Missing hiker found alive after being lost for 10 days in the mountains

Lina Portman2 weeks ago

11 2 minutes read

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY, Calif. (KSBW) – A missing hiker was finally rescued after being lost for 10 days in California's Santa Cruz Mountains.

The 34-year-old was only heading out for a three-hour hike when he disappeared.

“I didn’t bring anything because I was thinking of hiking three hours to work,” said Lukas McClish, the rescued hiker.

He was lost in the woods for nine nights and ten days, shirtless, with only a flashlight and folding scissors.

It would be more than a week before the ragged-looking hiker was found.

“So, I kind of took a hike. Every day I go up a canyon, I go down a canyon to the next waterfall, I sit by the waterfall, I drink water out of my boot,” recalls Lukas McClish.

It was a Tuesday when Lukas McClish went for a hike in Boulder Creek and ended up getting lost.

“I felt comfortable the whole time I was there. It didn’t worry me,” Lukas McClish said. “I had a mountain lion following me, but it was cool. He kept his distance. I think it was just someone looking out for me.

The problem was that Lukas McClish hadn't told anyone where he was going.

As Father's Day rolled around on Sunday, his family began to worry and filed a missing person's report.

The search was then launched.

“Some nights, though, I just had to trust God that he would be okay, and that was hard to do some nights when we went to bed at night because I worried about where he was, where he was sleeping and how cold he was and where he was if he was alive,” said Diane McClish, the hiker’s mother.

Lukas McClish drank water from streams, ate wild berries, and slept on a bed of wet leaves while screaming for help and thinking about his next meal.

“'Just help me. Help, I'm over here. Or: “Is there anyone there?” » » Lukas McClish remembers saying then that he was lost. “I want a burrito or a taco bowl. This is what I thought about every day when, after the first five days, I started to realize that maybe I was in over my head.

But on Thursday afternoon, someone finally heard his cries for help.

Boulder Creek firefighters deployed a drone and scouted its location.

A K-9 found him and Lukas McClish was escorted out of a remote canyon, eventually reuniting with his family.

“I've met a lot of people because more and more people have come up to me and told me how much they love my son and how much they just hope we find him,” Diane McClish said. “I didn’t realize so many people in this town love Luke.”

Fortunately, Lukas McClish did not suffer any major injuries.