Mom and 9-year-old son rescued after leaving SOS notes in California forest

Two handwritten notes weighed down by rocks helped lead to the rescue of a mother and her 9-year-old son in California, who were stranded for more than 24 hours in the remote Sierra Nevada wilderness

Two handwritten notes weighed down by rocks helped lead to the rescue of a mother and her 9-year-old son in California, who were stranded for more than 24 hours in the remote Sierra Nevada wilderness.

The note, as explained in a Facebook post by the Calaveras County Sheriff’s Office, was discovered at an intersection by a search and rescue team that had already been looking for the pair, who had failed to return home and were unreachable by phone. The mother, 49, and her son had left the Sacramento area around 1:30 p.m. on Friday, en route to Camp Wolfeboro, a Boy Scout camp off Highway 4.

When they did not respond to personal phone calls, a report was filed with the Calaveras County Dispatch Center. Deputies and a search team were quickly dispatched.

Coincidentally, the Calaveras County Volunteer Team was participating in its monthly training session at a nearby reservoir. Around 1:20 p.m. Saturday, the team began scouring the area, launching a road-based search.

A break came when a group of campers reported via 911 text that they’d seen a vehicle matching the description of the missing pair the day before. Later that afternoon, at about 5:40 p.m., searchers found the first handwritten message at the junction of a Forest Service road.