A 23-year-old hiker missing since Boxing Day in the remote Kosciuszko National Park has been found alive.
Hadi Nazari stumbled into the path of a group of hikers around 3:15 p.m. Wednesday while hiking near Blue Lake, police said.
“The circumstances we believe at the moment are that he called some hikers who were in the area. He told them he had gotten lost in the bush and was thirsty,” Riverina Police District Commander Superintendent Andrew Spliet said.
Hikers called triple zero.
Nazari, of Victoria, was in “good health,” Spliet said.
Nazari told police “he found a cabin up there in the mountains, and there were two muesli bars up there that he ate,” Spliet said. “And that’s about all he’s had to consume in the last two weeks.”
“So the additional details of where he was and how he was actually taken care of are still to be determined.”
Several streams in the area provided Nazari’s access to water.
He was examined by paramedics at the research base camp, located about 10 km as the crow flies from where the hikers had encountered him.
He was taken to hospital for a full assessment, before police carried out a full debrief to establish exactly what happened and how he survived.
Nazari was last seen by friends around 2:30 p.m. on December 26 walking down the Hannels Spur Trail in Kosciuszko National Park.
When he did not arrive at the Geehi campsite as expected, his two friends, aged 23 and 24, started looking for him.
A multi-agency search involving more than 300 people began and on December 31, trash and hiking poles belonging to him were found near the Kosciuszko River. On January 5, a campfire, a lighter, a camera and a camera bag were found near the Geehi River.
Riverina Police District Inspector Josh Broadfoot said it was an “incredible result”.
“We would like to thank our emergency service partner agencies, volunteers and members of the public for their help. We never lost hope of finding him and we are delighted to be able to return him safe and sound to his family,” he said.
The Hannels Spur Trail is one of the toughest climbs in Australia, according to hiking tips, with hikers gaining 1,800 meters of elevation gain.
theguardian