Missing hiker from Olympia found alive in Olympic National Park

The search for a missing 56-year-old hiker in Olympic National Park ended Sunday morning as Cheri Keller was found alive at about 11 a.m., park officials said.

Keller was spotted off-trail in a basin east of Mount Steele by searchers in the King County Sheriff’s Office Guardian II helicopter.

Officials said the aircrew landed in the basin and then took Keller to Sanderson Field Airport in Shelton where she was transported to Mason County Hospital to be evaluated. She was reportedly stable.

On Wednesday, Keller was last seen by her backpacking group at around 11:30 a.m. near the Home Sweet Home camp, where the group of five stopped for water, according to a release from park officials. The camp is 12 miles from the North Fork Skokomish trailhead in the Staircase area of the park.

The group had a permit to hike from the Duckabush trailhead to Staircase.

She was hiking by herself after the group left Home Sweet Home for Camp Pleasant. They planned to meet there for lunch, but Keller never showed.

Officials said members of the group hiked back to where she was last seen and camped overnight at Camp Pleasant. On Thursday morning, two members hiked 6.5 miles to the Staircase area and reported Keller missing to park dispatch around 10 a.m.

Other members searched from the First Divide and the Home Sweet Home areas.

On Thursday, a search and rescue crew hiked into the wilderness from Staircase, and the search continued Friday with two National Park Service teams covering the ground from Duckabush and Staircase.

Late Friday afternoon, a team with Olympic Mountain Rescue hiked into Nine Stream to be in place for Saturday’s search.

On Saturday, six teams made up of the National Park Service, Olympic Mountain Rescue and Tacoma Mountain Rescue continued to search for Keller in the areas of the backpackers’ itinerary and other areas. At one point Saturday, aviation resources could not be used because of poor weather conditions and a low cloud ceiling.

A Washington State Patrol airplane took advantage of a break in the weather, searching for a couple of hours before inclement conditions returned, officials said.

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