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Friday, April 1, 2016

Rise of Hikers in Springtime Leads to Increase in Stranded Hikers

Springtime is here.

Just ask Sgt. Tom Crosswhite of the sheriff’s Altadena station.

According to Crosswhite, an indication of the seasonal change is an uptake in hikers stranded above the mountains in Altadena.

“We get about three a week,’’ he said. “They go hiking, get to a higher elevation, become disoriented and sometimes dehydrated. They underestimate the terrain and they us call for help. We get a lot of people this time of year, and into the summer.”

Such was the case of four hikers who became lost in the area of Tom Sloan Ridge above Altadena on Thursday.

One of the stranded hikers called into the sheriff’s Altadena station about 4:25 p.m. Thursday to report that they were stranded and dehydrated due to having little water, Crosswhite said.

“They were stranded at a higher elevation,” he said.

A sheriff’s Search and Rescue Team, about an hour later, was able to located the hikers and a helicopter took them to lower elevation at Farnsworth Park. Deputies then drove them back to their vehicle – pretty much a 50-minute round trip, according to Deputy Dan Paige.

The stranded – and dehydrated — hikers – were a 57-year-old man and a 57-year-old woman from Kentucky, and a 44-year-old woman and her 26-year-old son, who were residents of Northridge, according to Paige.

 

 

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