The dense haze closed in so rapidly that the group decided it was best not to move on or attempt to find their way back.
“We were taken by surprise by the fog and decided to stop and find help, because we were scared for the children,” the group leader Arlindo Moura told newspaper Correio da Manhã.
The children spent almost four hours in the cold and rain before they were rescued near Cabreiro, Arcos de Valdevez, by a team of more than 30 fire-fighters and GNR officers although the group leader insisted they were “never really lost.”
A spokesperson for the search and rescue team said it kept in constant touch with the group leader by mobile phone, “and we knew where they were but we just couldn’t spot them because the fog was very thick.”
The group had set off on the trail on Saturday morning; the GNR received a call for help later that evening at around 7.39pm and dispatched some 30 men and woman and 11 vehicles to the spot.
The teens were found at around 10.30pm, unharmed but some with signs of hypothermia.
“They were completely off the trail,” a GNR source said.