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Show 56 Unknovin to Karen and the other crew leaders, the tvio missing g i r ls had wandered off the high ridge t r a i l and had kept on walking until they found another t r a i l at the bottom of a canyon. At f i r s t neither of them realized that they were l o s t , although they did wonder vihy they weren't meeting any other hikers from the group. They stayed on the lower t r a i l for miles until they arrived, viorn out and cold, at the shore of a lake. There they found a party of goodhearted campers viho offered to share their tent for the night so the g i r l s could stay dry. Leaving their backpacks on the ground outside, they went inside the tent to sleep. When they vioke in the morning, the tvio g i r l s found that their batekpacks had been slashed by bears - all their freeze-dried food was gone and their clothes were strewn everywhere. If they had not slept inside that tent, the g i r l s might have been in serious danger. "For some reason, and I can't imagine why," Karen says, "at that point they decided to go swimming in the lake. While they were in the water the search helicopter circled overhead looking for them, but because it was foggy and they were mostly covered by lake water, the pilot missed seeing them." Meanwhile, Karen and the other leaders were hurrying the rest of the girls toward the same lake, vihere they'd planned a l l along to camp the following night. They vianted to get the group deposited in one place while the professional searchers did their job, rather than have nearly two dozen g i r l s strung out along the t r a i l to confuse searchers. Before they got there, the helicopter pilot returned to the lake to make a fevi more passes along the shoreline. This time he spotted |
