LAKE ELSINORE, CA - MARCH 15: The San Jacinto Mountains are seen beyonds flowering hills east of the Holy Fire burn area as the so-called ‘super bloom’ spreads across the region on March 15, 2019 in Lake Elsinore, California. Abundant winter rains have lifted the state from drought, sparked spectacular blooms of wildflowers and sparked a rare mass migration of painted lady butterflies bound for the Northwest and Canada from northern Mexico.

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One man’s tragedy became a miracle.

William Kennedy

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Published: Oct 18, 2025 04:55 pm

Two hikers, lost in the Southern California wilderness in 2006, owe their lives to the small supplies of another man who vanished on the same slopes a year earlier.

That year, Brandon Day and Gina Allen, a Dallas couple, became stranded in the rugged Jacinto Mountains, surviving three freezing nights after discovering supplies, including a box of matches, in an abandoned campsite that had belonged to a missing hiker named John Donovan.

The discovery brought a painful irony: Donovan’s own belongings — left behind when he vanished — had sustained other hikers long after he was gone.

A routine mountain outing

Before that, though, the couple set out for what should have been a routine mountain outing, but they soon lost the trail and became disoriented in the terrain. With temperatures dropping and their water and food running low, Day and Allen found an old pack and a makeshift shelter tucked in a ravine.

In it were warmer clothing, food items, and the small but life-saving box of matches that allowed them to start fires to stay warm and signal for help. The smoke from those fires drew the attention of search-and-rescue teams flying overhead, leading to the couple’s rescue.

Who was John Donovan?

The pack that helped Day and Allen survive belonged to Donovan, who had vanished from the same mountain area roughly a year earlier while hiking alone. Searchers failed to find him immediately, but his abandoned campsite and gear remained, a quiet, tragic footprint on the landscape. After Day and Allen were rescued, Donovan’s body was found near the area where he had camped.

Friends and local hikers remembered him as an experienced outdoorsman whose disappearance had prompted searches and community concern the prior year. Day and Allen publicly credited Donovan’s abandoned supplies for helping them start a fire, preventing hypothermia, and producing the smoke that ultimately led to their rescue.

Officials said the couple was dehydrated and cold but in stable condition when located; they later spoke about the surreal realization that the very pack that saved them once belonged to another hiker who never made it out. In discovering Donovan’s belongings, Day and Allen helped bring Donovan’s story to a close.

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