NEAR PENTICTON — An Okanagan snowmobiler has local search and rescue to thank for not spending the night outside in the cold.
On Monday night, the 40-year-old man had intended to go out for a short ride in the Allendale Lake Recreation which is about 24 kilometres east of Okanagan Falls.
Local search and rescue was alerted after the man failed to return.
Penticton Search and Rescue deployed an army of volunteers including five snowmobiles to find the stranded man.
Searchers managed to follow the man’s tracks into an area where no one had gone before.
The man’s sled had become stuck in deep snow.
Officials say the snowmobiler did the right thing by staying with his machine.
“We were happy the individual decided to stay with his machine and not wander off. Although conditions were cold it was were prefect for this type of operation to take place,” says Randy Brown with Penticton Search and Rescue.
Brown says the man managed to make a fire to keep warm and was dressed for the conditions.
He spent seven hours in the bush.