On Sunday, May 20, 2018, at approximately 1:00 p.m. Fish and Game Conservation Officers were notified of a request to rescue two lost hikers in the Dry River drainage, White Mountain National Forest. The two hikers were identified as Christopher Hart, 25 years old and Allison Porcelli, 24 years old both from Cambridge Massachusetts. They had gone hiking on Thursday on a multi-day hike in the White Mountain National Forest when they became lost off trail on Saturday and stranded in deep snow in the Dry River drainage. They activated their Garmin inReach personal locater beacon (PLB) and requested rescue. Officials were able to get some limited information from the couple via the device's text messaging capability.

Conservation Officers drove via the Mt. Washington Auto Road to the summit of the mountain. Some remained at the summit while two hiked to the Lakes in the Clouds Shelter and then down the Dry River trail eventually venturing off trail to find the two lost hikers, altogether some 3.5 miles. The hikers, located Monday, May 21st at 2:10 a.m., were in a tent, wet and unable to get dry and still 7.7 miles back to Route 302. While hypothermic, they were uninjured.

Due to the distance and technical difficulty of the terrain combined with high water and waist high snow drifts it was decided to extract Hart and Porcelli along with two Conservation Officers by helicopter. The New Hampshire National Guard arrived on scene shortly after 8:30am with a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter and was able to surgically extract them by hoist in a steep snow and ice covered wooded area. The helicopter transported them to the AMC Highland Center in Crawford Notch arriving about 9:10am.


Posted 5/21/18