Photo: Paramount/courtesy Everett Collection
Multiple outlets, including theAssociated PressandCNN, report that the group (with one person with “severe frostbite” on his feet, according to CNN) was rescued on Saturday morning after setting up camp near the city of Healy following their visit to the Fairbanks Bus 142, according to Alaska State Troopers.
“Searchers from Tri-Valley Fire Department and AST responded on snow machines and located the group approximately 13 miles in from theStampede Road trailhead,” AST told CNN in a statement.
Trooper spokesman Tim DeSpain told the APthat he didn’t know how far the hikers were from the famed “Magic Bus” when they were recovered. The man with frostbite was transported to a hospital about two hours away in Fairbanks to be treated, while friends picked up the other four hikers in Healy.
TheAnchorage Daily Newsreports that Tri-Valley Fire Chief Brad Randall wasn’t sure how long the hikers had been outside but believed they’d been in the area overnight at the very least. He added that temperatures on Saturday morning in the campsite area were between 5 and 10 degrees.
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The recent rescue mission came about seven months after a newlywed woman named Veramika Maikamavadied while attempting to reach the bus.
Maikamava and her husband, Piotr Markielau, were hiking this past July and trying to cross the Teklanika River near Healy when she was swept under the water,AST explained at the time, adding that the river “was running high and swift due to recent rains.”
Markielau was eventually able to pull his wife, 24, out of the water, but she had already died. Her body was sent to the state’s medical examiner, and an investigation into the incident was ongoing, AST added.
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According to theWashington Post, the couple had been married for less than a month and were attempting to find the bus.
The book and film are based on the true story of hikerChristopher McCandless, who traveled the Alaska wilderness in 1992 with little supplies and food, and spent the summer living in the bus.
source: people.com
