A 72-year-old California hiker missing for days after a fall in Shasta County was found alive and airlifted to care, a rescue driven by family tips and local search teams.
ABC News reported that Mary Beth Granbery was located Sunday, Oct. 4, 2026, at the bottom of a steep embankment in a northern California forest, alive after multiple significant injuries from a fall and exposure.
She was airlifted to a medical center for treatment and reunited safely with loved ones.
Granbery had left Sept. 28 for a multi-day camping trip from the Cabin Creek Trailhead in Shasta County. She was reported missing Friday, Oct. 2, after she did not return to work.
On Saturday, the Siskiyou County Sheriff's Office and the Shasta County Sheriff's Office launched a joint search and rescue. Volunteers and California Highway Patrol Air Operations joined the effort.
That same day, officials found Granbery’s camper van at a nearby trailhead. The Shasta County Search and Rescue Jeep Patrol described the ground as steep terrain cut by creeks, trail debris, and downed trees, the kind of country that swallows a lone walker fast.
By Sunday she was found. The fall and the exposure had already done real damage. Still, she was alive. That outcome is not the default in remote forest country after days alone.
The Siskiyou County Sheriff's Office said Granbery’s loved ones helped the search and gave critical information. Family knowledge, where she went, when she was due back, what she drove, turned a vague missing-person case into a searchable one.
That is basic adult planning, not drama. Someone knew her route. Someone noticed when she failed to show up for work. Someone called it in. Without that chain, Saturday’s launch does not happen on time.
After the rescue, officials reminded the public to tell someone the departure point and the expected return time before a trip. They also urged people who get lost to stay put so the search area does not keep growing.
Those rules sound plain because they are. Remote ground in Shasta County does not care about good intentions. Steep embankments, debris, and weather do the rest. A fall plus exposure is enough to end a trip, and sometimes a life, if no one knows where to look.
Local sheriffs, volunteer crews, Jeep patrol ground teams, and CHP air units did the hard work once the call came in. They covered rough ground, found the van, and got a 72-year-old woman off the embankment and into medical care.
Granbery’s case ends better than many wilderness missing-person stories. She left on a camping trip. She went down. She was hurt. She was found. The difference was a timely report, family detail, and people willing to search hard country on short notice.
Tell someone where you are going, come back when you said you would, and remember who still shows up when the trail goes wrong.
