Cherohala – The Graham County Rescue Squad – including members from the Snowbird and Meadow Branch units – responded to a call of a lost mother and her young daughter in Joyce Kilmer Forest around 8 p.m. Saturday.
Rebecca Picon – 38, of Murphy – and her 3-year-old daughter had left the Joyce Kilmer parking lot around 4 p.m., intending to visit the memorial plaque honoring Joyce Kilmer. As has happened numerous times before, they took the Naked Ground Trail by mistake.
When Picon realized they were lost, it appeared that she thought she was on the upper loop of the Memorial Plaque Trail, when actually she was on the Naked Ground Trail.
Rescuers were fairly certain of where she probably was and began searching the Naked Ground Trail. The rescue effort was hampered by sections of the trail being overgrown with briars and numerous fallen trees across the trail. Squad members Tory Lynnes, Brent Eller and Larry Crisp went ahead searching, while other members were bringing in a basket stretcher.
The hikers were located a little after 11:30 p.m., in a series of switchbacks on a very steep section of the trail. Picon stated that they had gone all the way to Naked Ground, which rises to an elevation of 4,920 feet. Picon and her daughter had started back down the trail when darkness overtook them and they had no light.
Searchers took turns carrying the little girl until they met other squad members with the basket stretcher. Rescuers reached the parking lot with the pair at 3:26 a.m. Sunday.