Lost motorcyclist turns up safe on Cow Mountain

A missing Santa Rosa motorcycle rider, lost overnight on remote Cow Mountain in Mendocino County, was found Monday morning.

Maurice Rucker, 32, didn't appear to be injured but was taken to Ukiah Valley Medical Center for possible exposure problems, Mendocino County Sheriff's Sgt. Shannon Barney said.

Rucker had been riding in the area Sunday morning with friends. As they were leaving, he decided to test out a friend's motorcycle, saying it would be a brief ride.

He headed east toward Lake County, and by 1 p.m. when he hadn't returned, his friends called for help.

Sheriff's Office search and rescue volunteers and deputies organized a search, which eventually included about 30 people from several agencies, three dogs and searchers on ATVs.

"We searched trails and trails and trails and trails," Barney said of the brushy, hilly Bureau of Land Management recreational area.

The search stopped at about 4 a.m. Monday and resumed at about 8:30 a.m.

Rucker had spent night mainly on the move, Barney said. After dawn, he made his way to a road where he found a home, whose residents took him in.

Rucker told rescuers the motorcycle had broken down.