A group of hikers tripping on psychedelic mushrooms found themselves mentally lost in the Catskill Mountains on Friday, Aug. 29, requiring rescue by the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) forest rangers.
The DEC received a 911 call around 5 p.m. from a group of hikers deep in the Slide Mountain Wilderness, near Giant Ledge. The caller said that the group was hallucinating on mushrooms and one of them was having really bad and distressful trip.
Responding rangers and firefighters located the group at around 6:45 p.m., leading them to the trailhead for medical evaluation. In a photo provided by the DEC, a hiker can be seen being supported by two rescuers as he was led out of the forest.
As if the trip wasn’t bad enough, the hikers discovered they had lost their car keys somewhere in the forest. DEC rangers had to give the group a ride back to their short-term rental property, and were kind enough to search for and recover their keys the following day.