Local hiker saves man lost in Foothills for 3 weeks

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Speedy Holmes’ normal day on the trail turned into something incredible.

“I had seen just bags in the middle of nowhere, you know, and there’s not much human– bags that should be hanging around out there, you know? So that’s what really caught my attention,” said Speedy Holmes. 

He found hiking gear, but no hiker, yet.

“I walked over there, and I immediately asked him, ‘are you okay?’ And he looked at me and said, ‘no,’” Speedy Holmes said. 

There he met Chris who told Speedy he came out to the trail not planning on coming home.

“I said, well, ‘what brings you out here,’ and for him, it was just– he had a life decision to where, you know, we all hit those rock bottom moments, and he had that one moment. And he came out here and decided he wanted to turn back around,” He said about Chris’s situation.

That decision came right after a snowstorm, getting Chris lost in the wilderness. Speedy said Chris had been lost on the trail since Nov. 7.

Speedy shared what little supplies he had, including the last of his water, and then carried Chris on his back for two miles.

Then they were met by rescue crews, and Chris and his savior reunited in the parking lot.

“He looked at me, we pounded our fists, and he just burst out crying, and they closed the door,” Speedy said about saying goodbye to Chris as he was taken to the hospital.

Both men went up the mountain and came down changed, and bonded forever.

“For myself, just the reality of it is just still part of the human experience. You know, you take the good with the good, you take the bad with the bad,” he said about the whole experience.