Ponte Vedra High School graduates lost in Grand Canyon rescued

Rowan Fitch, Reese McMichael got lost while driving to college on West Coast

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Two St. Johns County teens say they’re thankful to be alive after they were lost in the desert for five days.

Last week, Rowan Fitch and Resse McMichael, both 18, recently graduated from Ponte Vedra High School, stopped at Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona as they were driving to college on the west coast.

Last week, the teens went for a day hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

"We go off the trail for a little bit to look around and have lunch there," Fitch said.

After lunch, they decided to head back.

"We're hiking up the mountain, and all the sudden we just can't see where the trail is going anymore. It kind of just disappears," Fitch said. 

For hours, they tried to find their way, but the climb kept getting steeper. They were lost and nightfall came fast. One granola bar per person. That’s all they had to eat for five days. They ran out of water the first day. It’s not a lot to live on. The teens were resourceful enough to stay alive and wave down a rescue helicopter.

"We had phones, but there's no cell for service down in the canyon," Fitch said.

The next day, without a way to call for help, they tried to get back their car, following a dried riverbed. But they only got deeper in the desert, thirsty and tired and with no water and just one granola bar each.

"Each day we would eat a piece of it," Fitch said. "We found this little puddle on the ground. It looked somewhat clean."

Temperatures topped 100 degrees. To save energy, they stopped walking and stayed in the shade under a tree. Two days became three, four, five.

"You just start to think 'what happens if no one comes to get us? What happens if they don't even know we're missing?'" said Fitch.

Then, five days after they started, around 2 p.m., the teens saw a helicopter in the distance.

"I’m a lifeguard, so I have this big whistle it is bright orange and I was blowing it. We were waving branches at them. And it was really far away. And it stopped for a second and went away," Fitch said.

Park rangers came back, searching for the young men’s parents reported them missing.

Finally, they were found.

"It was euphoric," Fitch said. "Me and my friend were both crying tears of happiness."

They flew the teens back to safety. They lost a lot of weight, but surprisingly, the young men were healthy.

Would the pair go back?

"At the Grand Canyon? At least not for a while," Fitch said. "If I do ever hike in the Grand Canyon again, I'm going to go with a guide. And I'm going to tell people where I went."

It’s a trip these two will never forget.

Both young men said that they are thankful for the park rangers; they really did a great job with the rescue. The rangers said they are glad the teens stayed on the dried riverbed because it made them easier spot. They were able to find them a little more than an hour after they launched the chopper.
 


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Lifetime Jacksonville resident anchors the 8 and 9 a.m. weekday newscasts and is part of the News4Jax I-Team.