On Tuesday morning, a crew from Flight for Life, eight Montezuma County Search and Rescue members and Dolores K-9 Search and Rescue located two hikers from Texas who had gone missing on Bear Creek Trail Monday afternoon.
Montezuma County public information officer and search and rescue team member Vicki Shaffer told The Journal that the team didn’t have high hopes when they set off in search of Luis Allen and Jennifer Rosas, who were in the area celebrating their anniversary.
According to Shaffer, the couple had researched the trail on Google, finding inaccurate information about the nature of the trail and the length of time it would take to complete the hike.
Thinking the hike would only take around 2½ hours, they set out Monday afternoon believing the hike was a loop that would take them to where they had started.
After a few hours navigating a different trail than anticipated, “they realized they were in trouble,” Shaffer said.
Shaffer said that Allen and Rosas searched for shelter and found a dry spot to stay for the night, when temperatures dipped to 5 degrees.
After a tip from a concerned family member in Texas, the search and rescue team set out in search of the couple, tracking their footprints from their vehicle parked at the trailhead.
“We honestly didn’t have good expectations,” Shaffer said. “When we were searching at 10 a.m., the temperature was only 12 degrees. It was miserably cold.”
The couple were found by the Flight for Life crew seven miles up the trail, and the urgent care helicopter, forced by terrain to land about a mile from the couple’s location, flew Allen to Mercy Hospital in Durango after flying Rosas to the trail head.
Allen was treated at the hospital for mild frostbite, and rescuers helped Rosas warm up in her vehicle and treated her to “cold pizza” before she drove herself to the hospital.
“When I asked her how they survived the cold, she told me, ‘By the grace of God. I spent the whole night praying,’” Shaffer said.
According to Montezuma County Sheriff Steven Nowlin, the couple have returned to their home in El Paso, Texas.
“We don’t always have good endings like this,” Shaffer said.
