Police briefs

2 lost snowmobilers found alive in shack

Two disoriented snowmobilers are lucky to be alive after finding a small Forest Service shack in Diamond Fork Canyon in Utah County.

Utah County Sheriff's Lt. Tom Hodgson said deputies received a call around 2 a.m. from the Wasatch County Sheriff's Office regarding two missing snowmobilers. The men had called 911 Tuesday night around 11 p.m. to report that they were snowmobiling in Wasatch County, but since they were on vacation from Minnesota, they didn't know the area. With the snow, they had become disoriented and were running low on fuel.

When they didn't call back, officers got worried and initiated the search with the help of Utah County Search and Rescue.

As the search began, Wasatch County dispatchers went back over the 911 calls and tried to pull out additional information, Hodgson said.

"(Dispatchers found) a few more clues and passed them on to us, which were instrumental in helping us find these guys," Hodgson said. "They did a great job."

Those clues included information about particular trails and even the shack the men had seen earlier. Because Utah County officers were familiar with that area in Diamond Fork Canyon, they knew about the shack and its location.

When search-and-rescue teams reached the little shelter via snowmobiles, they found the two men, ages 38 and 51, asleep on two cots, with a propane wall heater keeping them warm.

"It was the safest place to stay," Hodgson said.

Hodgson said he's aware of other individuals having used that shack in emergency situations.

The two men were not injured, but officers gave them food, water and gas, and then followed them back to Daniels Summit Lodge in Wasatch County, where they had started out the previous day.

— Sara Israelsen-Hartley and Pat Reavy

TV-station van crash caused by black ice

PROVO CANYON — Slippery, snowy roads contributed to a crash Wednesday that demolished a television-station satellite van.

Around 9:30 a.m., a driver for KSL-TV was traveling up U.S. 189 when he hit a patch of black ice, said KSL news director Con Psarras.

The satellite truck slid nearly 100 yards along a guard rail before it tumbled off the side of the road and rolled into a ravine along the Provo River, Psarras said.