Posted on 04/23/2019 3:02:48 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Around noon on Sunday, March 31, Alicia Judy, 40, left her home in Scottsdale to run 16 to 18 miles on the Spur Cross Trail, which would lead her to Skull Mesa, a breathtaking summit surrounded by towering cactus trees.
The path was very familiar to Judy, an experienced trail runner and nurse who has been running through the parks in her area regularly since moving to Arizona five years ago. Still, she studied the map before she left, double-checked her route with a fellow hiker on the trailhead, and made sure to pack her phone, compass, water, and maps with her.
She reached Skull Mesa about 9 to 10 miles into her run, and snapped a photo of the top to send to her dad, Leonard Judy, to let him know she made it.
On the return trip, however, things turned south.
“It was like a jungle, and I just lost the trail. It wasn’t marked,” Judy told Runner’s World. “Then I started doing all of the things I know to do to try and find a trail.”
After hours of searching her surroundings and communicating back-and-forth by phone with her dad, she finally made her way out of cell reception, and became unreachable. He called the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, who sent a rescue team to contact her and track her location. They arrived at around 9 p.m.
It seemed like Judy was saved. But just as she was waving her hands to get their attention, she stepped on some brush—and fell 30 feet below into an abandoned mine shaft.
“They were screaming ‘We’re here! We can't see you! We can't see you!’ And I'm screaming in the hole, ‘I'm in here! I'm in here!’” Judy told Runner’s World. “But they couldn't hear me.”
(Excerpt) Read more at runnersworld.com ...
Boy if I had a dollar for every time that happened..
Boy if I had a dollar for every time that happened..
She blew a whistle and was hoisted out by rescuers. AMAZING!!
She lost track of the trail on the way back? I don’t get it. Didn’t she just go back the way she came?
Cactus trees?
Man, I gotta see that.
(Yeah, I know the author must be alluding to the saguaro cactus, but that’s just ignorant wording.)
Running by her self in an outback area...what a clueless nitwit. I bet she’s a LIB/DIM.
“(Yeah, I know the author must be alluding to the saguaro cactus, but that’s just ignorant wording.) “
they are journalist - you expect them to be accurate? laughing
I know because I trained in the same desert terrain in north Scottsdale when I was younger and a marathoner.
It's easy to take a wrong turn on the desert floor when the trails aren't really marked.
Been there. Done that.
I had a friend who was an EMT when common GPS was just getting popular:
ALL of them hated it.
It meant that suddenly all manner of idiots were emboldened to try to visit places they previously had felt were off-limits to them:
Many would call 9-11 and demand a CHOPPER, simply because they WERE TIRED.
He said GPS really, realllllly brought the idiots out of the woodwork.
“Running by her self in an outback area...what a clueless nitwit.”
I’ve often gone running in remote locations. Hiking too. Used to work jobs in the 80s where I went way out into the boonies. Normally two of us, but if we rolled the truck or ran into serious trouble, no one would start looking until we failed to return on Friday night.
I have friends in Utah who often work in places with no cell phone coverage. On horseback. Solo.
I’m surprised all these thousands of open, abandoned mines have been ignored for so many decades. Each one presents a safety hazzard, as illustrated here.
Is this part of Arizona just so spacious that no one really cares about the area not being brought under control?
If that was in my state of California, real estate assessors would be thinking about building something, or at least buying up the land. Even the EPA must not care about it.
When did we all become such pussies?
“Running by her self in an outback area...what a clueless nitwit. I bet she’s a LIB/DIM.”
No doubt about that. Probably a vegan anorexic Ironman competitor. Then, a bunch of people have to go out and rescue her sweet ass in rattlesnake country at night.
LOL
Is this part of Arizona just so spacious that no one really cares about the area not being brought under control?
Has more to do with Freedom and your right to challenge Darwin.
No joke
I hike by myself
Me, God and Nature...
Luv it
There have been sometimes I didn’t feel like going home so, I just stayed out an extra day or two...
Have a friend who died last week in a rock climbing accident.
Went out living his passion
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