Re-search for 14-year-old

July 25, 1981
Sunrise Camp, Yosemite
1981-024

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By Pete Carlson

On Thursday RMRU received a call from the Sierra Madre Search and Rescue Team, again asking if RMRU could send any members, in a last ditch effort to locate a 14 year old girl missing for a week. Four members were able to respond. Mary Bowman, J.R. Muratet, Joe Erickson and myself drove into the Van Nuys Airport and met 25 other MRA (Mountain Rescue Association) members. We were flown on a Air National Guard C-130 to Bishop, and then on a three hour bus ride to Lake Tenaya.

Mary stayed with the Sierra Madre base truck and the rest of us hiked 5 miles into advanced base at Sunrise Camp. The National Park Service had been searching for the first 5 days along with some MRA personnel. They had one an excellent job and turned up not one clue. The MRA had volunteered to come up on the weekend and do sweep searches in the prime areas. We did our searching on Saturday afternoon and evening and again on Sunday. We also had no luck and did not find any clues.

We hiked back to our bus at about 3:00 pm Sunday afternoon and then took the bus down to Bishop. We were 3 hours later then we had said, and our airplane had left. So we went to dinner and then to sleep at the airport where another plane was coming in at 6:00 am. It was right on time and we arrived back in LA about 8:30.

We do not like to end a search without finding a subject but sometimes it happens. The weather had been excellent for a week, there was lots of water in the area, and if someone was up and moving around they should have been found. I would like to thank the Air National Guard for flying us up to Bishop and back. Also the National Park Service for doing an excellent job in running the search.