They are really going out of their way to not mention the hiker’s name.
And they are working hard, not to identify the sex of the individual. We are told it is a hiker, but never referred to as “he” or “she”, but rather as “they”.
You really have to bend over backwards to use these gender neutral terms, to avoid identifying sex.
Then you wonder if the individual prefers these gender bending pronouns, and that’s why these descriptions are in the news stories.