Hikers plucked to safety after 5 days in SoCal wilderness

A pair of hikers lost in the rugged, icy mountains of Southern California rationed food and sipped water through a filtered straw to survive for five days until searchers using dogs and helicopters tracked them to a canyon campfire and carried them to safety.

Thirty-three-year-old Eric Desplinter and 31-year-old Gabrielle Wallace, who vanished during a day hike Saturday in the San Gabriel Mountains northeast of Los Angeles, were rescued Wednesday night by Santa Barbara County sheriff's helicopters that hoisted them from a canyon near Mount Baldy and flew them to safety.

Desplinter and Wallace lost the trail they were hiking up rugged Cucamonga Peak, which rises to 8,860 feet. At one point they slipped, he said, and decided to avoid more mountain ice by descending toward a valley. But that route, he added, turned out to be more treacherous than they realized.

Searchers on the ground picked up their footprints Wednesday and alerted a sheriff's helicopter that spotted them huddled by a campfire.

Desplinter said they survived by rationing their food, sipping water through a filtered straw and trying to keep warm. The Sheriff's Department earlier described them as experienced hikers familiar with the area.