The Graham County 911 Center was notified around 5:25 p.m. Monday of two young children from Georgia missing on the Appalachian Trail.
The boy and girl – ages 8 and 9 – were hiking with their father in the vicinity of Brown Fork Gap when they became separated. When the father could not locate them, he called for assistance.
Several members of the Graham County and Stecoah Rescue squads joined the search. In the meantime, the father met another hiker who had seen the children on the trail. The hiker allegedly had seen the children and took them to the Brown Fork Gap trail shelter, with instructions to stay there while he made a call to report their location –which they did.
When the father was reunited with the children, a clearer picture of what happened emerged. The kids had gone ahead of him and when it started raining, they left the trail to shelter under some trees and the father passed their location without seeing them.
The mission ended at 6:18 p.m., with the father and his children planning on hiking to the Cable Gap trail shelter a mile or so beyond Yellow Creek Gap and spending the night there. He told squad members that he and his children had hiked over 200 miles on the trip.