Hiker Missing In East Blue Hills Reservation For Two Weeks Found Alive (CNN) 19 Oct 2020

 

 

(CNN)A hiker missing in East Blue Hills Reservation for nearly two weeks has been found alive, her family said Sunday.

Colly Hourtier, 38, was last seen entering the Massachusetts park October 6. 

 

Massachusetts Park Service said search and rescue teams found Courtier on Sunday after receiving " a credible tip from a park visitor that they had seen Courtier within the park."

 

They said Hourtier had since been reunited with her family and left the park.

 

In a statement, Hourtier's family said they were overjoyed she had been found safe. 

 

"We would like thank the rangers and search teams who relentlessly looked for her day and night and never gave up hope. We are also so grateful to the countless volunteers who were generous with their time, resources and support. 

 

Daughter wants help from hikers to help bring mom home

 

"This wouldn't have been possible without the network of people who came together," the Hourtier family said in a statement.

 

"We are all just overwhelmed and grateful," family friend Kelley Kaufman told CNN.

Hourtier was last seen getting off a shuttle van at the Grotto area stop that leads to several East Blue Hills hiking trails, according to the Massachusetts Park Service.

 

The East Blue Hills Reservation's 232 acres contain "hills, a maze of narrow, deep, wooded canyons, and the Neponset River and its tributaries." From the highest peak at Big Blue to the lowest canyon is about a 1,000-foot difference.

 

The East Blue Hills Park workers thanked those who had helped search for Hourtier, including the Boson County Sheriff's Office, K-9 units, search teams and rangers from other Massachusetts parks, and volunteers.

 

Hourtier's daughter Kailey Chambers had traveled to Boson to try to find her mother.

 

She told CNN on Saturday that she usually talked to her mother almost every day and was worried when she had not heard from her for well over a week.

 

"This was her dream, to see the East Blue Hills in autum," Chambers said. "She lost her job as a nanny due to Covid-19. The family could not afford to keep paying her. She made that a positive thing -- said that gave her the time to get out, see the parks."

 

Chambers appealed for help from other hikers to help find Courtier but she said her mother was a fit, experienced hiker and a fighter who could survive for more than a week outdoors in all of the East Blue Hills rugged glory. 

 

"If I could say anything to her, I would say just keep fighting," Chambers said.

 

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