Texas hiker says Grand Canyon flash flood rescue was 'craziest day'

A Texas hiker recalled the deadly flash flooding that surged through Arizona’s Grand Canyon National Park and stranded more than 100 hikers last month as the “craziest day of their lives.”

Whitnye Raquel, 35, told SFGate that she and her friend Paige Renae had gone to the Havasupai Reservation for three nights, where the idyllic waterfalls, creek-side campground and the canyon’s famed blue-green waters draw visitors from around the world.

But steady rain on Aug. 22 quickly turned to disaster as the creek turned a muddy color and swelled, with water sprouting from the canyon walls and dislodging rocks.

“We just see boulders crumbling, and the sides of houses and school buildings just tumbling down the canyon walls,” Raquel told the outlet. “I grabbed Paige, because I thought it was going to come right through their grocery store and end us. You don’t think that you’re going to see something like that in real life. It felt like a movie.”

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Raquel said Havasupai tribal members allowed tourists to shelter in their village inside a school cafeteria. The initial flash flood had wiped out wooden bridges and ladders used to cross streams along the trail, and a second rush of water made hiking out impossible. 

The flash flood washed out wooden bridges used to cross the creek and made hiking out impossible. (Michael Langer via AP)

“That’s when they said, ‘The trail is now impossible,’” Raquel recalled the tribal members saying. “‘There are boulders blocking the trail. Nobody can hike in or out. You guys will all be helicopter-evacuated tomorrow morning. Nobody is hiking out of here.’”

Raquel said all the hikers sheltering with the tribe helped each other through the ordeal after having gone through what she called “the craziest day of their lives.”

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While a private helicopter service and an Arizona National Guard Blackhawk helicopter worked to ferry 104 evacuees out of the canyon, park officials confirmed that two hikers – a husband and wife – had been swept away in the rush of water near where Havasu Creek empties into the Colorado River.

The two hikers were identified as Andrew and Chenoa Nickerson, of Gilbert, Arizona. Andrew Nickerson was rescued later that night by a group rafting the 280-mile stretch of the river that runs through the Grand Canyon.

“I was seconds from death when a random stranger jumped from his river raft and risked his life without hesitation to rescue me from the raging waters,” Nickerson wrote later on social media.

Havasu Creek is a tributary to the Colorado River, where Nickerson’s body was found days after being swept away in a flash flood, officials said. (National Park Service)

His wife, 33-year-old Chenoa Nickerson, was swept into the river’s main channel and remained missing for days. Like most hikers at Havasupai, she wasn’t wearing a life jacket.

Members of a commercial river trip later found her body floating in the Colorado River.

Raquel told SFGate that the experience serves as a reminder “that the human doesn’t stand a chance compared to the sheer force of mother nature.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.