Rescued hiker returns to work – and volunteer – at Yosemite National Park

Lots of people at Yosemite National Park will tell you to take care when you are out hiking the trails.

When Jessica Rose Garcia offers advice from the desk at Yosemite Valley Lodge, she speaks from experience. Garcia, then 23, captured national attention when she was rescued after spending three days lost and injured after a 35-foot fall from a trail.

In 2012, Garcia, who grew up in Modesto, had completed a summer job at the lodge that was only intended to be temporary. A film student at the Academy of Art in San Francisco, Garcia was just hoping to save up for a car. But she fell in love with hiking, and with the park, and at the end of the summer she wanted to stay.

“I had never seen snow fall,” she said after her rescue.

Garcia secured a job in housekeeping at the Wawona Hotel; after orientation Oct. 6, she went for what she thought would be a nice walk in her new surroundings. Three and a half hours in, she realized she was going in the wrong direction and decided to turn back. That’s when she slipped and fell, breaking a bone in her back and pulling ligaments in her right leg.

The following day, Garcia’s supervisor went to look for her when she failed to report for work. Searchers combed the areas they thought Garcia might be, as Garcia tried to use her arms and left leg to crawl to where someone might find her. On Oct. 9, she heard a volunteer call her name.

Garcia was flown by helicopter to a meadow, then taken by ambulance to a hospital in Fresno, where she underwent surgery. Then she stayed with her mother in Newman while she recuperated.

And then, undaunted, she went to Alaska, where she worked at a cannery for three months during salmon season. But Yosemite’s pull remained, and despite continuing issues with her back, Garcia wanted to return.

“I like being here,” she said. “I want to be able to do the things I love – day hikes, backpacking.”

Her mother, Debra Garcia, wasn’t thrilled at the idea.

“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, after what she went through and what she put her family through,” Debra Garcia said via email. “No matter what I said she was determined to go back!”

After a couple of temporary stints, Jessica landed a permanent spot at the lodge.

“Jessica loves working up in Yosemite, especially meeting all different types of people,” her mother said. “I worry about her all the time but she is happy, healthy and walking again. I am just one lucky mom to have such a strong-willed daughter.”

Jessica also started volunteering with the search-and-rescue team. Yosemite National Park spokeswoman Jamie Richards said she didn’t have any statistics on how many rescuees end up working with the rescue team. But it probably isn’t common.

One of the team leaders when Jessica returned had taken part in the 2012 rescue.

“She considered me her poster child,” Garcia said. Literally – Garcia’s picture was included on a flier of people who had been successfully rescued at Yosemite.

She still hikes, though sometimes she has to stop for a break because of her back.

“Walking keeps everything moving,” she said. “As long as I’m in action, I’m doing pretty well.”

And she has no plans to stop anytime soon. Pulling out a map, she shows off all the trails she’s hiked, but points out there are hundreds of miles more to explore.

“When I came here, it kind of changed everything,” she said. “Mother Nature would have to try a whole lot harder to get rid of me.”

This story was originally published February 13, 2017 at 5:15 PM.