What would you do?

You’ve spent the morning skiing with your wife. The kids are in ski school, and before lunch you decide to duck off on your own for some untracked snow. Recent storms have delivered a batch of fresh powder, and you live for the stuff.

But after some nice turns in the woods, you find yourself oddly alone. There’s not even tracks where other skiers had been. Your cellphone is almost dead.

You’re in a wilderness. You’re lost.

That’s what happened Friday to Alex Maginnis, 41, of Cincinnati. He’s a graduate of Fort Lewis College; his mother lives in Durango.

“I was thinking: Wow, this is great snow,” Maginnis said in an extended phone interview. “Then it dawned on me that there was no one back here. I came out to a clearing and thought, ‘This is beautiful,’ but then I looked around and thought: This is not good.”

Maginnis had been skiing the so-called “backside” of Purgatory at Durango Mountain Resort, off chairlift 8.

“I never saw any rope or sign or anything,” he said. “I just kind of stayed to the left and all of the sudden I was on untraveled snow.”

DMR said in a statement Tuesday evening emailed by spokeswoman Kim Oyler that the boundary is marked with a rope and signs. Ski patrollers identified Maginnis’ tracks where he exited the boundary, the statement said.

“This area is marked with a rope that runs from the top of Lift 8 down to Hermosa Park,” the statement said. “There is also signage identifying the ski area boundary near the point where Mr. Maginnis exited the ski area.”

Maginnis texted his wife at 2:05 p.m., saying he “kind of messed up,” but knew of a way to correct his error: He would ski a few miles southeast and end up at Needles Country Store, the small collection of stores a few miles south of the ski area.

“I looked on my map on my phone and saw that I was a good mile outside (the ski area), and I remembered that a ski instructor had mentioned that there was a way to get down to Needles store, and it didn’t sound like it was too tough, so I figured I’d try that.”

After traveling southeast for some distance, Maginnis found a sign that simply read, “Trail.” He followed it.

That’s where the adventure began. The trail he followed led him down the Big Lick drainage toward Hermosa Creek. It connected with the famed Hermosa Creek Trail, which begins nine miles west of DMR’s base and ends at Hermosa Creek Campground, 21 miles south.

“I remembered that there was a bike trail there,” he said. “Basically, I decided that I could follow water and eventually it was going to get me down.”

He sent his wife a second text message at 7:15 p.m.

“Help. Think I am on trail to Needles. Saw sign. So alone. So tired.”

Maginnis was fighting the dark, as well as an unstable snowpack. He had no headlamp or compass. In the blackness, he didn’t see a 30-foot cliff and plummeted down.

Landing in deep snow protected him from injury, but left him wet and cold.

“I got pretty lucky on the landing,” he said.

Having recently been on a backcountry ski outing in Utah, Maginnis still had a shovel and emergency blanket in his pack. Twice, he stopped to make a shelter. At his second stop, close to Hermosa Creek, a fallen tree offered shelter under the roots.

“I tried to find some brush to cover the entrance and that’s when my feet broke through the snow, and cold water came right into my ski boots.

“I was at a loss,” he said. “It was pretty much the worst thing that could happen. I pretty much decided right then and there, ‘There’s no more stopping.’”

Maginnis focused on following the drainage. Unfamiliar with the trail, which was covered in waist-deep snow at times, he repeatedly found himself off course. At one point, the trail seemed to abruptly leave the creek.

“I went back down to the creek to see if there was a trail right along the side of it, but I found out with pretty good certainty that there was no way I was going to be able to traverse along there.”

By the time he made it back up the hill from the creek drainage, the sun began to rise.

Gaining elevation, he tried his phone one more time. Nothing.

“Then I felt a little buzz in my pocket and saw the text from my wife and (rescuers). I still wasn’t getting bars, but tried to respond, saying, ‘This is where I am. I’m on the Hermosa Creek Trail.’ By some miracle I had one little bar of service, and it looked like it had sent, and then my battery just died for good.”

Soon, Maginnis heard his name. A member of a six-person team of La Plata County Search and Rescue had forged ahead, and made contact with him.

“Obviously, it was quite a relief,” he said. “My first priority was water. They had all kinds of stuff. It was amazing to have after all that.”

Twenty rescuers had searched through the night, finding his snow caves and tracing his route through the forest. The party that found him approached from the south.

Search-and-rescue members made contact with Maginnis about seven miles from the Hermosa Creek Campground. He said he traveled an estimated 50 miles over a 24-hour period.

Jen Maginnis, his wife, spent a worrisome night.

“I believed in him,” she said in a phone interview. “And they (rescuers) were so amazing. They kept telling me, ‘We’re following him, his tracks. He’s out of avalanche danger.’”

“I feel like they are such heroes.”

Jen Maginnis said searchers told her he was moving for a reason: He had something to come home to.

“My kids and my family were the biggest thing,” Alex Maginnis said. “I didn’t care how tired I was, stopping was not an option. It was my family. I’m not going to give up.”

bmathis@durangoherald.com. Staff Writer John Peel contributed to this report.

Do’s and don’ts when you’re lost in backcountry

If you’re lost in the backcountry, you can do things both to increase and to decrease your chances of survival. Here are some do’s and don’ts tips from Butch Knowlton, La Plata County director of emergency preparedness.

Do’s

Be prepared. Always have the right equipment.

“If you’re prepared for bad weather, for cold temperatures, for the terrain you’re in, that’s half the battle because you can at least do things to take care of yourself: be able to start a fire, be able to build a shelter, have the right clothes.”

Leave a plan. This obviously has to be done before you get lost, but tell a friend or loved one where you’re going, and be as precise as possible. Also, give a time schedule and stick to it.

“The county’s pretty big,” Knowlton said. “If we have to go check trailheads ... that takes a tremendous amount of time. Leave an itinerary as best you can. Then if you’re overdue, we have a point to start searching.”

Help rescuers. Wilderness searches generally are aided by aircraft because they cover ground so quickly, Knowlton said. Get out into the open. Wear bright, unnatural colors if you have them. Build a fire and create smoke. You should ask: “How can I help them spot me?”

Don’ts

Don’t leave yourself in a situation where you can’t take care of yourself. Mountain bikers, for instance, are notorious for traveling light so they can cover vast distances. When it rains and gets chilly in the high country, that can lead to trouble.

“They break a chain, break a leg, get lost, whatever,” Knowlton said. “So now they have nothing to take care of themselves with.”

Don’t automatically follow the maxim that if you head downhill you’ll come to civilization. While the maxim may be true, following that advice in Southwest Colorado’s backcountry could get you into a no-win situation.

Following a stream could lead you into a rough and steep box canyon and into a place where it could take days to get out of, Knowlton said.

johnp@durangoherald.com