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Man found after 2 days
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Dehydrated, tired but otherwise okay The Del Norte County Search and Rescue team found a man over the weekend who was stranded for two days in a remote section of the Smith River National Recreation Area after succumbing to dehydration and exhaustion. It was just one of two operations for the volunteer group on Saturday, as rescuers also had to ferry a group of hikers across the Smith River who had gotten a late start on a trail and wouldn’t have made it out before nightfall. “We all had our hands full,” Assistant Search and Rescue Coordinator Peggy Thomas said Monday. “We were glad to have Sunday with nothing happening.” Search and Rescue was first notified Friday that two men, Gary Huston and Tyler Crabb, had not come back from a Thursday trip up the G-O Road, which is off of South Fork Road. “They had started hiking and at some point they didn’t know where they were,” Thomas said. “They lost their way.”
The men eventually stumbled upon Red Mountain Road and started
following it in a direction they thought might take them out of the
woods. Huston became fatigued, and the two men stopped to camp for the
evening even though Thomas said they didn’t have any camping gear or
food.
Crabb stayed with Huston for a short time that night before continuing down the road to get help. He marked his route as he went so Huston could follow it when he woke up. On Friday, Search and Rescue crews found one of the men’s vehicle on the G-O Road and discovered the trail they started to hike. But due to the time of day it was getting too dark to search for Crabb and Huston. The following morning, Saturday, Crabb came out of the woods on Arrow Mills Road in the Klamath area and went to someone’s house to call for help. “He went pretty far,” Thomas said of Crabb’s all-night hike. “He was estimating that he had left his friend about 20 miles back.” She said Crabb then guided Search and Rescue volunteers along the U.S. Forest Service Roads to find Huston who, besides being mildly dehydrated and exhausted, was “doing good.” Later that day, Search and Rescue responded to another call, this one involving an older couple, Richard and Patricia Johnson, and three children who had hiked to the end of the Craig’s Creek Trail off U.S. Highway 199. “They had never hiked it before and they didn’t know how long it was. They thought it made a loop,” Thomas said of 3.7 mile trail in the Smith River National Recreation Area that ends at the confluence of Craig’s Creek and the Smith River. “They did not think they’d get out before dark if they started back.” Patricia Johnson was able to use her cell phone to call for help, and Search and Rescue crews used a rubber raft to bring the group — two by two — across the river. No one was hurt or needed medical attention. |
