Family with baby rescued after stuck for 3 days in California's Tahoe National Forest

A family of four, including an infant, was rescued on Aug. 15 after spending three days stranded in the dense forestland of a steep canyon in Northern California's Tahoe National Forest, some 225 miles northeast of San Francisco and 100 miles northwest of Lake Tahoe, authorities said.

The mother and father and their 10-year-old and 9-month-old were hiking in an area of Fiddle Creek near Indian Valley that the Sierra County Sheriff's Office called some of the steepest terrain in the western part of the county that stretches into the Sierra Nevada Range. 

Suffering from heat exhaustion, the mother was unable to hike out of the remote area, the sheriff's office said in a news release posted on Aug. 17. The father left the children behind with their mother to hike out of and request assistance, the report said. 

Responding to the father's call for help, the sheriff's office said it asked California Highway Patrol to fly a helicopter over the area. The tree canopy was too thick for the helicopter to locate the mother and children, but the father was able to lead a search and rescue team to them on foot, hiking some 2,500 feet down the canyon, the sheriff's office said.

Some members of the search and rescue team escorted the father and children back to their car as night fell, while others stayed back with the mother until morning when there was enough daylight for the helicopter "to hoist her out of the canyon to an awaiting medevac helicopter," the sheriff's office said. 

Nevada County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue, the Downieville Fire Department and the U.S. Forest Service also assisted with the rescue.