Olympic National Park: Rescued hikers look back at what went wrong

Poor navigational skills turned a five-day, 60-mile excursion across Olympic National Park into a survival test for two Seattle-area women.

Laurie Rich, 49, and Debbie Rennick, 51, were “tired and hungry” when an Olympic National Park employee spotted them Thursday afternoon about 10 miles southeast of Hurricane Ridge.

Rennick had suffered a broken finger in the fall, but otherwise the women were OK.

Rich and Rennick, both veteran hikers and backpackers, had planned to hike from Obstruction Point, near Hurricane Ridge, to Graves Creek near Lake Quinault at the southwest corner of the national park, but got lost after going about eight miles.

Both women, according to Rich, have more than 25 years of outdoor experience.

“Debbie’s in love with the Olympic Mountains,” Rich said. “All of her experience is in the Olympics, and she made a solo hike there last year.”

But neither woman had seen the planned route before.

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The rest of the story appears in Sunday’s Peninsula Daily News.

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