Missing Hiker Found In Zion National Park, Family Says
Oct 18, 2020, 3:01 PM | Updated: Dec 19, 2022, 10:20 pm
Holly Suzanne Courtier, who had been missing for nearly two weeks, has been found alive in Zion National Park, according to her family.
(CNN) — A hiker missing in Zion National Park for nearly two weeks has been found alive, her family said Sunday.
Holly Courtier, 38, was last seen entering the Utah park October 6.
Her family told CNN they were overjoyed that she had been found safe.
“We would like thank the rangers and search teams who relentlessly looked for her day and night and never gave up hope. We are also so grateful to the countless volunteers who were generous with their time, resources and support.
“This wouldn’t have been possible without the network of people who came together,” the Chambers-Courtier family said in a statement.
“We are all just overwhelmed and grateful,” family friend Kelley Kaufman told CNN.
Courtier was last seen getting off a shuttle van at the Grotto area stop that leads to several Zion hiking trails, according to the National Park Service.
The park service says Zion’s 232 square miles contain “high plateaus, a maze of narrow, deep, sandstone canyons, and the Virgin River and its tributaries.” From the highest peak to the lowest canyon is about a 5,000-foot difference.
Courtier’s daughter Kailey Chambers had appealed for help from other hikers to find her mother.
“It’s getting critical — we just don’t know how much food she brought, how much it will last,” Chambers said Saturday. But she said her mother was a fit, experienced hiker and a fighter who could survive for more than a week outdoors in all of Zion’s rugged glory.
“If I could say anything to her, I would say just keep fighting,” Chambers said.
