{"id":40874,"date":"2025-11-04T15:19:05","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T13:19:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/accidents\/tragic-conclusion-to-week-long-search-for-missing-tsitsikamma-trail-hiker-concluded-after-finding-the-hiker-where-he-passed-away\/"},"modified":"2025-11-04T15:19:05","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T13:19:05","slug":"tragic-conclusion-to-week-long-search-for-missing-tsitsikamma-trail-hiker-concluded-after-finding-the-hiker-where-he-passed-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/accidents\/tragic-conclusion-to-week-long-search-for-missing-tsitsikamma-trail-hiker-concluded-after-finding-the-hiker-where-he-passed-away\/","title":{"rendered":"Tragic conclusion to week-long search for missing Tsitsikamma trail hiker concluded after finding the hiker where he passed away"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On Tuesday, 21 October, a hiker on a Tsitsikamma Slackpack trail went missing after leaving his group for a bathroom break. Late on Tuesday evening, MTO Trails Garden Route alerted the MCSA MSAR Eastern Cape team and requested assistance in looking for the missing hiker, while a team of MTO rangers started a hasty search.<\/p>\n<p>MSAR immediately alerted SAPS K9 SAR and Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan EMS. A multidisciplinary search started early the next morning. Over the days that followed, an extensive search involving, among others, SAPS Gqeberha Airwing helicopter, SAPS K9 SAR, SAPS Diving Unit, AMS Skymed helicopter, MTO rangers, SANParks rangers, drone operators, MCSA MSAR and several members of the public who volunteered to assist. Up to 30 searchers a day searched the area between the Heuningbos and Sleepkloof huts. This included dense fynbos and indigenous forest covering many on-trail and off-trail kilometres. Despite all these efforts, no clues were found as to the whereabouts of&#8230;<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arrivealive.co.za\/news.aspx?s=1&#038;i=75155&#038;page=tragic-conclusion-to-week-long-search-for-missing-tsitsikamma-trail-hiker-concluded-after-finding-the-hiker-where-he-passed-away\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read more on Arrive Alive <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Tuesday, 21 October, a hiker on a Tsitsikamma Slackpack trail went missing after leaving his group for a bathroom break. Late on Tuesday evening, MTO Trails Garden Route alerted the MCSA MSAR Eastern Cape team and requested assistance in looking for the missing hiker, while a team of MTO rangers started a hasty search. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40875,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.arrivealive.co.za\/\/ckfinder\/userfiles\/images\/576569890_1257041326462386_1989812137103474961_n.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2149],"tags":[99],"class_list":["post-40874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-accidents","tag-eastern-cape"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.arrivealive.co.za\/\/ckfinder\/userfiles\/images\/576569890_1257041326462386_1989812137103474961_n.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}