When you travel in wintertime, you should dress for the climate, not the warmth of your car or your destination. Getting stuck in a winter storm without adequate clothing or supplies can and often is deadly, as this young couple learned the hard way. Not telling anyone where they were going, not knowing about the weather, dressing in light cotton clothing, and lacking survival supplies were all a deadly combination. The high country out West is very unforgiving. March and April are our heaviest snow months, too.

The couple had realised that nobody would find them; they barely knew themselves where they were. On a whim, they had travelled from Las Vegas in the Nevada desert to Utah's Grand Staircase National Monument, one of America's most beautiful – but rugged and unforgiving – park areas.



"There's no entrance gate; it's always open," said the park's recreation management office yesterday. "Nobody would know that you'd gone in."

In their hired Jeep, the two drove further into the park, passing the town of Henrieville and then going deeper into the winding ridges along the high mound-like formations that typify the park's northern area. In the summer, it is a desert; but in the winter, temperatures plummet and snow falls suddenly and thickly.

On Wednesday of last week – Mr Metcalfe's 27th birthday – the snow began, turning the ridges into quagmires. The car bogged down on a two-track road, and the car was soon half-buried in snow at a point known as Death Ridge. It was 4C (39F) by day, minus 6C by night.