FRANCONIA, N.H. (AP) — New Hampshire's Department of Fish and Game says it will recommend that two stranded hikers pay for the cost to rescue them.
Conservation officers learned that the hikers were off trail in Franconia Notch on Thursday night. The hikers said they could no long continue because of the steep terrain and fading light, and they did not have a map, compass or a light source, Lt. James Kneeland said in a news release Friday.
Two conservation officers reached the hikers just after midnight. The group was able to descend the steep slides on the eastern side of Franconia Notch and arrived near Profile Lake at 7:15 a.m. Friday.
Kneeland said the two were descending the Greenleaf Trail when they felt they would not make it out by dark. Lacking a light, they consulted a mapping app on their cellphone and learned that they were a little less than a mile from the interstate if they just went straight through the woods, off trail. They didn’t take into account the terrain they would encounter and that the topography would descend 2,500 feet, Kneeland said.
The hikers were identified as Nisrine Orgad, 27, of Weymouth, Massachusetts and Henry Santos, 41, of Peabody, Massachusetts.
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