Sisters Stranded for 2 Weeks in Michigan Wilderness Survived on Girl Scout Cookies

Leslie Roy, left, and Lee Marie Wright were missing for two weeks in the vast wilderness of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. (Courtsey photos)

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Two sisters stranded on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula for two weeks were found “alive and well and in good condition” after their vehicle was spotted in an aerial search about 2:20 p.m. Friday.

Leslie Roy, 52, of Valley, NE, and Lee Wright, 56, of Depew, OK, survived by eating Girl Scout Cookies and cheese puff snacks, and ate snow for hydration, rescuers told MLive.com. A bear visited their SUV, stuck in the snow along a narrow, tree-lined road to the picturesque Crisp Point Lighthouse on Lake Superior since April 11, two nights in a row.

The rescue capped off two days of air searches and two weeks of anxiety for relatives of the sisters, last seen on April 11 when they checked out of a motel on the U.P. during a sightseeing trip. They didn’t make reservations at a Mackinaw City hotel that night, WWJ/CBS Detroit said.

The sisters remained with their vehicle after it became stuck April 11 on the impassable road. Police said they tried to call 911 several times, but couldn’t get a signal in the remote, heavily forested area.

When rescuers reached them, the sisters “grabbed their purses and Lee Wright clutched onto her Bible and … it was hugs all around.”

“It is unbelievably remarkable,” Michigan State Police Detective Sgt. Jeff Marker, who was one of four rescuers aboard the helicopter that found the sisters, told MLive.com. “They had multiple layers of clothes on and they were rationing their food.”

When investigative leads resulted in dead ends, authorities focused their efforts on an aerial search of the remote, heavily wooded Tahquamenon Falls region, one of the places the sisters planned to visit.

Looking for the vehicle in heavily forested area was “like looking for a needle in a haystack,” Michigan State Police Sgt. Brent Rosten told the Omaha World-Herald.

But they caught a break, and bright glimmer spotted from the air Friday turned out to be the windshield of of Roy’s white 2010 Ford Explorer.

“We circled and we could see the vehicle, and then they came out of their vehicle waving their arms,” Marker told MLive.com.

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After landing on a beach, it took the rescuers 25 minutes to hike to the women’s location on the road, which was still impassable from heavy snow. When they reached them, the women “grabbed their purses and Lee Wright clutched onto her Bible and … it was hugs all around.”

A Grand Rapids family four-wheeling in the area shuttled the sisters to the helicopter on the beach, and they were reunited with their “very relieved” family at Luce County Airport, Marker told MLive.com. The sisters were taken to a hospital for evaluation.

The sisters’ two-week ordeal could have ended tragically, Michigan State Police Sgt. Kevin Dowling said in an interview with the World-Herald.

Tourists are drawn to the “wilderness, natural beauty, scenery … and miles and miles of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior shorelines,” Dowling said, but “you could be lost and not be easily located.”