Local hikers rescued off Mt. San Jacinto

It took alpine-trained volunteers and a helicopter to do it, but Andrew Hillery, 24, and Chris Cannizzaro, 23, both of Playa Del Rey, were collected today from the deep snow on the north face of Mount San Jacinto, called by Guy McCarthy at Watershed News "one of the steepest escarpments in the continental United States." He reports the climbers started ascending on Saturday but went off their route and by Monday had run out of food. "We want to thank everybody here," Hillery said of the Riverside Mountain Rescue Unit and sheriff's department. "We thought it was going to be a two-day climb. But we didn't know the trail. We didn't realize how steep the peak was."