ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Search teams in Alaska were looking on Wednesday for a hiker who has been missing since early Tuesday morning when she reported being menaced by bears on a mountain trail near Anchorage.
The search was launched after the hiker phoned her husband for help, telling him she had been charged by “multiple bears,” the Alaska State Troopers said in a statement. She told her husband she discharged bear spray at the attacking animals.
Soon after her call for help, she stopped responding to phone calls and text messages, the troopers said. The hiker’s name was not released.
The troopers, the Alaska National Guard, volunteers and search dogs have been scouring the trail area since early Tuesday by ground and by air, the trooper statement said.
The search site is Pioneer Peak, about 40 miles northwest of Anchorage.
Over the weekend a bear mauled sleeping campers in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. The campers were attacked in their tent at about midnight on Saturday, said Leah Eskelin, a refuge ranger.
The injured campers got quick help from other campers in the area and were able to leave the area, she said.
(Reporting by Yereth Rosen in Anchorage; Editing by Dan Whitcomb and David Gregorio)
