Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Awesome!
The two missing Denali hikers found.
The two backpackers, reported missing after they failed to return from an overnight hike in Alaska's Denali National Park, contacted one of the hiker's family members this morning, but search and rescue teams have not yet picked up the pair.
Abby Flantz and Erica Nelson have been found, alive and well," Kris Fister, a spokeswoman for the park, announced in a news release around 10 a.m. local time. "The families are here, and the young women will shortly be reunited with them."

Fister later issued a second news release in which she pulled back from the original announcement. Nelson's mother, who had arrived at Denali to assist in the search, received a phone call at 9:15 a.m. from her daughter, who reported that both women were "uninjured and healthy."


Update: The Park Service account of the rescue.(June 19, 2008)
Abby Flantz and Erica Nelson were grinning from ear to ear as they disembarked from a helicopter at the Denali Park airstrip yesterday afternoon and walked into the waiting arms of their anxious families. They were spotted on Wednesday afternoon from the park’s plane in an area outside the park about 15 miles north of the point where they began their hike and eight miles west of the Parks Highway. After the reunion, they were assessed by park medics for any medical issues, then interviewed by search managers to get a thorough understanding of where they had gone and what they had done during their six day ordeal.

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