Danish Women Discovered

Two Danish women who disappeared while hiking more than a week ago were found alive and well Sunday.

Marianne Konnerup and Anitta Winther, both 20, were found at Puuohulihuli, far back in Kahana Valley at an elevation of 2,265 feet, fire Capt. Richard Soo said. Three men who hiked into the area and called the womenÂ's names discovered them.

Fire and police helicopters transported the women to the rescue staging area, where family members met them.

Konnerup and Winther were taken to Kahuku Hospital, where Dr. Richard Price said they were in good to excellent condition. They were being treated for dehydration and malnutrition, as well as exposure and scrapes.

Konnerup and Winther were reported missing Aug. 16 after they failed to return to the home where they were staying in the Hawaii Kai area in east Honolulu. They were last seen Aug. 21.

The women hiked too high up in the back of the valley and were then fearful of making their way back down by themselves, Soo said. They survived on water they found in the area and food they had brought with them.

The Fire Department's helicopter lifted the two to another part of the valley, where one transferred to the Police Department helicopter for the final flight to the staging area, he said.

"I've never seen emotions so high," Soo said in describing the reunion of the women with their families.

Sunday's official search effort had focused on Green Valley, which is located between Kahana Valley and Sacred Falls. Kahana Valley was searched Wednesday and Thursday. A city bus driver told authorities he dropped off two young women at the entrance to the valley on Aug. 14.

Two other hikers told police they passed two women hiking into Kahana Valley as they were hiking out that day. The couple said they later recognized the two women in newspaper photographs.

Forty-five search and rescue personnel from the Honolulu Police and Fire Departments and the state Department of Land and Natural Resources participated in the search.

The parents of Winther and the father and boyfriend of Konnerup arrived in Honolulu on Friday evening. They were briefed by rescue officials, and Donohue had said he planned to meet with the families again Sunday.

The network of trails that link the valleys where rescue crews searched for the Danish women contains some of the most treacherous hiking conditions in Hawaii, said Dick Davis, a former president of the Hawaiian Trail and Mountain Club.

"Hawaiian mountains are the most dangerous in the world, bar none," said Davis, 79, who once directed volunteer rescue squads and has hiked throughout the state since 1944.

Not all ground cover has solid earth beneath it and people can easily step through a fern and plunge 20 to 30 feet down a cliff, he said.

Many of the trails in Kahana Valley are covered with thick, tangled hau bushes, some as high as 20 feet, Davis said. Anyone who tried to follow the valley stream toward the beach would hae a difficult time getting through the bushes, he said.

Oahu's soil is unstable compared to mainland soil, and it is not uncommon for cliff areas to crumble, Soo said.