Continued: Minnesota backpacker, friend rescued after call from Alaska wild

Searchers had scoured hundreds of square miles of Alaska wilderness for a young Minnesotan backpacker and her friend for five days and found not a trace.

Then, on Wednesday morning, a cell phone rang.

Eight hours later, Abby Flantz, 25, of Gaylord, Minn., and Erica Nelson, 23, of Las Vegas were safely back at park headquarters, hungry but unhurt, hugging emotional family members, thanking their rescuers and looking forward to a shower, a hearty meal and, Nelson said, "maybe a beer."

What had began as an overnight hike in rugged Denali National Park had turned into a five-day drama marked by rollercoaster reports and emotions.

Their anxious parents had been waiting for a Wednesday morning briefing with Denali officials when the jaw-dropping call came.

Nelson's mother looked down at her ringing phone. Her daughter's name was on the caller ID.

"I was told her face looked like it had seen a ghost,'' said Kris Fister, the park's spokeswoman.

Ellane Nelson then heard her daughter telling her that they were uninjured and in the Dry Creek area of the 6-million-acre park.

The women were told to get to a hilly location. At 5 p.m. Alaska time (8 p.m. Twin Cities time), they were picked up by helicopter and reunited with family members.

The women, who had no food when they were found and had been melting snow for water, shared an overstuffed deli sandwich as they walked to a waiting ambulance, laughing with family members.

In an interview with Anchorage TV station KTUU after their rescue, Flantz said she and Nelson had found the terrain "a lot harder than we thought it would be" and had just kept hiking when they didn't reach the landmarks they'd expected, "thinking maybe it'll be the next ridge."

Nelson said they had been "somewhat worried" about being lost, but had faith they would find their way out or be found. "We stayed positive," she told KTUU.

Flantz added that the two had no idea there was a major rescue effort underway. She fervently thanked searchers.

Said Fister: "Medics looked them over and they looked great. Everyone was so relieved. The parents ... were very confident they would be found. But having them in their arms was truly wonderful."

Their rescue Wednesday evening came after a long day in which helicopters, a small airplane, 10 ground searchers and two dog teams worked to pinpoint their location.

It wasn't easy.

"There's a lot of bushy vegetation. Alders, willows and dwarf birch are thick. Moose disappear in this stuff,'' Fister said. "It's dense. ... It's big country."

The women were found just outside the park's northern boundaries shortly after a second call to Nelson's mom, Fister said.

With Nelson's cell-phone battery running low, park officials told her to send text messages. For nearly 45 minutes, they exchanged messages, with the women describing what they saw and whether they could see or hear aircraft, Fister said.

Rescue efforts also were aided by technology that helped locate the cell-phone signal in a narrower area, Fister said.

Nelson and Flantz told KTUU that they pitched a tent in the spot where they waited for rescue and fashioned "big X's" on the landscape so they could be easily spotted.

Park as big as Massachusetts

The two women left last Thursday for the back country, expecting to return the next day. When they didn't show up for work on Saturday at Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge, a hotel outside the park, helicopters were sent out to search for them.

By Sunday, ground crews were searching the rugged terrain. Dog teams eventually joined the search, and white-water experts were flown in. Searchers scoured a 100-square-mile area.

Denali National Park, which lies 235 miles north of Anchorage, is larger than the state of Massachusetts. It's home to Mount McKinley (called Denali in Alaska), the highest peak in North America.

"It's real easy to get disoriented if you're not real practiced at route finding,'' Fister said. "Even if you are practiced, people get turned around. ... It's not uncommon for experienced hikers to get disoriented out there."

Most lost hikers walk out on their own, Fister said. Once or twice a summer, park officials conduct searches.

'A rollercoaster of emotions'

For the women's families, the rescue ended a prayer-filled vigil.

"It was a rollercoaster of emotions all week, but especially today,'' Flantz's sister Sarah Barbosa of Mankato said late Wednesday. "We got the phone call, and we were all excited. And then there was more waiting. It was a long day today but it ended well."

Family and friends worried, she said. "But we never gave up. We had hope. We prayed. And we believed."

The Associated Press contributed to this report. Mary Lynn Smith • 612-673-4788