Powder Mountain Resort in Utah's Wasatch Mountain range is known for its great terrain and snowboard friendly attitude. However, when the lights go out at the resort at 10pm thats when the hospitality of mother nature ends as well. But one California man experienced that fact first hand, and lived to tell about it.

Powder Mountains administrative assistant, Joann Panter, said the
27-year-old man walked into her office around 7 AM Monday January 20, 1997, shaking and in shock. He asked if anyone had reported him missing. He apparently became separated from his friends while snowboarding at the ski resort on Sunday.

Panter provided the near frozen boarder some juice and candy to try and reverse his dehydration. The man said he had walked all night trying to stay warm.

The man, who didn't want his name released to the press, told Panter that it was his first time to Powder Mountain and he didn't know how to snowboard.

Ski patrol members examined the survivor and found no serious signs of frostbite or any obvious injuries. The man was described as fortunately being dressed very warm, which more than likely saved his life.

Panter said, "He was extremely exhausted, but relieved to be safe."

Panter called dispatchers, requesting an ambulance but the call was cancelled some five minutes later when the man's friends showed up at the lodge. The friends said they never filed a missing persons report because they spent the entire night looking for him after the lifts closed at 10PM.

Needless to say the victim was happy to have survived his 9 hour ordeal in the sub-freezing mountain range and says he has learned not one, but many lessons from his night in the Wasatch Mountains.