A Utah father is facing child torture and abuse charges after he took his three small children on a long, strenuous hike during a winter storm in Big Cottonwood Canyon and had to be rescued.

Micah Smith, 31, was charged Wednesday with three counts of aggravated child abuse and three counts of child torture, all first-degree felonies which are punishable by up to life in prison if convicted. He is being held without bail in the Salt Lake County jail.

A Salt Lake County sheriff’s deputy wrote in charging documents that Smith was “extremely selfish” when he chose to push his three children — ages 2, 4, and 8 years old — to summit a mountain on Broads Fork Trail in October, rather than protecting them and turning around when storm clouds rolled in.

Instead, the deputy wrote, Smith insisted

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