Crews Probe Flood Debris, Find Bodies of Five Hikers

PAGE, Ariz. —  Crews searching a floating, unstable tangle of debris Friday at the mouth of Antelope Canyon found five more bodies of hikers swept away in a flash flood, raising the number of confirmed dead to eight.

Three others remained missing and presumed dead after a wall of water hit a dozen hikers Tuesday as they explored the scenic, narrow section of the sandstone canyon carved by countless flash floods.

One hiker, the guide, survived.

The first body, that of a woman, was found Wednesday well into Antelope Canyon. A day later, the focus of the search shifted to Lake Powell at the canyon’s mouth, four miles from where the victims were washed away. Two bodies were found there Thursday.

Crews perched on 4-by-8-foot plywood sheets as they picked through the floating tangle of sagebrush, tree limbs, silt and other debris with poles and rakes, a painstaking process intended to keep any bodies from falling deeper into the muck.

The debris field is about 100 yards long, 75 yards wide and 3 feet deep.

TrekAmerica, a British tour company catering to young Europeans, said five of the hikers were in the canyon with one of the company’s guides, the lone survivor.

The company released a statement saying the guide, Poncho Quintana, had called down from the rim of the canyon to tell five tourists that it was time to leave. A couple asked him to climb an 80-foot ladder into the canyon to take their picture, which he did--moments before the flood hit and washed them all away.

Quintana, who has not spoken to reporters, managed to pull himself onto a ledge a quarter-mile downstream.

Seven French citizens, two U.S. residents, a Briton and a Swede are thought to have died. Officials didn’t release the names or nationalities of the bodies found so far.

The British Consulate in Los Angeles, however, identified one of the presumed dead as Charlotte Warmington, 24, of Warwick, Britain. The Consulate General of Sweden in Los Angeles identified another as Anders Wassenius, 22, of Uddevalla, Sweden.

Warmington had been traveling with a friend who didn’t go on the hike, Angus Mackay of the British Consulate told the Arizona Daily Star.

A thunderstorm had dumped heavy rain on a plateau 15 miles southeast of Page, 2,000 feet higher than the canyon, sending a wall of water that spiraled dozens of feet high as the canyon narrowed.

A severe thunderstorm warning was issued about two hours earlier for the area, but the National Weather Service said only a trace of rain fell in Page, about 10 miles from the Utah state line on the northeastern edge of a Navajo Indian Reservation.

TrekAmerica officials said Quintana had no reason to believe that the tour group was in danger in the canyon, but Navajo authorities have said a member who collects admission from hikers had warned the group of the danger from the storm.