'Terrifying from start to finish': Sisters detail Grand Canyon flash flood

GRAND CANYON, Ariz. - Two sisters say what was supposed to be a dream trip turned into a terrifying ordeal as they spent hours huddled together, unsure if they would make it out of the Grand Canyon alive after surviving deadly flash floods.

What they're saying:

Sisters Melanie McGuirk and Jessica Buscher, along with their friend Katie Brink, had been planning the trip for some time and secured permits for overnight camping at Bright Angel Campground. On the morning of Aug. 29, the trio began their hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Around 1:50 p.m., they ran into a park ranger.

"He stopped and chatted with us for a little while about how lucky we were that we had such phenomenal weather, phenomenal being not 120 degrees," Buscher said.

The trio continued on, entering the box area of the North Kaibab Trail. Within 30 minutes, the flash floods hit.

"It was like a whiteout of rain, it was like snow," McGuirk said.

"From every direction. All at once," Buscher added.

The sisters described scrambling up to a ledge above the trail. In the chaos of the storm, they lost sight of Brink.

"She was at the bottom of a ledge that we were sitting on, and she was just on the other side of it," McGuirk said. "She was hanging on the wall like this for 20 minutes, terrified, water coming up to her knees."

'She had assumed that we were both gone'

"We thought that there was no way that a wall of water could come at her, and she could hold on, certainly not hold on for 20 more minutes while we kind of scrambled to whatever higher ground we could find," Buscher said. "Katie was going through the same thing. She had assumed that we were both gone."

When the water receded slightly, the three women were able to reunite.

"She sees us and there's this moment of you don't believe it," Buscher said.

The trio was far from feeling safe. They activated a GPS SOS beacon and waited roughly four hours to be rescued.

"I pushed the Garmin SOS at 3:10, and they rescued us at 7 o'clock," McGuirk said.

Those hours were spent huddled together, clinging to hope and each other.

"We had about this much space for our butts at the top of the ledge where we could sit at the top of this wall not knowing if the rocks are gonna fall on our heads, not knowing if the rain's gonna come and wash us back to the trail," McGuirk said.

"It was literally four hours of either silence and just shock 'cuz none of us know what to say or do combined with screaming at the sky and begging and pleading any powers that be to not let it rain anymore," Buscher said.

"It was terrifying from start to finish," McGuirk said. "We never really felt safe, we didn't know if we'd get rescued before dark. We didn't know how much of the trail was washed out, we didn't know how far down we could go."

Dig deeper:

While their journey ended with the three women being airlifted to safety, the deadly reality of the storm is still settling in. Officials confirm two other hikers were killed in the flood, and one remains missing.

"There's definitely a lot of healing ahead for all three of us," McGuirk said. "I'm just very grateful and very sad for the families who lost husbands, brothers, dads, it's heartbreaking."

"I can't quite settle into feeling happy and comfortable in myself," Buscher said. "A lot of that has to do the three men we had seen behind us and they're not here. You hear about survivor's guilt and that's what it is."

What's next:

The sisters say both the American Red Cross and the National Park Service have been checking in with them regularly the past few days. The three women have all been assigned counselors through the Red Cross as they continue to process the experience.

Grand CanyonMonsoonsSevere Weather