Injured Girl Rescued From Cliff

On the afternoon of Wednesday, April 4th, five rangers responded to reports of two teenaged girls stranded on the steep cliffs surrounding Golden Canyon, a popular hiking destination in the park. One girl reportedly had a broken ankle while the other was reportedly suffering from heat-related illness (the temperature was 95 degrees at the time). As rangers headed to the cliffs, the uninjured girl successfully extricated herself and returned to her family waiting near the trailhead. The injured girl was rescued from a 500-foot precipice by the five-person technical rescue team and flown to the trailhead by a California Highway Patrol helicopter that had been assisting in ferrying rescue gear and supplies from the staging area to the rescuers. The rescue team was also evacuated by the helicopter during the last moments of sunlight, avoiding an overnight stay on the mountain by about five minutes.