On Tuesday, June 15, a hiker from Irvine was found alive by members of the San Gorgonio Search and Rescue Team, after being lost in the wilderness for three days and two nights, while summiting San Gorgonio Mountain near the city of Yucaipa. 

In an emotional interview with Irvine Weekly, Peggy Faulk, 64, expressed an insurmountable amount of gratitude and appreciation for the experience, and credited her survival to the hundreds of volunteers, from more than half a dozen counties in Southern California, that helped locate her. 

“In my heart, I think this was meant to be, that I was meant to go through this,” she said. “If you don’t believe in God or humanity or good in the world you need to go to one SAR Team meeting – these people do this out of love and unselfishness, and many times it ends badly.” 

On Sunday, June 13, Faulk, a resident of Irvine, set out to hike the summit of San Gorgonio Mountain, starting at the Vivian Creek trailhead. Faulk, who is an avid marathon runner, said was using the All Trails application to navigate, but accidentally wandered off-path while descending the summit.

“I had no idea if anybody would even look for me — I thought maybe they would say this is wilderness, you’re on your own,” she said. 

“I didn’t fight it”

In her account, Faulk explained that she and her hiking partner had agreed to head back down from the summit separately, admitting it was not the right course of action.  

“I was probably being too kind and she was commenting that going too slow was hurting her body, and we just agreed she could summit, and then if I hadn’t caught up enough that, I’d turn around and go back,” she said. “Amazingly I’d pretty much caught up, and we were pretty much at the summit, but she wanted to go ahead and go down slowly.” 

In hindsight, Faulk said there should have been an agreement at the beginning that there should have been zero separation between the two hikers. 

“It wasn’t my idea, but I didn’t fight it,” she said. “It wasn’t all her, and it wasn’t all me.”

Still, upon departing the summit of San Gorgonio, Faulk said she was unable to identify the correct trailhead, and ended up south of the trail. 

“A lot of trails are coming and going, and if you’re looking at a trail map you’ll see this — but when you’re physically there it’s kind of wide and spread out,” she explained. “I was using All Trails — I was using the map using that for navigation, and was south of the trail.”

As Faulk continued for miles, she unknowingly walked toward a dead-end portion of the canyon, primarily used for water drainage. 

Commander Patricia Sheatsley, of the San Gorgonio Search and Rescue Team, said the weekend Faulk went missing, her team was assisting in a series of back-to-back rescues in San Gorgonio. In terms of volume, Sheatsley said it was abnormal to receive back-to-back calls, one which involved another hiker descending from the same summit as Faulk. 

“The commonalities that they have, it was their first time being on this trail, they were traveling by themselves, for the most part,” she explained. “We are currently working with the San Gorgonio Wilderness Association to examine the area where we believe people have lost the trail.” 

In terms of the mileage Faulk crossed, Sheatsley, who has been the commander of the San Gorgonio SAR for two years, said it would be impossible to determine exactly how many miles Faulk covered.  

“She made it to the summit, and that is about 7.5 miles to the top. After that, it’s kind of hard to figure out — we think that she diverted and probably added another 10 miles to how much she traveled,” she said. “She was actually found at East Fork Cabin.”

Topographically, East Fork Cabin is somewhere in the middle point between Snow Peak and San Gorgonio Mountain. 

Faulk said she kept her phone in a hip-holster, and remembers checking the time around 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, June 13. However, she noticed her phone was gone shortly after being separated.  

“I put my phone back in my holster and kept going, trying to get on the trail. I think maybe the effects of altitude were occurring, and I wanted to check my phone — and my phone was gone.”

After realizing she was without a phone, a map, or a compass, Faulk described the feeling of panic, and confusion, adding to the difficulty to think rationally. Faulk said her plan was to head south, following the creek bed, and hopefully find the Vivian Creek Trailhead. 

Unfortunately, that direction only took the 64-year-old hiker from Irvine deeper into the wilderness, where she would be forced to spend the night.

Night One 

“I went down that way — not knowing what was ahead. You start to see the canyon walls are very steep, and the creek reached a point where it becomes a waterfall — a big one,” Faulk said. “I crossed over the waterfall to get to the East side of Silverfall Waterfall.”

After crossing the waterfall, Faulk said she continued to follow the path toward houses near a ridgeline, but the distance was extremely deceptive, giving her the impression that it was much closer than it actually was.

“I started getting dark, I knew I did not want to be maneuvering across that in the dark,” she said. “I found a large rock to block some of the wind and that’s where I slept that night. And then I prayed and prayed, ‘what should I do the next day,’” she said. 

Faulk said she spent the first night shivering, fearing bears, and waiting for the first sign of light. While she said there were no encounters with animals, Faulk said she came across a dozen bear dens, and “lot’s of bear paws.”

“I was worried about bears, because I had food in my backpack, and I used my backpack as a pillow, which was horrible, but I didn’t have a bear canister,” Faulk said. “One of the bear dens was huge, I don’t know if it was for a mother or a big male bear, but it was a huge den — it clearly was a bear den — the big round depression in the ground.”

On Monday, June 14, Faulk’s first full-day missing, she decided to backtrack the way she came the day before, to re-cross the waterfall she had crossed the day prior. 

“I went down this mountain, steep-walled canyon drop off, to look for the waterfall. But, it had to have been a different waterfall — all that it did was dead-end into this really steep incline — I ended up summiting another mountain, it just kept going and going. It took me half the day, at least.”

By this time, Faulk said she was hallucinating. She had not seen or spoken to anyone for more than two days. 

“About five or six times, I would see people in the distance – the closer you get you realize they weren’t there,” she said.  

A Steep Incline, But No Bears

Nearing the end of Monday, June 14, Faulk found herself in what she called a chute, a steep incline where the rocks fall into the water. Originally she had the idea to slide down and follow the creek out. 

So, she said she listened to how long it took for the rocks to hit the water, and estimated it was a 300-foot drop off. It was not worth the risk. However, she was exhausted and couldn’t pull herself up the steep incline. 

As it started getting dark on her second day missing, Faulk said she leveled some dirt near the chute, and slept there that night. The following morning, Faulk said she began praying for a sign of what to do and which direction to go. 

“I said I’ve got to get the strength to get up over that rock, got up and went to the top of the chute,” she said. “And this was the scariest part of all — the only way I could really see out is that I had to climb out on a ledge, that was 8 to 12 inches wide, that dropped 100 feet down, and I had to use rock climbing to get out of there — I had to do it, I had to get out of there. I hadn’t seen anybody since Sunday around 1:00 p.m. — so I had to get the courage to climb up that – and I did it. I wanted to live, and I prayed that when I got to the top, it wouldn’t be treacherous, and thank god it was doable.”

Faulk then made her way back the way she came, down the mountain, through the bear dens she passed days prior. While Faulk said she was able to drink water from the creek the entire time, she finished a supply of Nutrisystem bars on Monday night.  

“Are you Peggy?”

Early Tuesday, June 16, Faulk found herself near the diverter dam, which was the first man-made structure she had seen since Sunday. After finding a road, Faulk said she followed the road hoping to find civilization.  

“I found footprints, and I thought that’s a gift from God, I’m going to follow these footprints. I saw four people in orange shirts walking towards me, and I thought these hallucinations are getting really, really crazy, and one the of persons said, ‘are you Peggy?’ — I wanted to cry but I didn’t,” she said. “And that was Team 23 of the San Gorgonio Search and Rescue.” 

In terms of corresponding agencies for Faulk’s rescue, Sheatsley there were more than 100 rescuers searching for Faulk, along with more than nearly a dozen corresponding SAR teams from agencies spanning from Orange County, to the Sierra Madre to Victor Valley.  

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