Posted on 05/19/2023 2:13:38 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The hikers, who were lost on a Southern California trail for about three hours Friday night before they were rescued, lacked proper hiking clothing, water and lighting equipment, a Ventura County sheriff’s deputy said. \ Ten teenage hikers who spent their Friday night lost on the trails of a Southern California canyon before a search and rescue team found them with the help of an iPhone feature "were not prepared" for their climb, officials said.
Members of the group — who are all 16 to 18 years old — spent about three hours Friday stuck on the trails of Santa Paula Canyon, in Los Padres National Forest, without proper hiking clothing, water and lighting equipment before they were rescued, Ventura County Sheriff’s Deputy Mackenzie Spears said in a text message.
"Most had t-shirts and shorts," Spears said. She added that temperatures were in the 60s and that "there were multiple water crossings and they needed to scramble" in certain sections of the hike, or climb steep terrain by hand.
Spears said in a news release that "most of the hikers were not prepared" and that the search and rescue team supplied them with food, water and equipment to light the trail on their way back.
The teens reached out to the sheriff's office around 8 p.m. Friday when they found themselves lost on the trails, the news release said.
The group made contact with emergency officials using Apple's emergency SOS feature, which allows iPhone users to call or text local emergency services, sometimes even without cell service or Wi-Fi access. The feature allowed them to share their possible location and conditions with emergency personnel, said the sheriff's office, which added that the teens' parents also reported them missing.
More than a dozen members of the Upper Ojai Search and Rescue team, a group of local volunteers, headed out to look for the hikers within 30 minutes of having received their plea for help, the sheriff's office said.
After an approximately three-hour, 4-mile hike into the canyon that included "low visibility, multiple stream crossings and trails that had been previously damaged from the heavy rains," the rescue team found the missing teens on the so-called Last Chance trail around 11:15 p.m., the sheriff's office said.
NYC hospital employee seen in viral video appearing to take bike from young Black men has receipts showing she rented it, lawyer says The hikers and the search and rescue team returned to the Santa Paula Canyon Trailhead around 2:40 a.m. Saturday, it said.
The search and rescue team tweeted that the teens were the "biggest group we've rescued in a while." None required medical aid, the sheriff's office said.
The search and rescue team recommends that hikers and campers always take essentials, including navigation, light sources, first aid supplies, food, water and a smartphone. It also recommends that hikers fill out hiking plans detailing where they plan to travel and what equipment they plan to take with them and leave them with someone not accompanying them in case of emergencies.
Over half of the 990 deaths in national parks from 2014 to 2016 — the most recent years for which data is available — were due to unintentional causes, according to the National Park Service. Drowning, motor vehicle crashes and falls were the leading causes of those deaths, it said.
If you go down, eventually you hit the ocean
It is still amazing that, with the weekly stories of people getting lost while taking a morning hike, there are those that will take off on such a trek without at least a bottle of water and a granola bar in their pocket. So many people do not know how to mark their trail when they take off from the beaten path so they can find their way back.
My husband was a boy scout in his youth. He has a great sense of direction, but anytime he was taking us for a hike in an unknown (or even known) area, he always left trail markers to help us find our way back. It’s so easy to get disoriented, especially on a cloudy day when you can’t see the sun. I would also suggest taking a compass, but that’s useless unless you know how to read one. Too many young people do not know the east from the west and have no idea how the location of the sun or moon in the sky can tell you in which direction you are traveling.
They were lucky the temps were as high as they were - every year, hikers go missing in the San Gabriel mountains, where temps easily and often drop to below freezing.
The hard-core hikers and backpackers in my own family carry satellite phones, file their plans at the ranger station (backpackers) and let us family members know when to expect them back.
Use Emergency SOS on your iPhone
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208076
Geesh, $2 magnetic compass would save you, IF, you were smart enough to bring one.
““...who were lost on a Southern California trail for about three hours Friday night before they were rescued.”
Lost for three hours. Pikers.”
Who else, other than me, found themselves humming the theme song from Gilligan’s Island while reading this article?
“Just a three hour tour....a three hour tour!”
Oooooooo….we loved Algonquin. Our girls were in high school when we planned a trip to Ontario “just because” Beautiful. Stayed in cabins at Madawaska and then Mattawa.
60 degrees
10 teens
A short hike
Big deal?
If I had been planning a wilderness trip, I might have done that. I tend to stick with trails and my plan to walk a short distance to a trail that I could see from the trail I was one seemed at the time to be a safe thing to do.
I learned.
CA used to talk about charging for searches of lost hikers. Why not? If you don’t know better, maybe coughing up $$$ would remind one to prepare better and not take off on a lark.
Does android have a similar app?
I’m pleased to learn of their rescue.
I’ve never been lost either; I’m always right here. My destination has gone missing a time or two, though.
All of my off-trail hiking occurred in the years before cellphones. I knew how to tell directions with and without a compass.
I never needed to, but I was able to build a shelter and start a fire. And I could build a water trap.
Wait….the app was called “We’re not prepared”???
My first thought was that they were TAC students.
I used to go hiking alone in the mountains east of Tucson. Off trail. In the 70s. It was easy enough to figure out where I WANTED to go, but not so easy to find a route that would take me there. But I always got back before dark because I wasn’t suicidal. My Mom would have KILLED me if I got back after dark!
(((PING)))
LOL...which turned into three very successful seasons on the boob tube! Per wiki...
"...three seasons on the CBS network from September 26, 1964, to April 17, 1967."
(Also per Wiki...Mary Ann was more popular to fans than Ginger, based on fan mail!)
Wondering alone aimlessly in the woods was one of my favorite pastimes even in grade school.
Many times a group of us would venture out someplace we had never been at night as a challenge. Not knowing where we were for three hours was the point of the exercise.
I think about the pioneers venturing out into the untamed American wilderness that also contained hostile Indians and large carnivorous animals.
And this crowd gets lost carrying cell phones.
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