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Soldiers flown off high Colo. mountain peak

The soldiers were on a training mission when they called for help and spent the night on the mountain

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Associated Press

ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK, Colo. — A helicopter has ferried a group of soldiers to safety after they ran into trouble on a training mission on a high Colorado mountain peak.

Rocky Mountain National Park spokeswoman Kyle Patterson says the group from Fort Carson in Colorado Springs planned to climb 14,259-foot Longs Peak on Thursday, but a few of them had trouble continuing. They called for help and ended up spending the night on the mountain.

On Friday, they helped one another to the top of the snowy peak, where a helicopter met them and flew them down.

Three of the 10 soldiers who tried to climb the mountain Thursday suffered from acute mountain sickness.

The route they took is not as technical as some but still requires climbers to cross a steep ice field and a ledge that is very narrow at points.