The mother and daughter could see emergency lights at Tunnel View. Rangers looking through binoculars could see them, too. Yet the space between the two groups remained dangerous ground.
On May 16, 2017, the pair had been hiking toward Inspiration Point in Yosemite when they tried a shortcut. After more than two hours away from the trail, they reached terrain too steep to descend safely. Rain and cold were already working against them.
At 5:45 p.m., they called 911.
What followed was an Inspiration Point night rescue in which being located did not immediately mean being reachable.
Inspiration Point: Two hundred yards from the trail
A ranger established phone contact and obtained the hikers’ coordinates. From Tunnel View, the ranger directed them uphill toward the Pohono Trail.
As they entered steep, wooded ground, the ranger lost sight of them. An attempt to teach them how to send location updates through their smartphone maps did not succeed. Instead, they were asked to call 911 at intervals so responders could track their progress through the available cellular location information.
The movement was slow. After about half an hour, with daylight running out, additional search-and-rescue resources were requested.
The trail was close in ordinary walking terms. The hikers eventually reached level ground roughly 200 yards from it. But darkness arrived before the rescue team did, and neither woman had brought a light.
The ranger told them to stay where they were.
A whistle in the dark
Once rescuers were near, they instructed the pair to blow a whistle. That small, repeatable sound helped the team close the remaining distance without asking the hikers to move again through ground they could no longer assess.
At 9:20 p.m., the team reached them. The women were cold and wet but in good spirits. Rescuers provided heat packs and accompanied them back to the parking area.
A visible landmark, a working phone and a known location had brought help toward them. Several hours still passed before anyone could stand beside them on the slope.
A shortcut had changed the meaning of distance. A few hundred yards had become a technical problem involving slope, darkness, weather and the inability to see the next safe step.
The pair survived with a story whose most uncomfortable detail is also its simplest. Help was in sight long before the way to it was safe.
Sources and reporting
Researched reporting: an original narrative based on the published records linked below.
