission still took about seven hours and nineteen MRA personnel, but the patient was at Aspen Valley Hospital before most people had finished breakfast.

Same drainage, same team, roughly the same distance from the road. The difference was the sky.

A helicopter is not a rescue plan. It is a piece of luck that depends on ceiling, visibility, wind, lightning, and daylight. Plan for the September version of this story, not the July one.

Why 11,000 feet changes how substances hit

This was not an isolated call.

Bystanders at the hot springs told rescuers that the hiker had been consuming alcohol or drugs, Jeff Edelson, chief rescue leader at Mountain Rescue Aspen, told The Aspen Times. Edelson said it was the third substance-related call his team had run this summer, and that he could not remember a season with that many.

“I think people underestimate that as they go up in elevation, that affects their ability to consume drugs and alcohol,” Edelson said. “When they’re in hot springs, which are basically like hot tubs, that will also dehydrate somebody.”

MRA’s release spells out the physiology. Alcohol, cannabis, and other substances have stronger and less predictable effects at higher elevations. Stack that on top of hot-water immersion, dehydration, and the exertion of getting there, and you can get fainting, heat illness, impaired judgment, and breathing or cardiac symptoms.

Those effects can also mask or mimic the signs of altitude illness, which means the people around you lose their ability to tell the difference between someone who overdid it in the water and someone whose body is failing at elevation. Both look the same in a headlamp beam at 9 p.m. That ambiguity is what turns a bad evening into a satellite call.

None of this requires anyone to be reckless. It is a beer or two that would be unremarkable in Aspen, at an elevation and a water temperature where your body handles it differently.

A very popular soak with no rules about alcohol

Conundrum is busy. David Boyd, public information officer for the White River National Forest, told The Aspen Times that 50 to 60 visitors make the trip on a typical day, with 15 to 20 people at a time crowding into the water. The Forest Service put a permit system in place in 2018, driven by the impacts of heavy use. Campsites cap out at 64 people, but there is no limit on how many people walk up for a soak and head back down the same day. And, Boyd said, there are currently no specific rules about drugs or alcohol at Conundrum.

So this is not a regulatory problem you can wait for someone else to solve. It is a personal-judgment problem, at 11,000 feet, eight miles from the trailhead.

Edelson was blunt about the cost of getting it wrong. “It’s really frustrating for us and our volunteers that our folks took six hours, eight hours away from their families to go help somebody who ultimately didn’t need it,” he said.

Worth remembering who “our folks” are: Mountain Rescue Aspen is a 50-member volunteer team that runs more than 100 calls a year and donates over 5,000 hours annually, funded by donations. Nobody on that hike was getting paid.

How to plan for a rescue that takes all night

Nobody is arguing you should never have a drink at a hot spring. The margin you are working with at Conundrum is just thinner than the trail difficulty suggests.

• Carry a two-way satellite device, not a one-way beacon. The single best decision in this incident was that rescuers could talk with the group and confirm the location. Two-way communication is what lets a team plan instead of search. Our guide to free apps and tools covers what pairs well with one.
• Pack for an unplanned night, every time. Insulation, shelter, extra food and water, and a dry layer you have not hiked in. In this case the patient stayed put until morning, which was a reasonable call precisely because the group had what they needed to do it.
• Ask the question before you soak, not after. If someone in your group needed help right now, could you hold this position until daylight? If the answer is no, that is your signal, not the weather forecast.
• Treat alcohol as a gear decision. You would not bring the wrong boots to a 17-mile day with 3,000 feet of gain. Same logic, same trip. Our guide to hiking 14ers in September covers the rest of the seasonal shift.
• Know what your CORSAR card actually does. It helps reimburse SAR teams for mission costs. It is not insurance, and per MRA it does not cover medical transport, air or ground.

Conundrum is worth the walk. It has been on our Conundrum Peak route page for years, and we have covered rescues in this drainage more than once. The hot springs are not the dangerous part. The eight miles between them and a road are.

Risk management isn’t fear. It’s smart. Go soak. Just make sure the version of you who has to walk out is the one making the decisions.

Valley and night-camp photos by The Next Summit / Alex Derr, taken in Colorado’s Elk Mountains on earlier trips. Conundrum Creek valley photo by Zach Dischner, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. All three illustrate the terrain and none are images of this incident. Reporting from The Aspen Times and the Denver Gazette, with primary material from Mountain Rescue Aspen. Overnight camping in the Conundrum Creek Valley requires a permit year-round, reserved through Recreation.gov by searching “Conundrum Hot Springs Permit.” Day visits do not require one. See the White River National Forest permit details and check the White River National Forest for current conditions before you go. If this kind of reporting is useful to you, becoming a member is what keeps it going.