LAKE COUNTY — On Tuesday, at approximately 4:50 a.m., a Maxwell man reported his wife had not returned from a hike she had embarked on the previous evening in Lake County.
Kathy Jones, 57, left her Maxwell home at approximately 5:30 p.m. to go for a hike in the Wilbur Springs area of Lake County near Highway 20 about two miles from the Colusa County line but didn”t return.
When deputies responded to the area, Jones” vehicle was located parked and unoccupied off of the highway in the area of the Lake/Colusa County line. One of the Sheriff”s Search and Rescue coordinators responded to the area and began coordinating other resources from CalFire to assist with the search for Jones.
Deputies teamed up with CalFire personnel to start a ground search of the area while a CalFire helicopter dispatched out of Boggs Forest began searching from the air. At approximately 7:20 a.m., Kathy Jones was located by the CalFire helicopter in the wilderness. Jones was loaded into the helicopter and transported to a field command post in the Wilbur Hot Springs area where she met with deputies.
Jones told deputies she and her husband often hiked in the area together but she was unaccustomed to hiking in the dark. The previous evening, she decided to do a solo hike, so she drove to the area and parked her car off of the highway.
She hiked into the wilderness on a fire road but as darkness fell, she became disoriented and her cell phone battery died. She was equipped with a flashlight and GPS device but as night came, she decided to bed down with a space blanket she had and wait for morning to proceed any further.
When morning came, she started looking for access back to the highway and then when she heard the CalFire helicopter flying overhead in the area, she suspected they were looking for her and managed to flag the aircraft down.
Jones was unharmed but thirsty. She was transported by ground back to her car on the highway and after ensuring her condition was satisfactory, she was released to return to her Maxwell home on her own.
