Two young hikers are safe after spending roughly 36 hours stranded on Mount Shasta, trapped between steep canyon walls as temperatures dropped into the teens, according to the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office.
The hikers, a 19-year-old man and a 20-year-old woman from Salt Lake City, set out at 4 a.m. Monday, Oct. 12, planning a day hike up the 14,179-foot peak while a friend continued on to the summit. They reached Red Banks on the Avalanche Gulch route around 5 p.m. Monday, five hours past the recommended turnaround time for climbers on the mountain.
They called for help around 10:20 p.m. that night from the Avalanche Gulch area, at about 11,000 feet, after becoming too cold and worn out to continue their descent safely. Temperatures at that point had fallen to between 14 and 16 degrees, and the pair did not have enough clothing, food or water to get through the night on the mountain.
Deputies advised them to keep moving downhill to preserve body heat. By 2 a.m. Tuesday, the hikers reported reaching Helen Lake, around 10,400 feet, before their phones lost power shortly after.
Search-and-rescue teams and California Highway Patrol Air Operations began searching the upper mountain Tuesday morning. Around 9 a.m., a CHP helicopter crew spotted two people waving for help, but they turned out not to be the missing hikers.
Ground and aerial teams kept searching through the afternoon. A second search-and-rescue team, along with a U.S. Forest Service climbing ranger, concentrated on Cascade Gulch below Horse Camp. Around 4 p.m., searchers heard shouting from the gulch and located the pair near its bottom, about 1,000 feet from the McBride Springs Trail.
According to the sheriff’s office, the hikers had reached Horse Camp around 5 a.m. Tuesday but couldn’t make out the trail. They ended up walking roughly three miles down the dry river drainage before getting trapped between two cliffs measuring 30 to 50 feet high.
Both hikers were uninjured and were able to climb out of the gulch with help from rescuers.
The sheriff’s office credited search-and-rescue volunteers, Mount Shasta climbing rangers and CHP Air Operations with bringing the pair down safely.
Officials noted this was the third rescue in the past month on the Avalanche Gulch route. The route is not recommended at this time of year, according to warnings posted at the Bunny Flat trailhead, because of worsening conditions, rockfall and the start of winter weather.
