2 hikers rescued from west desert

Two Plain City hikers had to be rescued Monday after their pickup truck got stuck in a remote location on Saturday.

Brett Haldey, 31, and Jason Eames, 32, were headed to Deseret Peak in Box Elder County's Newfoundland Mountains.

The two men drove on to some alkali flats about three miles north of the mountain range when their truck broke through the desert crust and sank in the mud, according to Box Elder County sheriff's chief deputy Lynn Yeates. They never made it to the peak.

When the two had not returned to their homes by Sunday afternoon, family members called for help. Family and search-and-rescue crews located Haldey and Eames on Monday and pulled their truck from the mud.

Yeates said people have died in the sometimes harsh environs of Utah's west desert. The two he helped rescue, however, were prepared, if only for a short stay, with food, water and sleeping bags.

Still, a few more days in their predicament, Yeates said, and they could have faced real danger. "They were between a rock and a hard place." Neither hiker was injured in the ordeal.

During the day, temperatures were in the 40s, but at night the mercury dipped to around 30. The closest town would have been Park Valley, about a 30-mile trek to the north.