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Two men lost and wet
Just after
midnight, RMRU received a call from the Hemet
station of the Riverside County Sheriff's
Department requesting our services in locating
two men overdue in completing a hike from Lake
Hemet down the South Fork to the Cranston Ranger
Station. Members met at the Hemet station for
details and assignments, and then went on their
way. Bruce Gahagan and Kevin Walker were the
first into the field. Their assignment was to
drive to the end of a dirt road that goes into
the South Fork about one mile, and then start
hiking up the canyon and either cut footprints or
locate the missing pair. The Hemet team had one
foot team available, so they were assigned to
hike in the Rouse Trail to the bottom of the
South Fork to try and cut prints in the bottom.
On the top of Rouse Hill was the Hemet van. It
would relay for teams in the bottom. Coming in
from Highway 74 on the South Fork Trail was a
double team consisting of Jim Fairchild, Craig
Britton, Mark Hebert and Mike Deden. They would
hike into the canyon and attempt to also cut
tracks or locate the men on the trail.
As the dark
early morning hours progressed it began to rain,
and continued on for the remainder of the
mission. Kevin's team had not found anything in
the lower end. The Hemet team did indeed find two
sets of tracks when they reached the bottom. That
put the two somewhere from the middle of the
canyon down. Jims team had found two sets
of prints wandering on the South Fork Trail, so
his team stayed with questionable prints.
At first
light, Bernie McIlvoy and Dave Ezell started in
from the big horse-shoe curve on Highway 74 and
went cross country to what they thought would be
somewhere in the middle of two teams already in
the bottom. The ridge went further down stream
than first thought, as Bernie and Dave met up
with Kevin and Bruce as they came into the
canyon. The group of four continued up stream in
the light rain, and within 30 minutes came across
two very wet hikers slowly making their way down
canyon. After radioing out the good news to base,
relay and the other two field teams, the group
headed on down canyon and eventually back to
Kevin's Jeep CJ5. Just after noon, better than
twelve hours later the last of the teams were out
and the mission was completed.
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