What began as a day trip hiking (June 11-13) in the mountains resulted in a chilly night for a group of three and a large search and rescue operation.

Friends searched for the trio Wednesday evening without any success. The trailhead starts at about 4,300 feet elevation, and with most of it still covered in snow and pending weather warnings, it was important to get to the scene quickly.

At 4:38 am Thursday authorities were alerted that teams need to head to the scene in Manning Park.

Helicopters deployed a couple of tracking teams from Keremeos and brought in the first crews from Penticton in the early hours

Colleen Aven and Kevin Vetsch from Oliver-Osoyoos Search and Rescue,  were the ones to find the lost hikers.

One of the hikers: Daniel Olson says “I do not feel that our trio was unprepared, we did not pack for an overnight trip as it was not our intention but we did have all of the ten essentials and once we were lost and knew we were spending the night we were able to put on warm dry clothing and socks and start a fire as to have some level of comfort in the night.”

Princeton RCMP had been contacted after two women and a man in their twenties left on Wednesday from the Lightning Lakes day-use parking lot to hike up to Frosty Mountain, but failed to return.

The callout resulted in 14 Penticton, three Keremeos and two Oliver-Osoyoos team members responding to Manning Park. Two teams were airlifted to the area using helicopters from Eclipse and HNZ, where they met with police and BC park rangers. The teams were inserted at the 6,000 foot level after a helicopter survey of the mountains spotted the tracks of the missing trio in the snow.

Shortly after 10 a.m. Jorgensen was notified by the Oliver-Osoyoos team that they had found the hikers on Light Lake Road, a short distance from Manning Park lodge. .