Family finds missing hiker injured in Yosemite

Tuesday, March 24, 2015
Family finds missing hiker, 20, injured in Yosemite National Park
A hiker is recovering in a Valley hospital after he was missing for two days in Yosemite National Park.

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. (KFSN) -- A hiker is recovering in a Valley hospital after he was missing for two days in Yosemite National Park.

Michael Dahl, 20 is a UC Santa Barbara student who disappeared while hiking with friends Saturday morning. The group began scrambling on the rocky area below the Lower Yosemite Fall when the others noticed Dahl was missing. The friends looked for two hours before reporting it to a ranger.

Fifty people from search and rescue teams across the region then began looking for Dahl without any luck. But Monday morning, a family of four from Santa Rosa spotted him slumped over a rock near the Valley Loop Trail -- about a quarter of a mile from where he was last seen.

"I kind of stopped and stopped the family as we were walking up the trail, and we went over there, and it became pretty obvious that he was all muddy, covered in grime and just not doing well. He was all kind of battered and bruised," said Don Green.

Green and his wife, Cherie, are both doctors. They stayed with Dahl until rangers could carry him to an ambulance. The Greens say he appeared to have hypothermia and could barely speak, but he did manage to tell them his name.