A hiker was rescued from Utah’s Wave and Wire Pass area after becoming separated from his group and spending hours stranded in remote slot canyon terrain, according to the Kane County Sheriff’s Office Search and Rescue.
The Wave is a famous sandstone rock formation located in the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness along the Utah-Arizona border, accessible only by permit and a multi mile hike through remote desert terrain with little shade or cell service.
Dispatch received a call around 3pm on Monday, July 6th, reporting the overdue hiker. Several members of a group had visited the Wave earlier that morning when one member became separated from the rest. The group continued their hike hoping the man had returned to the trailhead on his own, but when he did not turn up they contacted Kane County Sheriff’s Office dispatch.
Deputies and Bureau of Land Management rangers responded to the Wire Pass Trailhead before search and rescue teams launched a full search. Intermountain Life Flight was initially requested to assist before a Utah Department of Public Safety Aero Bureau helicopter took over. Ground teams searched on foot while the helicopter crew searched from above, with the effort continuing through the evening and into the night.
Ground searchers eventually found the hiker’s tracks and followed them to the edge of Wire Pass slot canyon. From the air, the helicopter crew spotted the man lying on slickrock roughly halfway between the confluence of Wire Pass and Buckskin Gulch, one of the longest slot canyon systems in the world.
The man was found drifting in and out of consciousness. Crews loaded him into the helicopter and flew him to a waiting ambulance at the Wire Pass Trailhead. Big Water Fire Department provided emergency care before he was transported to a hospital for treatment of dehydration and other injuries.