PORTLAND, Ore. – Mary O’Brien, the hiker lost last week in Olympic National Park, and her sister, Anne, are making plans to go back to Massachusetts today, their brother, Gerry O’Brien, said.
Mary’s plans after she returns had not been firmed up as of Sunday evening.
“They’ll either wait for the family to come back from Cape Cod or go on out there and then go back to Boston for the stuff this weekend,” said Gerry O’Brien, speaking Sunday from his home in Portland, Ore.
The weekend’s plans include a 50th wedding anniversary party for their parents, which was originally a surprise but has now been leaked to Margaret and Leo , Gerry said.
At the party, Mary will be reunited with many members of both her extended family and all six siblings after the five-day search at Olympic National Park.
Mary O’Brien walked out of Olympic National Park on Saturday after five nights alone in the backcountry, up from Sol Duc.
The 45-year-old teacher from Arlington, Mass., had spent Friday night near the peak of Mount Fitzhenry, where she could see Lake Mills, the lights of the Upper Elwha Dam, and the cities of Port Angeles and Victoria.
She found a phone at boat ramp at Lake Mills in the Elwha River Basin and called park employees at 3:45 p.m. on Saturday.
They took her to park headquarters in Port Angeles.
O’Brien, who had set up camp at Sol Duc campground, lost her way on Monday night.
She hiked northeast out of the Sol Duc River basin over Appleton Pass toward the Elwha River.
She emerged from the backcountry uninjured, save for a pair of shins covered in scratches and bruises from days of hiking off trails through dense forest.
Gerry and their sister, Anne O’Brien of Valley Cottage, N.Y., came from their respective cities to help as much as they could with the search.
“As soon as we realized she was missing, I threw some camping stuff together and made the drive up,” Gerry said.
“It was so fantastic to see her, we were just as happy as can be.
“Everyone was just incredibly professional and very focused on the task at hand.
“It was impressive and fantastic the work that they put in.
“It was a hard thing,” he said.
“There were times where they wished they could be here to put names to faces of people in the search committee and just trying to get a lay of the land.
“And there were times where I wanted easier access to Internet and phone, which you don’t really have out in the middle of the woods.”
The search for O’Brien began at dawn Wednesday with 10 people.
Friends of O’Brien’s in Seattle had called the park to say that she had not returned to the Puget Sound area for a flight back to Boston.
By Saturday, two helicopters, an airplane with heat-detecting cameras, three tracking dogs, a technical mountaineering rescue team and a swift-water dive team were recruited by the park.
The effort involved 50 searchers, including three relatives, and focused on the trails and snow fields in the Sol Duc and Seven Lakes Basin.
The cost of the search to Olympic National Park was not available Sunday evening.
The total will not be known for several more days, said Kathy Steichen, acting public information officer for the park.
Anne O’Brien said her sister had hiked with her extensively in New Hampshire, and had climbed all 48 peaks over 4,000 feet in the White Mountain Forest there.
O’Brien said she had hiked the Seven Lakes Basin in Olympic National Park before and had climbed Mount Olympus, the highest peak in the park.
