Cheoah – Graham County Rescue Squad and U.S. Forest Service personnel were involved in yet another search.
But this one took a little longer – beginning Sept. 9 and ending Sept. 10 – and for the first time in recent memory, the search mission wasn’t inside the Joyce Kilmer Forest.
Fortunately, the efforts resulted in a happy ending.
Searchers were alerted around 11 p.m. Sept. 9 that two individuals had not returned from a trip into the woods.
Graham County residents Joey Blevins, 44 and his 12-year-old son had entered the woods near the Maple Springs observation deck around noon Sept. 9, with the intention of grading around the ridge into Rock Creek Road, which is a U.S. Forest Service Road that begins at the end of Gold Mine Road.
The pair was supposed to have returned before dark and when they failed to return, a search was started.
Tory Lynnes and Jeff Millsaps checked the Rock Creek and Deep Creek areas that night, searching until 4 a.m.
The search resumed around 8 a.m., with Ray Blevins checking the Rock Creek area and Keith Eller foraging the Deep Creek area.
Timmy Williams and Forrest Koonz joined Lynnes in checking areas in the woods.
Lynnes had found the pair’s tracks and was trailing them, when Eller located the father and son in Deep Creek around 10:30 a.m. Sept. 10.
Searchers think the pair took an old trail that left the end of a wooded road in the area, went down a ridge and then took a wrong turn, which caused them to miss Rock Creek Road.