SALON

Tuesday, Oct 30, 2012 1:00 AM UTC

2 Ore. teens missing since Saturday found safe

By

Topics: From the Wires,

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Two Oregon teenagers who didn’t return from a weekend hike are safe after spending two nights in wet, windy weather.

Jackson Chandler, 17, and Bradley Nelson, 16, were found Monday afternoon by a driver not connected to the search party, Clackamas County Sheriff’s Deputy Nate Thompson said. They did not need medical attention.

Television cameras captured the boys’ emotional reunion with relatives after rescuers escorted them to the trailhead.

Chandler and Nelson told reporters they went in the wrong direction and got lost. The Boy Scouts and avid hikers did not have food, but they drank water and slept under trees that blocked the rain.

“I was definitely concerned. I didn’t want to be spending the night out there,” Chandler said. “Said a prayer and asked our heavenly father for direction on which way we needed to go.”

The pair left West Linn in suburban Portland on Saturday afternoon and planned to return to their vehicle by nightfall.

Their parents called for help when the boys didn’t come back. On Sunday, a searcher discovered the teens’ pickup five miles east of the Table Rock Wilderness area.

About 50 people from volunteer groups, joined by a helicopter, searched the foothills south of Portland on Monday.

“Thank you to everyone who put all the effort in to find us,” Nelson said. “It’s good to be home.”

The Table Rock wilderness attracts many hikers, but Thompson said he had never heard of people getting lost in the Lost Creek Meadow area where Chandler’s car was found. He said the area is at an elevation of about 4,000 feet and forested. The deputy said the boys were found several miles from their pickup.

More Steven Dubois.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations