lost in snows on California’s Mount Whitney but managed to walk out safely where rescuers weren’t looking for them.
Stormy weather has made Mount Whitney in the Sequoia National Park dangerous early this season.
Dana Dierkes, spokeswoman for the National Park Service, said Sina Sadeghi Baghsorkhi, 27, and his father, Abdolreza Sadegi Baghsorkhi, 56, were able to steer around a storm last Monday and walk out safely from the area late Thursday. However, they found themselves some 50 miles away from their intended destination.
“It wasn’t so much that they were lost,” Dierkes said. “They just changed their route because of the weather.”
The Iranian pair was on a three-day, 36-mile cross country hike. When they didn’t show up at their planned destination Tuesday, search and rescue teams totaling 45 people were dispatched.
The home town of the Baghsorkhis was not reported.
The storm dropped from one to three feet of snow in elevations above 9,000 feet, Dierkes said, which also hampered the search for three Nebraska hikers who were reported missing after Monday’s unseasonably violent storm. That trio was located and rescued around noon Thursday.
Mount Whitney is California’s tallest peak at 14,494 feet.
