A 64-year-old mule rider was located near a trail south of Rimrock Lake early Monday after being stranded Saturday night and all day Sunday with only her dog and no supplies.
The Yakima County woman was flown to MultiCare Yakima Memorial Hospital for surgery on a fractured leg, officials with Yakima County Search and Rescue reported.
She and other riders were camping Saturday at the popular Conrad Meadows area about 15 miles south of Rimrock when the woman chose to take a solo ride with her mixed-breed medium-sized dog. She told others where she was going, said Wayne Frudd, the operations chief who led the rescue mission.
They reached an area of fallen trees and had to leave the trail, Frudd said. Then the mule slipped or stumbled, "got spooked and threw her off, then steps on her thigh and fractures her femur," he added. The woman also suffered injuries from getting thrown.
"She got pretty well beat up in terms of her ribs, then the mule takes off," with all of her supplies, Frudd said.
The woman had planned to ride back to camp Saturday evening but spent all of Saturday night stranded by her injuries. On Sunday morning, other riders camping in the area decided to ride into the area and found her riderless saddled mule standing in a meadow adjacent to the trail eating grass.
"They were out looking and they found the mule on the trail moving back toward where it had left from," Frudd said. "There was no cell service and by the time they got back to camp and went to where there was phone service, it was mid-Sunday."
Search and Rescue headed out searching about 4 p.m. Sunday afternoon, with search teams deployed along a 10-mile trail near Conrad Meadows. They were assisted by members of the Backcountry Horsemen.
Eight miles in, at about 2 a.m. Monday, the sound of a barking dog led searchers to the mule rider. The temperature was in the high 20s when she was found at approximately 5,500 feet of elevation. The woman was wearing a jacket and chaps, Frudd said.
"Even during the day, the wether's a little bit cool. She was dressed for 50-degree temperatures during the day," he said. "She had all the supplies on the mule, including her phone. ... She had no light or anything other than what she was dressed in when she went down."
It took a few more hours for Search & Rescue to get the assistance of a helicopter from the Yakima Training Center, which hoisted the woman out of the forest and flew her to the hospital in Yakima. She was airlifted out at 4:45 a.m., Frudd said.
During the wait a cougar was seen seated on a nearby rock, watching, until it retreated upon arrival of the helicopter, officials said.
"The irony is that the night before, she was out there all by herself in 10-plus hours of dark," Frudd said. "The cougar is a resident of the area. ... The cougar could have easily taken the dog the night before."
Cougars are often "more curious than anything else. ....but it gets your attention," he added.
Counting Search and Rescue volunteers and the Back Country Horsemen, "about a dozen people" were involved in the rescue, Frudd said.
He said the woman did the right thing in telling people where she was going and what she was doing, "but doing this alone is really not a good idea," Frudd said.
Those who want to go solo should keep their phone on their person and carry a Garmin inReach or similar technology to activate it in case of emergency, he added.
"When you do this solo, you just can't cover all the contingencies," Frudd said. "The upside is that she did tell people where she was going, what she was doing, and they were smart people who responded appropriately when she didn't come back."
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