Free-range hikers didn’t realize the difficulty of the terrain
By Jon Johnson
MOUNT GRAHAM – A couple of free-range hikers are safe at home after being plucked from frigid temperatures near the summit of Mount Graham early Monday morning by rescuers with the Graham County Search and Rescue (SAR).
According to a Graham County Sheriff’s Office report, two males had called County Dispatch at about 8 p.m. on Sunday advising they were hiking to the top of Mount Graham but were low on food and water and were nowhere near their intended completion location by that point.
The hikers had set out from the Blue Ponds area and had climbed the mountain by free-range hiking off trails. They said they had planned to hike to the Shannon Campground and have a friend pick them up from there, but they didn’t realize how rough the terrain was, and it had taken them significantly longer to get where they were. The hikers said they were about 1.5 miles from the summit, and while they were not in distress, they could not make it to the Shannon Campground. Since the upper portion of Highway 366 (Swift Trail) is seasonally closed by gates, the hikers called law enforcement to retrieve them.
Graham County SAR set up a command post at Swift Trail and Bolder Lane and sent a party up the mountain to get the hikers.
The hikers remained in contact with law enforcement off and on as they made their way to a dirt road to be extricated. At about 12:18 a.m. on Monday, SAR teams made contact with the hikers, who were in good spirits but had begun to feel some effects from the cold and were starting to become numb.
The hikers were then brought to the command post, where they were reunited with family members who took them home.
