Rescue Teams Searching for Hiker in Devil’s Punchbowl

Search-and-rescue teams were scouring the mountains in the Devil’s Punchbowl late Friday, looking for a sheriff’s deputy, an experienced outdoorsman missing since the night before.

Jon Aujay, who works as a K-9 officer for the Sheriff’s Special Enforcement Bureau out of the Antelope Valley Sheriff’s Station, left his Antelope Valley home Thursday morning for a daylong hike by himself, authorities said. When he failed to return by 6 p.m., his wife Debbie called deputies.

Sheriff’s Sgt. John Hargraves, who has hiked with Aujay in the past, described him as an experienced hiker who knows the area well and hikes weekly in the Angeles National Forest. Aujay, a 15-year veteran in his late 30s, is also an ultra-marathon runner who has participated in 100-mile races and who regularly trains by running 40 miles.

On day hikes with Aujay, Hargraves said, he has brought along a duffel bag with a first-aid kit, extra water, compass and blankets, but that it’s Aujay who is always better prepared.

“It’s unusual for him,” Hargraves said. “When he says he’s going to be back by a certain point, he’s back.”

The Devil’s Punchbowl, a Los Angeles County park on the north slope of the San Gabriel Mountains just east of Palmdale, is marked by mountains ranging from 3,000 to 6,500 feet and is bordered by the Angeles National Forest. Trails in the area cross the crests of Mt. Baldy and Mt. Baden Powell, 12,000 feet and 10,000 feet high, respectively, Hargraves said.

Four rescuers were dropped by helicopter on a mountaintop in the Devil’s Punchbowl on Friday night. The rescuers had spotted and were following a single set of footprints at 9,000 feet, Hargraves said, and were expected to stay the night searching.

About 30 members from the Montrose and Antelope Valley search-and-rescue teams were stationed at park exit points and at a command post at the park’s entrance along with Aujay’s wife, Hargraves said.

Temperatures Friday night were in the 40s, slightly colder than normal temperatures for this time of year, said David Gomberg, a National Weather Service meteorologist.