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Great Smoky Mountains National Park Receives Its Annual Poinsettia And A Plaque

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By Kurt Repanshek - December 4th, 2009

On hand Thursday to accept the plaque and poinsettia from Mrs. Johnson and Eric Johnson were acting-Chief Ranger Steve Kloster and Deputy Superintendent Kevin Fitzgerald. NPS photo

This time Wanetta Johnson brought her son, Eric, and a plaque to thank Great Smoky Mountain National Park rangers for saving her son and a friend stranded in the park's backcountry by a snowstorm 35 years ago.

Eric Johnson and Randy Laws, both Eagle Scouts, went into the park during Thanksgiving weekend 1974 to hike a stretch of the Appalachian Trail. They were stranded at the Tricorner Knob Shelter along the trail when a storm dumped several feet of snow and whipped up drifts approaching 5 feet. When the boys' parents discovered the storm had closed the Newfound Gap Road and prevented them from meeting the boys at a predetermined trailhead, they turned to park rangers to help find their sons.

The deep snows hampered ground searchers, some of who turned to snowmobiles only to have them bog down in the fresh snow. On December 3, 1974, three days after the boys headed down the AT, they were spotted near the shelter by a Chinook helicopter crew from Fort Campbell, a U.S. Army airborne base in Tennessee. The crew, along with rangers from the park, were able to hoist the boys into the hovering Chinook and whisk them to safety.

On Thursday, Mrs. Johnson and her son, a retired special agent from the Drug Enforcement Administration, visited park headquarters to drop off not only a poinsettia but also a plaque commemorating the rescue.

In appreciation for the National Park Service rangers and employees who participated in the highly dangerous and technically difficult rescue of Eric Johnson and Randy Lewis, Dec 2-3, 1974, at the Tricorner Knob Shelter, Appalachian Trail, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, reads the plaque.

When asked why, 35 years after the rescue, she continues to thank the park staff every December, Mrs. Johnson, whose husband passed away in 2000, was quick to respond.

"How could I not? These ranger's saved Eric's life and through him saved ours," she said. "I'll keep coming as long as I'm on Earth and the flowers will keep coming as long as Eric is alive."

As for Eric, the ordeal 35 years ago didn't scare him away from the outdoors. He went on to climb Mount Rainier and Mount McKinley, and some peaks in South America.

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