Up to 60 hikers, including a mother with a baby who is six months old, were stuck on a mountain in Utah’s Capitol Reef National Park as a result of extreme flooding.
At a church campout last Thursday, Orrin Allen, Noah Gremmert, and Cooper Allen shared their experiences of being trapped on a mountain by extreme water.
The rain started as the hikers got close to the mountain’s summit and then it swiftly intensified into a flash flood.
‘We’re wandering down, we’re having a blast, we’re watching water gush off the sides of the canyon and it’s looking really cool. I’m following one of the waterfalls down with my eyes, and I was like “Oh shoot, the road’s gone,”‘ Orrin Allen told KUTV.
The hikers quickly discovered that the trail they had taken to ascend the mountain was now flooded. Two cars were submerged in the water, and three of the five trucks they used to reach the peak were totaled.
Another 50 to 60 individuals, including a mother with a baby who was six months old, were stuck on the mountain in addition to the three young men. The group recognized they needed to find a way back down after spending three hours attempting to weather the storm.
According to park rangers, they were “unsure” if park visitors had made it “back to their vehicles and out of the flash flooding” when the flooding started at around midday.
The group had to work together to make sure that everyone got out safely, and three group leaders went ahead to find a secure path down for those stuck.
According to Allen, the group had to cross two ‘five to six foot drops’ and a narrow ‘4 1/2 foot’ passage between a rock wall and a steep drop-off to the raging river below.
The group of hikers formed a line to descend the mountain, including a mother carrying a baby who was six months old.
In her 15 years of working at the park, a park ranger told the group that this flash flood was the worst she had ever seen.
Due to the intensity of the floodwaters, some hikers had to be airlifted to safety by a Department of Public Safety helicopter.
According to the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office, no one was seriously injured, however some hikers received minor scrapes and abrasions. Seven or eight vehicles in all were destroyed or damaged.
According to the Sherriff’s Office, the trapped hikers could have had to “spend the night there” if it weren’t for the park rangers who “worked diligently to clear the roads, making them passable.”
In response to last week’s flooding, the park issued a statement on Sunday warning visitors to “expect construction equipment, large trucks, flaggers, and 15 minute delays.”
Not all national parks have lately been impacted by severe flooding, including Capitol Reef. One of the largest national parks in the nation, Yellowstone, received 2.5 to 4 inches of rain in June.
Over 10,000 tourists were ordered to evacuate Yellowstone National Park on June 14 after the rain caused raging rivers. The water severely damaged the park, necessitated helicopter and boat rescues, washed away homes, and swept a worker bunkhouse kilometers away.
According to officials, the damage might require years of reconstruction work and more than $1 billion in costs to fix.