Dozens of hikers say they fell ill during trips to a popular Arizona tourist destination that features towering blue-green waterfalls deep in a gorge neighboring Grand Canyon national park.
Madelyn Melchiors, a 32-year-old veterinarian from Kingman, Arizona, said she was vomiting severely Monday evening and had a fever that endured for days after camping on the Havasupai reservation.
She eventually hiked out to her car in a weakened state through stiflingly hot weather and was thankful a mule transported her pack several miles up a winding trail, she said.
“I said: ‘If someone can just pack out my 30lb pack, I think I can just limp along,’” said Melchiors, an experienced and regular backpacker. Afterwards: “I slept 16 hours and drank a bunch of electrolytes. I’m still not normal, but I will be OK. I’m grateful for that.”
Now here we are in the summer of 2024. There’s a new, more transmissible variant of...
