I Am Thankful for Helicopters

Matt (from an earlier hike)

Matt was found today! Hooray! Seriously. I had the worst night last night, but I'm guessing it didn't hold a candle to Matt's. Matt, Jason (childhood friend), Elroy (army buddy) and Chris (Jason's friend) went hiking in No Mans Canyon. Jason and Chris like to do geocaching. They had GPS coordinates they were hiking to. Matt ate the his last granola bar right before getting to the coordinates. The slot ended in a 200 ft. repel. Matt said that part was awesome. He felt like he was floating down. Once down, they couldn't find a way out. "That canyon was relentless with the fake exits." They also didn't get lost in the cool part, but they got lost in the walking back to the car part.

The first night, they found a hole in the ground that had rocks around it. It protected them from the wind, but that's about it. It rained a little on them, but not too much. The second night they had a little better area. They slept in a rock area with a covering overhead. Matt had wet socks and wet shoes, and damp pants. They had to swim through a stream to get out of the slot.

Because Matt ate all his food the first day, the second day all he had was 1/4 of Elroy's soggy burrito and a pineapple candy thing. Matt had water and ran out about 1/2 hour before the helicopter found them. Jason & Elroy ran out of water the day before. They did fill their water bottles with pond water, but only Jason drank that.

This morning, they heard the helicopter before they saw it. Matt said the others were screaming for it while he was trying to explain that there is 0% chance they will hear you. I can totally picture Matt in that scenario. The helicopter was able to land and pick them up. They showed two different rescue people the information they were using, both said that Michael Kelsey gives bad information. Good to know.