Search and Rescue Locate Three Lost Hikers

Source: Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office

Thanks to our amazing volunteer Sheriff’s Search and Rescue team who spent more than six hours on their Memorial Day to help locate three lost hikers.

Just after 4 p.m. yesterday, the Santa Barbara County Public Safety Dispatch Center received information that there were three hikers that were off trail and not able to find their way back. The three UCSB students, 19 and 20 years old, had hiked that morning to Cathedral Peak and lost the trail coming down the Cathedral Peak Trail. They were able to use their cell phone to assist search & rescue in locating them, providing their coordinates and a description of their location. They were located several hundred feet below the trail on the ocean side and were visible from the Jesusita/Tunnel trail intersection. Accessing their location required descending steep terrain from the Cathedral Peak Trail then traversing across the face below the Dragon’s Back through thick, overhead brush. Three men were located, assessed and then led back the way the field team came in. Hiking out down the trail, they were released to their vehicle just before 9 pm.