Missing Person near South Fork San Jacinto River Trailhead
February 17, 2026
South Fork San Jacinto River Trailhead near Mountain Center
Mission 2026-006
Written by: Richard Yocum
Only a few hours after coming off overnight two missions for lost hikers in the snowstorm, at 7:55 am RMRU was asked to assist the Riverside Sheriff’s Office in a missing person search. The 28-year-old woman was last seen about 9:15 pm the night before in Idyllwild before she became separated from her boyfriend and she had not been seen or heard from since. The major clue we had was a “Find My” phone location, mapping to a difficult-to-access canyon close to the South Fork San Jacinto River Trailhead off Hwy 74. While generally very accurate, we were aware that steep canyon walls may significantly reduce the accuracy of “Find My” phone tracking.
We had 5 responders from RMRU along with 5 members of the Riverside County Search Dogs. We set up an Incident Command Post along Hwy 74 that appeared to have closest access to the phone GPS coordinates, searched for signs of a person exiting the roadway from that location, and quickly deployed a hasty team to try to reach the phone location.
Very soon after that we were notified that our missing person was identified as associated with an incident in Anza and was tracked in a vehicle that had left the area. After waiting some time for confirmation that the person was one in the same, the SAR mission was concluded and all searchers departed for home. Later that day we learned that the missing person had been located out of the area.
RMRU Members Involved: (Chad Becker, David Bever, Dave Kosmal, Vinay Rao, and Richard Yocum)
Other Agencies Involved: ((Riverside Sheriff Emergency Response Team (SERT) and Riverside County Search Dogs)