Hiker found alive two weeks after search called off

A FAINT sound made hikers Albert and Peter Kottke stop and look around as they neared the end of a backpacking trip in the wilds of New Mexico.

A figure moved on the other side of the Gila River. As it drew closer, the two university students saw a woman, hunched over and moving slowly.

The Kottkes crossed the river to find Carolyn Dorn, 52, who had been alone in the Gila National Forest for five weeks after becoming trapped on the wrong side of the rain- and snow-swollen river. The search for her had been called off two weeks earlier.