Five college students who went missing while hiking in Utah on a backpacking trip have been found and are “in good condition,” according to the San Juan County Sheriff’s office.
The five missing hikers were spotted by a helicopter near the Dry Mesa area of Elk Ridge, Utah on Monday afternoon. Authorities were first alerted to the hikers situation the day before by worried parents who said they had not heard from their children since Sunday morning.
After a snowstorm hit the area Friday and Saturday, the group called family members Sunday morning and said they were trying to get back to their vehicle to drive home, San Juan County Sheriff's Deputy Alan Freestone told KSL in Utah.
Search and rescue teams reached the students by snowmobile and transported them to the county’s public safety building.
The students are Rives Jacaruso, 20; Catherine Jacoruso, 18; Abram Mammet, 19; Nina Lundstrom, 18, of Colorado and Jackson Foster, 21, of California. All parents have been notified, the sheriff’s department said.
The five were examined by Emergency Medical Technicians and then transported to San Juan Hospital in Monticello for possible frost bite to the lower extremities.
Other than frost bite, “all of the hikers appeared to be in good condition and in good spirits,” the sheriff’s department said in a statement.
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