Residents noted helicopter activity above Tahquitz Peak this weekend, as search and rescue teams worked for two days to extract a pair of hikers who had fallen while attempting a treacherous trail. Riverside County Sheriff’s Office Public Information Officer Sergeant Wendy Brito-Gonzalez confirmed that on Saturday, March 1, at 3:07 p.m., their dispatch received a call from a hiker who indicated she and a friend had fallen while hiking near Tahquitz Peak. The friend’s leg was injured, and they could not get back on the trail. Unfavorable weather frustrated efforts from search and rescue units and helicopters to extract the hikers.
The hikers, and the rescuers who remained with them, spent the next two nights on the mountain. Richard Yocum, Riverside Mountain Rescue Unit President, spent 24 hours in the field from Saturday to Sunday. He said, “we were active all night, hiking in, receiving a gear drop by helo, searching for our subjects, setting up the lower and raise rope systems to actually reach our subjects, and then assessing and managing the subjects’ medical conditions after another searcher and I were lowered the 700 feet to their location.”
The hikers fell from the traverse trail between the PCT and Tahquitz Peak, and “slid 700 feet down a very steep slope of ice and boulders.” They were encountered by rescuers at 8,400 feet elevation. Yocum noted that many Search and Rescue teams from other counties assisted in the effort.
The weather finally allowed a safe helicopter extraction on Monday morning. RSO added that both hikers were transported to a local hospital for medical evaluation.
In late February, Jon King’s San Jacinto Trail Report (SanJacJon.com) had this to say about the trail where the hikers lost their footing: “The 0.4 mile section of South Ridge Trail from Chinquapin Flat/PCT Mile 177 to Tahquitz Peak has a challenging and very lightly traveled posthole track to follow through the steeply angled icy snow These slopes comprise some of the most consequential terrain in winter in these mountains, and this route is not recommended for most hikers at this time. Spikes (or even crampons) are strongly recommended, with at least hiking poles or preferably an ice axe (assuming adequate knowledge of how to use it).” It is not known what equipment the hikers had, or their level of knowledge.
