A legally blind hiker who had not been seen since last Sunday was found by firefighters Saturday evening near U.S. 501 and Virginia 130 in the Snowden area of Amherst County.
Ken Knight, 41, was found at the base of Little Rocky Row after a small signal fire he lit got out of control, turning into a 2-acre brush fire on the ridge that got everyone’s attention, said Lt. Brandon Cocke of the Big Island Volunteer Fire Department.
As Big Island firefighters came in to fight the fire, firefighter Blair Edwards ran into Knight walking the other way at 5:12 p.m., Cocke said.
“He was fine,” Cocke said. “He was talking, laughing and carrying on.”
Cocke said that after Knight lost the Appalachian Trail, he found an area to bed down within a mile of Virginia 130 and the James River. Knight had been following a creek, but not being able to see well, when he heard the sound of rushing water, he stopped, fearing a dropoff was ahead. He moved again after his signal fire got out of control, Cocke said.
When Knight arrived at Lynchburg General Hospital in the back of a Monelison Rescue Squad ambulance just before 6:30 p.m., he smiled and said he was doing OK. Other than disheveled hair, pants torn at the knee and a thicker beard, he appeared much the same as he did in a photo taken Sunday morning.
More than 100 search and rescue workers, including dog teams, horse-mounted searchers and the Civil Air Patrol combed the area around Punchbowl Mountain on Friday and Saturday, where Knight had last been seen Sunday morning.
The first search teams went out after Knight missed a flight home Wednesday to Ann Arbor, Mich.
Although legally blind, Knight is an avid hiker and a contributor to Backpacking Light.com, an online hiking magazine.
BackpackingLight.com co-founder Ryan Jordan, who flew from Montana to join the search effort Saturday, said in an earlier interview that Knight is able to see vague shapes out to 10 or 15 feet.
Jordan said Knight was hiking south on the Appalachian Trail with a group last week toward the Peaks of Otter when he was separated from the group.
Jordan was working between Punchbowl and Brush mountains Saturday when the firefighters found Knight.
“We had seen the smoke from where we were,” he said. “We were joking that that must be Ken.”
He said he talked to Knight briefly Saturday night and that he had left the hospital before 8 p.m. to meet with his family and rescue workers.
“The search and rescue people are really proud of him that he was able to get out,” Jordan said. “We’re all pretty thrilled.”
Copy editor David Royer contributed to this report
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