Injured Hiker on Deer Springs Trail
April 18-19, 2025
Deer Springs Trail, Idyllwild, CA
Mission 2025-013
Written by: Richard Yocum
90 minutes after our mission for a PCT thru-hiker with a broken ankle near Snow Creek ended, another callout came – this was for another PCT thru-hiker who was unable to walk due to an ankle injury. He had activated his Garmin in-each SOS showing his location near the top of Deer Springs Trail. I made the short drive from downtown Idyllwild and arrived at the trailhead at 5:30 pm, about 5 minutes before Glenn arrived in the RMRU comms van. We collected from the Sheriff’s personnel on scene what little information was known. We were not able to contact the hiker because his international phone was not enabled in the US. Air support was not available due to extremely dense fog.
The next two RMRU responders were 1 hour and 20 minutes out, so we decided that I would head up the trail as a hasty team of one in order to confirm the hiker’s location, perform the medical assessment, and determine if a litter carryout was the best option. Glenn was able to follow my progress using my GPS tracks on the search map and we had comms by both radio and cell phone.
I reached our subject about 4½ miles up the trail and found him comfortable but unable to bear weight on his ankle. He had injured the ankle badly while hiking 8 days prior and had been giving it some rest, but apparently not enough for him to resume his PCT thru-hike. His pain completely resolved after splinting the ankle and we settled in to make ourselves comfortable in the just-below-freezing night as we awaiting additional teams to arrive with the litter. After an hour or so, a team of two arrived carrying the litter. After more wait, the next team of two arrived with the litter wheel and extender handles, and we packaged our subject in the litter.
Beginning with just 5 rescuers, we began the slow descent down the trail, carefully picking our way over and around rocks and tree roots. Large tree deadfall in a couple of locations added to the challenge and further slowed our progress.
Over the hours we were joined by a total of 4 more RMRU members hiking up the trail. The litter carryout took 3½ hours and at 2:30 am we delivered our subject to the Sheriff’s personnel waiting at the trailhead, who rewarded us with pizza.
RMRU Members Involved: (David Altenburg, Trygve Anderson, Glenn Henderson, Eric Holden, Geoff Marshall, Tobias Moyneur, Stephanie Robertson, Solan Watts, and Richard Yocum)