The treacherous area near Sedona, Arizona, where Janelle Banda and her father were camping as part of a dad-daughter outing is known as the Edge of the World.
Banda went on a walk in the area, rough terrain carved with steep cliffs and covered with thick forest, and nearly lost her life with a misstep that dropped her hundreds of feet and out of reach for days.
She was stuck for two-and-a-half days, about 400 feet into a narrow canyon near the southern end of Woody Mountain Road. She endured extreme daytime heat, cold and pitch-black nights before a Pima County sheriff's helicopter rescue at noon on June 16.
Sarah Banda, 29, was jolted with anxious energy when she learned that her older sister, 32, had been saved.
"This has been nothing short of a miracle," Sarah Banda told The Arizona Republic, part of the USA TODAY Network. The positive outcome inspired "an overwhelming amount of relief, joy" in her and the sisters' parents. She said that by the third day, her sister was missing, the Phoenix-area family was "very much mentally preparing for the worst."
