A group of nine ISU students who were camping at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado during Spring Break were forced to learn more advanced mountaineering techniques quickly when the weather took an unexpected turn.

A record blizzard dumped 8 feet of snow on the students and forced them to turn back early, before they could reach the summit of Taylor Peak in Estes Park.

When the students did not return on March 19 as planned, Rocky Mountain National Park officials became concerned about the students’ safety and sent a rescue helicopter to look for them.

“The park service was proactive to make sure nothing happened,” said Mike Harvey, director of ISU Recreation Services.

The helicopter dropped a radio and snowshoes down to the students to assist them on their hike down, Harvey said.

The students were joined by park rangers on skis, and they finished the trek down the mountain together, said Adam Petts, supervisor at ISU Recreation Services and senior in management information systems.

“I’m confident they would have made it out on their own,” Harvey said.

The nine ISU students who were on the trip — Brian Block, Matt Cohen, Ryan Doyle, Sean Genter, Jake Ingman, Brendan Kelly, Andrew Marshall, Tim Newton and Adam Petts — made it down the mountain by mid-afternoon Thursday, Harvey said.

Before the rangers arrived to assist the stranded students, they had to use their own skills to make it through the blizzard.

Block, supervisor of the trip and senior in philosophy, said the students began using two sleeping pads to make it down the trail faster. A couple of guys would lay out the sleeping pads and walk on them to make the snow sturdy enough to support their weight, Block said.

“A chain is only as strong as the weakest link,” Block said. “In this chain, there were no weak links.”

Harvey said the students had taken classes to prepare them for mountaineering and had their gear checked three times to ensure safety.

“[We] plan for the worst and hope for the best,” Harvey said. “Mother Nature doesn’t always agree with us.”

Cohen, supervisor at ISU Recreation Services and sophomore in pre-architecture, said the students received permits and checked the weather forecasts, which had only called for 1 to 3 inches of snow.

After the heavy snowfall, the students used avalanche shovels to dig out small sections of chest-deep snow, Cohen said.

“It took five minutes to move two steps,” he said.

The group continued to have fun; they were just moving more slowly, Cohen said.

Prior to the trip, the majority of the group had no mountaineering experience in the Alpine region, he said. The students, whose trip was sponsored by ISU Recreation Services, left Ames on March 14, Harvey said.

Cohen said the group was never really in any immediate danger.

“Nobody was freaking out, and we had a good end result,” Cohen said.

“It’s a lifetime experience,” Petts said. “The storm of the century that we survived — I wouldn’t do it with any other guys than the eight I was with.”