Three hikers stranded on an exposed ridgeline near the 8,600-foot summit of Sierra Buttes in the Tahoe National Forest are alive because one of them carried a satellite communicator.
The device sent an SOS alert around 2:30 p.m. Sunday, prompting the Sierra County Sheriff’s Office to launch a search and rescue operation. The office called in mutual aid from Nevada County’s Search and Rescue Mountain Rescue Team and Washoe County’s RAVEN helicopter unit.
Crews scouring the mountain from the air spotted the three hikers clinging to a steep, exposed ridgeline just south of the lookout tower.
“Due to the difficult terrain and hazardous location, a helicopter hoist rescue was necessary. The RAVEN crew lowered a rescue team member to the stranded individuals,” the Sierra County Sheriff’s Office said in a social media post.
The hoist rescue brought all three hikers off the ridge safely.
A Pattern of Close Calls in California’s High Country
The Sierra Buttes rescue is the latest in a string of backcountry emergencies across the state’s peaks. Last week, a 39-year-old Florida man spent two nights stranded on Shastina Peak with a badly injured leg before rescuers finally got him down.
He had reached the 14,179-foot summit Sunday afternoon when an erroneous GPS route sent him onto the Whitney Glacier. He fell through a snow bridge at 12,600 feet and severely injured his leg, triggering a massive rescue operation.
Earlier this month, two young hikers from Salt Lake City, a 19-year-old man and a 20-year-old woman, endured a freezing 36-hour ordeal on Mount Shasta after losing their way in treacherous terrain. The pair had planned only a day hike while a friend continued on to the summit, but became trapped between towering cliffs.
They called for help around 10:20 p.m. on Oct. 12, too cold and exhausted to complete their descent from the 14,179-foot mountain. Rescuers heard shouting from a gulch around 4 p.m. on Oct. 13 and located the pair near the bottom, about 1,000 feet from the McBride Springs Trail.
