Luck comes in many forms, but for a father and son hiking in Utah’s Snow Canyon on February 17, it came in the form of an abandoned backpack. Stuck overnight high up on a canyon ledge, Julian Hernandez and his 12-year-old son would have had a different outcome had it not been for someone else’s misfortune, said Sergeant Jacob Paul with Washington County Search and Rescue.
“They literally had just about everything that they needed to stay about 100% as comfortable as they possibly could until our rescuers found them,” Paul said. “There’s no other way to describe it other than a miracle.”
The pair were hiking Red Mountain Trail, a 13.5-mile route that winds from the northeastern corner of Red Mountain Wilderness down past Snow Canyon State Park and into Ivans, Utah. That was where they’d planned to be picked up by Hernandez’s wife. But they never made it.
According to Paul, near the top of the Snow Canyon overlook, they lost the trail and hiked down a sloped cliff that they couldn’t get back up from.
One Rescue Leads to Another

Always Be Prepared
