James and Jennifer Stolpa – A 50 mile walk to rescue his wife

(James and Jennifer Stopla after being rescued)

On December 29, 1992, James and Jennifer Stolpa left their home in California to attend a funeral in Idaho, taking with them their two young children. Due to severe snow storms the route they intended to take had been closed for safety reasons, and instead of going back they decided to take a small country road that looked like it went in the right direction.

At one point in northern Washoe County after driving for many miles, their car got stuck in a huge snowbank that had built up on the road, and the Stolpas had no choice but to hide in their car for the night. Since this was in 1993 it’s reasonable to forgive them for not having mobile phones, and GPS equipment at this time wasn’t really a thing, so they had no way of calling for help and because of the detour, no one knew they were there.

Fortunately, they’d packed a good amount of food, including some corn chips and fruitcake, and so thought the best thing to do would be to wait for someone to come along. After four nights of waiting in the car, they realized it could be weeks before someone came down such a heavily snowed-in road, and so set out on foot looking for help.

Before they left they were sensible enough to take all their food and a few choice items, namely a sleeping bag and a means to start a fire. As soon as they set out they were faced with waist-deep snow and freezing winds, and after 12 miles of walking the family had completely lost the road and were deep in the wilderness.

They decided to turn around and walk for close to 30 hours until Jennifer was too exhausted to walk anymore. They managed to find a shallow cave in the rocks which was covered by a bush and provided the best protection from the wind they were going to get.

The next morning James decided he had no choice but to keep walking until he found help. Jennifer remained in the cave with the children while he walked through thick snow and savage winds, trying to find a single person who could help.

He walked for over 30 miles until he came across the home of David Peterson who worked as a Washoe County road maintenance worker. James was in pretty bad shape when he finally found help, and he was suffering from frostbite and exhaustion, but still managed to describe the landmarks and route back to his family in great detail.

David Peterson called for help and jumped into his own JCB, or front-end loader if you’re in the US. Rescue teams followed slowly in snow cats while he went ahead looking for the cave and James’s family.

The rescue party found the cave soon enough, there was no food or water left but all were very much alive. They were taken to hospital and the children escaped without a single problem. James and Jennifer weren’t so lucky though, as they both lost several of their toes to frostbite.

The Stolpa family’s experience has been made into a film which was released in 1994 called “Snowbound: The Jim and Jennifer Stolpa Story”.