A friend of mine told me a little story about a professor getting lost hiking in 2005 so I did a little googling and found an article.  Turns out my Contracts Professor, Roger Alford, and his family got lost hiking in the hills above Pepperdine. Check it out.
Here is the article from Pepperdine’s newspaper, The Graphic:

Fog traps family in nearby hills

SARAH CARRILLO
Staff Writer

A simple family hike through the hills above Pepperdine turned into an ordeal that lasted over eight hours after fog rolled in and left School of Law Professor Roger Alford, his children and friends stranded.

Alford’s family along with a family visiting the Alford’s from Texas, about eight people in all, left for a hike around 5 p.m. March 9. Soon after, fog rolled in and at 11 p.m. that night the hikers were reported missing by Alford’s wife, Leslie.

After the hikers were reported missing a search and rescue team was sent out with members of Department of Public Safety, Pepperdine’s Fire Department, The Los Angeles Sheriffs Department and the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

Public Safety Sergeant Alex Ghazalpour was one of the first people on the scene. He said they first wanted to see if the rental van the hikers were using was still where they had left it, on Via de Casa on campus. The van was still there, which confirmed that the group was still in the mountains.

Patrick Smith, part of Pepperdine’s Fire Department, was a member of one of the three three-person crews that went to search for the hikers. He was told the family was heading for a helispot, a helicopter landing site, and so his crew headed for the site. Before leaving they also set up floodlights and spotlights to give the hikers something to walk to.

“We found a toy gun on the trail that turned out to be one of the children’s, so we knew we were going the right way,” Smith said.

Smith said between 3 and 4 a.m. another search team was able to establish verbal communication with the family and later found them. He said they had found some sort of one-room garage for shelter.

After the family was found, the crews began the long journey back through the fog.

“When we came down the mountain … I’ll never forget this, one of the little kids comes up to me,” Smith said. “He was probably around 8 years old, and he holds out his hand for me to shake and says ‘thank you.’”

Submitted 03-31-2005

Direct Link to the Article

Two days ago I was walking around outside with my roommie and explaining how much I hate the rain.  I live in SoCal and really dislike being rained on.  We laughed about how I will try to refuse to leave our apartment when it is wet out.  This was all fun and games until I woke up the next morning to the sound of water hitting my window.  Thats right, it was pouring outside.  Rain wasn’t even in the forecast, but outside it was pouring.  Just my day I guess.

I muttered about it, got my breakfast ready, and turned on my TV to watch some morning news while I ate.  The first image I see says “El Nino Returns”.  Apparently, it isn’t my year either.  Going to be a rainy one! Last time we had El Nino was in 1997 and I don’t remember it to be pleasurable.  Also this is probably going to cause some trouble here in Malibu because the soil is loosened from the fires (destruction of plant life) so the rain will probably cause some adverse effects.

What IS El Nino?

El Niño is officially defined as sustained sea surface temperature anomalies of magnitude greater than 0.5°C across the central tropical Pacific Ocean. El Niño is associated with a positive anomaly.

You can read more about El Nino and how it has arrived this year Here. http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/index.html