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Breaking News: Hikers Missing in Grand Canyon

This news release was published by Grand Canyon National Park on Wednesday, July 22nd:

Contact: Shannan Marcak, 928-638-7958

Grand Canyon, Ariz. – At approximately 7:20 p.m. on Tuesday, July 21, the Grand Canyon Regional Communications Center received a report that at least one young man, and possibly as many as three, were overdue from a backpacking trip at Grand Canyon National Park.

The young men are reported to have left on a trip to the Deer Creek/Thunder River area on Saturday after reading about the trip in a magazine. According to the reporting party, the father of one of the young men, his son had stated that he would be back on Monday, but did not return. Further investigation revealed that there were as many as four young men in the hiking party. All are in their early 20s, and all are believed to be students at Northern Arizona University. It was also determined that this group did not have a backcountry permit. Read more....

8 comments:

Peter Kosednar said...

Jeez - I just caught the news release an hour ago. Hope this situation turns out ok. Read some trip reports on hikearizona.com and the trail description.... its wrong time of yr to hike this trail.

Deb Kingsbury said...

Agreed! Incredibly hot, remote and waterless, unless that area's gotten some significant rain.

I got a call last night from a SAR teammate who's a volunteer ranger in the Canyon, asking if I'd be interested in helping with the search. Still waiting for a follow-up call. I'm just hoping they turned up overnight. I'll post news if I hear anything.

Peter Kosednar said...

Hey Deb:

Says car was parked at Bill Hall Trailhead. Heres info on that to help anyone on the hike from a major az hiking site. Hope this helps.

Heres hike arizona trail info:

http://hikearizona.com/decoder.php?ZTN=612

And heres trip reports:

http://hikearizona.com/x.php?I=4&ZTN=612&UID=0

Deb Kingsbury said...

Thanks, Pete. Here, I'll make those links clickable...

Trail Information

Trip Reports

Deb Kingsbury said...

Latest news: They're sending in specially trained technical rescue personnel, including one of my team mates who knows the area. I hear that some of those people are coming from Zion and elsewhere.

Peter Kosednar said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Deb Kingsbury said...

Update as of 2pm on 7/23 from the < Arizona Daily Sun. It appears there's one missing hiker, not three or four.

Anonymous said...

http://www.azdailysun.com/articles/2009/07/26/news/20090726_front_200605.txt