Denali backpackers found, reunited with relatives

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Two women missing in Denali National Park were found and reunited with family members Wednesday, six days after heading off on what they had planned as an overnight hike.

Park spokeswoman Kris Fister said the women were found late Wednesday afternoon outside the park on the northeastern side. A helicopter picked them up about an hour after the mother of one of the women received a second cell phone call from her daughter.

The two backpackers, 23-year-old Erica Nelson, of Las Vegas, and 25-year-old, Abby Flantz, of Gaylord, Minn., were taken to park headquarters, where family members were waiting.

Anchorage television station KTUU showed the two laughing with family members and eating deli sandwiches immediately after their return.

The women said they got lost and kept hiking.

“We spent a couple of days 11 hours of hiking. We kept seeing more mountains, more ridges,” Nelson told KTUU.

“The terrain was a lot harder than we thought it would be, and it was farther than we thought it would be,” Flantz said.

“They kind of said they just kept walking,” Fister said.

The women had no food when they were found. At times, they melted snow to get water, Fister said.

After the second cell phone call, they powered down the phone to save battery strength and instead sent text messages. At one point, they said they saw an airplane to the south of them, Fister said.

A park plane spotted the pair at 4:22 p.m., and a helicopter was sent to pick them up.

They arrived at the airstrip at park headquarters about a half-hour later.

“They looked great. They were laughing and smiling,” Fister said.

The two embarked on the hike last Thursday. A massive search began Saturday.

Nelson’s mother, Ellane, received an initial cell phone call from her daughter at 9:15 a.m. Wednesday as she listened to park officials give a briefing on the search.

The phone’s battery was weak, but park officials were able to locate the signal.

Park Service officials told the women to stay put, make themselves visible and signal any helicopters that flew overhead.

The agency dispatched two helicopters to pick the women up, but hours later the two women had not been found.

Fister said it was thought the women were in the vicinity of a dry creek bed, but after the second phone call rescuers focused instead on a brushy area on the eastern edge of the search area north of Mount Healy, about five miles west of the Parks Highway, the main highway that connects Anchorage and Fairbanks.

A helicopter, airplane, ground searchers and two dog teams were used in the search.

Searchers found no indication that the women had left the park but were puzzled that no clothing or gear had been found, or that the women had not signaled the three helicopters or park airplane.

Officials said it was unlikely the women merely decided to extend their camping trip. Nelson was scheduled to fly Sunday night to Houston so she could be the maid of honor in her sister’s wedding.

“The whole time I was just, ‘We got to keep going. I got to make it to her wedding,’ ” she told KTUU.