Missing Pechanga Hills Hikers
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October 27, 2011 |
Written by Alan Lovegreen
At 10:44 p.m. on Thursday, October 27th, 2011, RMRU members were called to assist in a search for two young adults that had become disoriented exploring the hills between Temecula’s Pechanga Casino and the Department of Corrections Rainbow Conservation Camp. The youths were lost in the hills southwest of the Pechanga golf course amidst fields of exposed granodiorite boulders.
Members of the Riverside County Sheriff, Pechanga Tribal Rangers, and the Pechanga Casino security detail had gathered near the golf course’s fourth hole. The subjects were lost less than a linear mile from that location, and they had already been sighted by both a Riverside Sheriff helicopter and officers on the ground prior to ourarrival. Also, one of the two missing subjects had already walked out.
Gwenda pulled up in the diesel RMRU truck and worked to locate proper maps of the area. Dispatch gave us coordinates of the subject’s last known location, but Rob noticed that location was miles away from being accurate. Around midnight, before we could deploy any team members, a tribal ranger in a utility vehicle found the missing youth. The Pechanga security detail drove Rob, Donny and me up the hill in golf carts to meet the ranger and the subject, who sported minor scratches and abrasions but was in good spirits.
RMRU team members present: Donny Goetz, Alan Lovegreen, Rob May, Roger May, Gwenda Yates.
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