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Two brothers overdue
By Craig Beasley
It was just
minutes before 2:00 when the pager went off. The
voice emitting from the little gray box told of a
search in Idyllwild, and that all RMRU members
were to call Kevin Walker for information. Upon
calling Kevin I was told that two brothers were
missing somewhere in the San Jacinto Mountains.
As I arrived
at Humber Park, I was quickly turned around as
base camp was being moved down to Camp Maranatha,
I did not need to be told why, as that means a
helicopter had been asked for and okayed. Once at
Maranatha, we (the members) were told that James
DeWitt (age 29) and his brother Michael (14) had
come up to the Idyllwild area on the previous
Thursday. They had told their family that they
were going to stay in one of the public
campgrounds and would return on Sunday. When they
did not return home on Sunday the family notified
the Sheriff's Department. Our only clue was the
pair's car which was now parked up at Humber
Park. They had not brought any backpacking gear
with them, so we could only guess that they had
went on day hike. How long they had been up on
the mountain, we did not know.
Rick Pohlers
and Kevin Walker would be on the first flight to
Caramba to try and cut tracks. The two Jims,
Fairchild and Garvey would be on the second load.
Their assignment was to search the upper Tahquitz
drainage. I was waiting for Bernie McIlvoy to
arrive. We would also search the drainage. John
Dew and son Roy were hiking up the Devil's Slide
trail in the chance that the two brothers might
have found their way back to the saddle.
The chopper,
piloted by Mike Donovan (of Landells Aviation)
was about 10 minutes out when we were notified
that the pair had wandered into the tramway, and
had rode it down to Palm Springs. Both were okay,
and with that, the mission was cancelled.
Information was passed back that James and
Michael had went day hiking on Sunday and became
lost. They were forced to spend the night on the
mountain. Monday, they wandered onto a trail that
led them to the tram. With that, we headed home.
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