On the evening of Saturday, March 22nd, rangers David Sutherland and Tyla Guss received word from the Garfield County’s Dispatch Center that they’d received a partial cell phone call from within the park from a group of lost hikers. The hikers were able to report that they began their hike at Bryce Point before the call was dropped. Efforts to reconnect with them proved fruitless.
Guss implemented ICS and assumed the role of incident commander. Short on park resources, with darkness closing in and the temperature dropping, she called in air support to help locate the missing hikers. Classic Helicopter Service out of Page, Arizona, responded to the call. Guss also requested the assistance of the local volunteer search and rescue team, Tropic Fire and Rescue, which immediately responded and provided essential ground support.
The Classic Helicopter crew located the missing hikers on the Hat Shop Trail well below the rim and several miles from Bryce Point around 11:30 p.m. Two volunteers on the Tropic Fire and Rescue Team hiked to their location. Aside from being tired and ill-prepared to spend the night in such cold temperatures, members of the group needed no further medical treatment and were escorted back to the trailhead.