Two 9-year-old girls from La Jolla YMCA on a hike to Cedar Creek Falls were overcome by heat and airlifted off the trail June 24, authorities said.
The girls, part of a group of 9- to 14-year-olds from the La Jolla Y, came by bus to the Thornbush Road trailhead in San Diego Country Estates, authorities said. As they started back up the trial from an uneventful hike down, the two girls suffered from the heat, and help was called about 2 p.m. A sheriff’s helicopter airlifted them to a Cal Fire station in Ramona, where they were treated and released. The girls returned to the Y day camp from which they came, and their parents picked them up. A sheriff’s department spokesman said that Y personnel were strongly advised against the hike due to the heat. About 18 hikers have been rescued from the area this year, mostly due to the heat’s aftereffects.