ST. GEORGE — Search and rescue teams responded Sunday to reports of a lost hiker in Snow Canyon State Park and two missing youngsters on an off-highway vehicle in Warner Valley.
The first call came in about 3:30 p.m., about a Montana woman who was lost in Snow Canyon State Park. The 20-year-old woman had been hiking with a group of friends on the Three Ponds Trail, Washington County Sheriff’s Deputy Darrell Cashin said.
The group had started back, and the woman became separated from her friends, Cashin said, and could not find her way out.
“She got lost off the trail and down into a wash,” Cashin said. “She got on her phone and called for help.”
Just as responders were driving up the West Canyon Trail, which is also a maintenance road, the woman said she could see the tail end of one of the deputy’s trucks. She started walking down the wash toward the truck, and Cashin walked up and met her.
“I walked her back to my truck, gave her some water and took her back to her friends,” Cashin said.
The whole group had run out of water, Cashin said, which could have resulted in heat exhaustion, heat stroke or other problems had the search gone on any longer.
“People just need to remember to take that additional water, even though they don’t think they are going to need it,” Cashin said. He recommends hikers take twice as much water as they think they need.
About 9 p.m., SAR received another call about a missing 17-year-old boy and 8-year-old girl who were riding a Polaris Ranger.
The two had left home in Hurricane at 6 p.m. and headed south, Cashin said. They had not returned home by 9 p.m., so family members called for help, and the Washington County Search and Rescue team responded along with Hurricane Police Department.
As the team was arriving in the area, they received notification that the two had been found by family members near the dinosaur tracks in Warner Valley.
“Apparently the 17-year-old had come around a corner too sharp, laid the Ranger over on its side, and some family members and friends had found them,” Cashin said.
The 17-year-old sustained a minor injury, while the 8-year-old was uninjured; family members took both to the hospital, Cashin said.
Sunday’s incidents brings the number of rescues this year to 62, Cashin said, which far surpasses 2014’s total of 44 for the county search and rescue team.
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