Shortcut to ocean gets dad, child stuck while climbing down California cliff

A father hiking with his young son at Fort Funston in San Francisco ran into trouble Saturday when a shortcut turned into a dead end, rescuers say.

“They saw how beautiful the water was below, and they attempted to walk down the cliff, which is something we advise people not to do,” said Lt. Jonathan Baxter of the San Francisco Fire Department in a video posted to Twitter.

But the father and child became stuck about 70 feet down the cliff.

“They couldn’t go down, and they couldn’t go back up,” Baxter said in the Twitter video.

The man called 911 on his phone and was able to give firefighters their exact location, Baxter said. “We want to congratulate and commend him,” he said.

San Francisco firefighters arrived at 11:30 a.m. and spent about an hour conducting a rope rescue of the two, Baxter said in the Twitter video.

“Just hiking around and you take one wrong turn ... the next thing you know, you’re halfway down the cliff,” said the father, KGO reported.

A California Highway Patrol helicopter flew overhead during the rescue in case it was needed, Baxter said. A National Park Service ocean rescue team also was on hand.

“This could have had a much worse ending,” Baxter said. The father told firefighters he had “definitely learned a lesson.”

This story was originally published September 20, 2020 at 12:54 PM with the headline "Shortcut to ocean gets dad, child stuck while climbing down California cliff."