Hikers on a trail near Yosemite “hunkered down behind rocks and trees” as bullets whizzed by in an incident blamed on careless target shooters, the Mono County sheriff’s office said.
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Emergency calls came in around 1:50 p.m. Friday, Sept. 26, from people saying they were being shot at on the Parker Lake Trail. The dispatcher could hear the gunfire in the background.
Sheriff’s deputies went to the trailhead and encountered several hikers who said they could “feel and hear bullets passing overhead” as they tried to get to safety.
The deputies followed the sound of gunfire and came across three target shooters, the sheriff’s report said. The three, from Southern California, were arrested and booked into Mono County Jail on suspicion of willful discharge of a firearm in a grossly negligent manner, a felony.
No injuries were reported, but the hikers “were definitely in harm’s way,” the sheriff’s office said.
Parker Lake Trail is in the Ansel Adams Wilderness, west of Highway 395 between Lee Vining and June Lake. A two-mile hike ends at the scenic lake at 8,000 feet elevation, about 3 miles east of the Yosemite National Park border.
