Horseback riders lost
At a little before 4:00 pm RMRU
member Walt Walker received a call from Capt. Ray
Canova of the Sheriff's Department. Capt. Canova
informed Walt that a group of horseback riders
was overdue in completing the Mt. San Jacinto
segment of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT). After
discussing the situation it was decided to make
an initial search of the mountain by air using
the Sheriff's Cessna Birddog. Since Walt was the
closest member to the Banning airport, he would
fly as an observer.
Walt met the plane at the Banning
airport. From there the craft flew up and around
the mountain to the Anza area where the PCT heads
up into the San Jacinto high country. They
searched from the Desert divide up and through
the Tahquitz Valley area. From there they worked
their way around the Western slope and out the
Fuller Ridge with no results. Searching from a
fixed wing aircraft is quite difficult in a
mountainous terrain. It was decided that they
would search back over their route once more
before stopping the air search. If this did not
turn up anything the rest of the team would be
called out to start a ground search from various
locations on the mountain.
Just as they started to work back,
Walt spotted the group on horseback trying to
make their way down to the Twin Pines Boys Ranch.
After giving the group a few directions from the
loud speaker, the group got themselves onto the
correct trail to get down to a road head. With
that, the pilot flew Walt back to Banning.
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