3 missing Texas hikers found alive in Colorado

CREEDE, Colorado — The Mineral County Sheriff's office says three missing Texas college students who failed to return from a hiking outing have been found.

Sheriff's office dispatcher Tamara Hosselkuf says the men were found at about 5 p.m. Monday and were OK. Hosselkuf did not know the exact location where they were found but said it was somewhere above Big Meadows Lake.

Sheriff spokesman Charles Downing says that's where the men have set up camp during the three years they have hiked the area.

The men were in the rugged San Juan mountains in southwestern Colorado, about 250 miles of Denver.

Brandon McAuliffe, a friend of one of the missing men, identified the hikers as 23-year-old Derrick Bibb and 21-year-olds Derek Ware and Adam Patterson. McAuliffe says all three attend Abiline Christian.

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