Hikers Punched, Threatened With Guns After Arguing With Dog Owners

In two separate incidents in Arizona and Colorado, police say that three individuals walking dogs assaulted or threatened other hikers after getting into disputes over their pets.

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Granite Basin Lake in Arizona's Prescott National Forest. (Photo: Cavan Images / iStock via Getty)

Police are searching for a trio of people who allegedly threatened and assaulted hikers in two separate “trail rage” incidents that started as arguments over the suspects’ dogs.

In a Facebook post, the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office (YCSO) solicited the public’s help in identifying a man and a woman accused of physically assaulting a pair of hikers at Arizona’s Granite Basin Lake in Prescott National Forest on September 6. The incident began when the hikers encountered the dog owners on a nearby trail.

“Following a brief verbal exchange regarding the dog, the male suspect allegedly physically assaulted one of the hikers, punching him multiple times,” the YCSO wrote on Facebook. “When the second hiker attempted to intervene, she was attacked by the female suspect.” The confrontation ended when the male dog owner allegedly pointed a handgun at one of the hikers; he and the female suspect then left for the area’s main parking lot. By the time law enforcement arrived, both the dog owners were gone. The YCSO said that the two victims, who received minor injuries, declined medical care.

In the Facebook post, the sheriff’s office went on to ask anyone who was in the area and believes they saw the two suspects—described as a white man and woman in their 30s or 40s with a large brown dog—to call law enforcement. The Forest Service allows dogs at Granite Basin Lake, but requires owners to keep them on a 6-foot leash at all times.

In a separate incident, the Summit County Sheriff’s Office (SCSO) last week said that it had issued a warrant for the arrest of a New Mexico woman for allegedly threatening a group of hikers during another on-trail confrontation over a dog in July. According to the SCSO, the woman was riding on horseback along the Meadow Creek Trail in the White River National Forest near Frisco, Colorado when the hikers told her that her dog needed to be on a leash. (Some portions of the Meadow Creek Trail do not require owners to leash their dogs, while others inside the Eagles Nest Wilderness do; it’s not immediately clear where the confrontation happened.) In response, the rider allegedly threatened to trample and shoot the hikers, then called them homophobic slurs before riding away.

Police eventually tracked the rider down by comparing a photo of her horse’s brand to a regional registry. When detectives finally reached her by phone, she admitted her role in the incident, but insisted she was acting in self-defense and referred to the other parties in the confrontation as an “old fat woman,” “the idiot,” and “Peter Pan.” She is now wanted on four counts of misdemeanor menacing, four counts of bias-motivated crimes, and one count of reckless endangerment.

Dogs roaming off-leash is a controversial topic among hikers. Even in areas where they’re allowed, they’ve led to conflict in the recent past, some of it violent. In 2022, several hikers accused a Washington County, Utah man of pointing a gun at them and threatening to kill them for walking their dogs off-leash on Bureau of Land Management trails, with one of the hikers snapping a photo of him apparently brandishing a weapon. The man, who denied threatening them and said he drew his gun to defend himself from the dogs, never faced charges.