‘Loud sounds’ lead lost hiker to safety after 18 mile trek through Death Valley maze
A lost hiker trekked his way out of a maze of trails in California’s Death Valley National Park by following “loud sounds” coming from nearby park rangers.
The New Jersey man’s ordeal started Sunday, Feb. 5 when he set out to hike Wildrose Peak Trail near the ”9,064-foot snow-covered summit” with a hiking club, National Park Service officials said in a news release.
He opted to fall behind the group when he started experiencing head and body aches, the release said. They agreed that he would wait while the group finished the hike and then they would walk back down to the trailhead together.
But when he got cold, he strayed back down the trail on his own to warm up, the release said. Only he lost the trail and instead descended a drainage.
Realizing he was lost, he trekked uphill to the ridge before turning around and going back down the drainage, the release said.
When his group didn’t find him on their way back, they assumed he had hiked out ahead of them, the release said. But they didn’t find him back at the trailhead, so they drove to Stovepipe Wells Resort to report him missing.
Around the same time, “the park received a 911 call from the missing hiker himself,” the release said.
He had “no food, inadequate warm clothing, did not feel well, and was over 60 years old,” the release said. To make matters worse, temperatures were supposed to drop below freezing overnight.
Luckily, before a helicopter search was needed, two quick-thinking park rangers “located the hiker by making loud sounds, and guided him towards the road,” the release said.
The man’s fitness watch recorded that he had walked 18 miles in total — when the trail he’d set out on is only 8.4 miles round-trip, the release said.
It was a treacherous day in the national park. Earlier that same day, a hiker from Illinois broke her tibia and ruptured her ACL in Mosaic Canyon, a “popular family-friendly hike in a narrow canyon lined with polished marble walls,” the release said. Her hiking companion’s stayed with her and a bystander hiked out to call 911 around 8 a.m.
Nine NPS employees and two American Conservation Experience interns carried her out of the canyon with a “wheeled litter,” the release said.
The park ambulance took her to Stovepipe Wells helipad around 11:30 a.m. and then a private helicopter ambulance flew her to a hospital in Lancaster, the release said.
Luckily, her rescue was finished before the call came in about the lost hiker around 4 p.m., the release said.
This story was originally published February 9, 2023 at 6:13 PM with the headline "‘Loud sounds’ lead lost hiker to safety after 18 mile trek through Death Valley maze."
