Missing Women Found Alive and Well

by Heiky | June 18, 2008 at 02:54 pm | 386 views | 6 comments

The two women who were reported missing in Alaska's Denali National Park were located alive and well Wednesday morning. Nelson's mother recieved a cellphone call from her missing daughter, indicating that the women were well and in the Dry Creek area. Previous coverage of the incident can be found here.

"Abby Flantz and Erica Nelson have been found, alive and well," Kris Fister, a spokeswoman for the park, announced in a news release around 10 a.m. local time. "The families are here, and the young women will shortly be reunited with them."

Fister later issued a second news release in which she pulled back from the original announcement. Nelson's mother, who had arrived at Denali to assist in the search, received a phone call at 9:15 a.m. from her daughter, who reported that both women were "uninjured and healthy."

A helicopter was dispatched to pick up the women. The search began on Satuarday when the women did not show up at work at the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge.

"The young women were asked to move to a highly visible area, remain in that location, make themselves highly visible and signal any helicopters that flew overhead," Fister wrote in the second release. Helicopters were dispatched to the area where authorities believed the women may be, but they have not yet pinpointed the backpackers' exact location. No additional cell phone contact has been made. Authorities originally said that the women were not carrying a cell phone.

Additional aircraft and ground crews equipped with dogs are scouring the revised search area.

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sweet east pearl

at 16:44 on June 18th, 2008

good stuff:

Heiky, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Thanks for posting this story.

Zach !

at 18:19 on June 18th, 2008

Alaska is one of the few places left on Earth where someone can be easily eaten by a bear or lost and never heard from again...Im glad they werent. I work for princess as well and I know everyone there was pretty worried about them and many thought it was a lost cause. You gotta respect the wild.

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politisite

at 02:34 on June 19th, 2008

good stuff:

Heiky, I like this story. It's good stuff. I lived in Fairbanks, Alaska for 4 1/2 years. you could see Denali maybe three times a month due to cloud cover. Thankfully search and rescue is a big thing up there. Glad the girls made it out. Many times I would hear folks dead due to the elements or a bear

ranger97

at 04:04 on June 19th, 2008

We visited Denali in 2005 and were impressed by the sheer size of the place - nothing like it on the East Coast. We have both worked at Baxter State Park in ME and that place is a fraction of the size of Denali, only 220,000 square acres but people would get lost on a regular basis, so I'm not surprised that these folks got lost...

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freefall851

at 04:30 on June 19th, 2008

This photo was taken on the way to Denali National Park,still about 80 miles from the park entrance.Weather was great being in the low 70's.

freefall851 has contributed a photo to this story.