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Show Unhurt. Cold And Hungry Father Finds Escalante River Teenage Hikers Lost 24 Hours ESCALANTE Two teenage hikers were lost for almost 24 hours in the popular Escalante River drainage hiking area before they were found, unharmed but cold, hungry and thirsty on Saturday afternoon just before a Civil Air Patrol air search began. Their plight had been the subject sub-ject of concern by family members and law enforcement since late Friday and had enlisted the efforts of local Search and Rescue teams since early morning Saturday. Eric Thompson, 16 and Eric Johnson, 17, both of Salt Lake City had become separated from Thompson's Thomp-son's father Rick and younger siblings sib-lings about 2 p.m. Friday afternoon. after-noon. It was the determined senior Thompson who found them about 1 p.m. about 7 miles away from their destination. On Friday, the group had started out together down Phipps Wash when the older boys went on ahead, agreeing to rendezvous at the Escalante Es-calante River bridge. Shortly after, they took what they thought to be a short cut that actually took them in the opposite direction of their goal. The boys never showed up at the bridge or at their family camp at Deer Creek. At 6 p.m., the senior Thompson checked in with Garfield County Sheriffs Deputy Celeste Bernards, but continued to check himself at campsites, with passersby and in each community for signs of the missing youth. At 10 p.m., Thompson called back to Deputy Bernards to let her know the two were still missing. Bernards began to coordinate efforts ef-forts and put the Escalante Search and Rescue team on alert. All Search and Rescue groups departed at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday with Commander Howard Miller tackling the details. Teams included in-cluded Craig Sorenson and Bob Nolan who headed down Sheffield and Donnie Porter and Curt Richins, with Brent Spencer hiking on his own. They covered Phipps Wash, the Deer Creek area and the Escalante River area, all hiking from 10 to 12 hours. At all campground and day hike areas message boards, Deputy Bernards posted messages for the young men in case they walked out on their own. She kept radio communications com-munications current and contacted the Civil Air Patrol in the early afternoon when the boys had not yet been located. Just as the CAP plane touched down at Escalante Airport, she received a radio message mes-sage that the missing boys had been found and were on their way out. The flight simply took right off to return to Page, Ariz. Searching for his son and his son's friend, Rick Thompson had traveled south on the Escalante River until he came across the two. They had actually gone about 8 miles in the wrong direction and, as night fell, they huddled together to keep warm. Clad only in T-shirts T-shirts and shorts, they shared one light windbreaker between them, each putting an arm into and huddling hud-dling together. With no food, water wa-ter or matches, they spent a cold night. They said they "Never slept a wink" because their feet were wet, cold and icy. Their dad hiked with them back to the Calf Creek Recreation Area where Officer Bernards had cold soda pops waiting III . I II !! II Ml III II .111 I II III ---.WllM ?.ij-;"'"' - V"! " uiu..pi.iu Ji. , j.wjj..,.,,, y j p v:,f, W Wm. . IWyl h)nm , f. , ' - " I .. .. .u . , r . ,:'' I ' , !li-vlfe:,a v '-i'v.- .-i . ur I ' ' i 'if.-, - v i l, - d - s ' ' lllw'"n, ' ' ' V - ' '..."' , "'!; ". I" --. tt j ., . Escalante's Main Street looks just like Panguitch's did two years ago. Panguitch residents can tell Escalante folks that it was all well worth the inconvenience and temporary disruption, of business. Local worker Jimmy Barney scores asphalt along the roadway. |