On Mar 13, 10:39 am, Mike Vandeman wrote:
Maybe they should stay on the trail, for a change!

Two lost hikers who survived three nights in the frigid San Jacinto
Mountains said they stumbled upon the campsite of a man who vanished a
year ago and were able to scavenge food, clothes and matches from his
backpack.

Brandon Day and Gina Allen were rescued Tuesday after searchers
spotted smoke from a fire the Dallas couple had started.

As Day thanked their rescuers later Tuesday, he said he and Allen were
also grateful to the backpack's owner, John Donovan, a retired
Virginia social worker who disappeared during a hike in May 2005.

"I want to thank him for helping save our lives," Day said.

Papers in the orange backpack connected it to Donovan, and searchers
planned to scour the area this week for the missing man's remains,
Riverside County sheriff's Sgt. Earl Quinata said.

"Even in his death, he was helping people," Donovan's longtime friend,
Chris Hook, said from Richmond, Virginia.

Donovan, an experienced hiker, was last seen in the San Jacinto
Wilderness on May 3, 2005, about two weeks after he retired from
Central State Hospital in Petersburg, Va. The 60-year-old planned to
hike the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail, from Southern
California to the Canadian border.

A longtime friend of Donovan, Chris Hook, told the Dallas Morning News
Tuesday that he hoped the discovery would soon lead to the recovery of
the retired social worker's remains.

"That is amazing," Hook, told the Morning News from his home in
Richmond, Va. "In a way, John might have saved their lives. His pack
being there helped them to be found. That's how John's life went. Even
in his death, he was helping people."

Hook said he assumed his friend got hurt and froze to death in a
snowstorm that blew on the last night he was seen alive.

Day, 28, and Allen, 24, were in Southern California for a financial
convention.

They got lost west of Palm Springs when they wandered off a trail near
the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway during what was supposed to be a day
hike.

They said they spent Saturday night in a cave, dressed only in light
clothing and without any supplies, then followed a creek Sunday and
Monday that they hoped would lead them down the mountain to safety.
The creek led to a gorge, where they found Donovan's campsite.

When both Day and Allen missed their flights home and relatives and
friends became concerned after they couldn't reach them by phone,
friends and family alerted the authorities, the Morning News reports.

Riverside Mountain Rescue crews began searching about Monday
afternoon.

Searchers in a sheriff's helicopter spotted them Tuesday about 2 1/2
miles from the tramway. The two were treated at a hospital for
dehydration, bumps and bruises.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/...n1605893.shtml