Video shows the rescue on a steep cliff. Video broadcast Wednesday April 16, 2025 on Today in LA.
Video captured the dramatic rescue over the weekend of a hiker who was stranded on a steep cliff off a Riverside County trail.
Members of the Riverside County Sheriff's Department responded Sunday to the woman's emergency 911 text and found her on the cliff face in the Whitewater area of Pacific Crest Trail, just south of the border with San Bernardino County.
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WATCH HEREThe exhausted hiker carrying a heavy pack had been on what rescuers described as a "precarious spot" with poor footing for more than an hour. Video showed the woman clinging to the rocky cliff as the rescue helicopter hovered overhead and a rescuer was lowered to her location.
"As you can see, this was an intense, technical rescue," the sheriff's department said. "The rescue specialist determined the safest option was to bear hug her and climb to the top. He just could not risk asking her to lift her arms, that she was clearly death gripping the cliff with, in order to place a rescue strap on.
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SIGN UP "As you can see, they both had quite the adrenaline dump once on top."
The video includes audio of rescuers calmly communicating step-by-step as they execute the rescue.
The Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail is a continuous path on the crest of the Pacific mountain ranges between Mexico and Canada that winds through parts of Southern California, including Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Cleveland National Forest, the San Jacinto Mountains, the Big Bear Lake and Arrowhead areas, and the San Bernardino and San Gabriel mountains. The nearly 650-mile Southern California stretch reaches a maximum elevation of 9,030 feet.
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