"It's a miracle," Margie Lowe said of her husband surviving the fall, estimated at about 250 feet. The ridge is about 3,000 feet high but trees broke Lowe's fall.

Lowe used a cell phone to guide fire rescue specialists to his location yesterday. Margie Lowe tried to reach her husband Sunday night but was unsuccessful. Yesterday morning, rescue officials tried and Lowe answered the call.

"When I called and he didn't answer, I knew he must be hurt or unconscious," Margie Lowe said. "I didn't try again because I didn't want to use up the phone battery. It's a miracle that he could move to get the phone when the rescue people called."

Margie Lowe and her sons, Raphael and Adrian, expressed gratitude to firefighters and police. Margie Lowe credited police officer Chris Carvalho, a family friend, with assisting her Sunday with reporting her husband missing.

Sunday was the Lowes' 34th wedding anniversary. They had not planned anything special but it worried Mrs. Lowe when her husband had not returned home by 7 p.m. "He is usually home from hikes by 4 or 4:30," she said. "He called me when he reached the top of the ridge and told me he could see the whole city and that it was beautiful. He said he was going to ... (start) coming down in a half-hour."

Wil Kawano, a family friend who was on the same hike, said he saw Albert Lowe coming down from the ridge at about 1:30 p.m. Kawano added that three others had hiked to the top with Lowe ahead of the group but that his friend had apparently decided to start back on his own.