Missing Persons: Brandon’s Point of View
I had wanted to visit Curtis Lake for a while. I looked into it and saw that we would have to hike about three miles in to get to the lake, but it looked awesome and sounded awesome. From what I read, it didn’t seem like it was too difficult. A blog post I saw even said that a man brought his 5-year-old along with him on the hike. I am obviously older than 5, so I figured the hike would be no big deal. Originally I wanted Ashley to come with me, but she was uncomfortable with going camping somewhere we had never been, especially since she’s uber pregnant. My brother-in-law, Brandon, agreed to come along and was excited about it. He was only free from Sunday, June 12th to Monday, June 13th, so we decided to go then. Our plans were to return home early afternoon on Monday. Both of our moms gave us the “we disapprove of you going camping on the Sabbath, but you guys are adults and can make your own decisions” look.After checking blogs and finding GPS coordinates for the lake, we headed out. Our GPS led us to a place in the road where we assumed the trail head was. We were having difficulty finding a trail of any kind, but we had the coordinates to the lake, so we decided to just go. In hindsight it’s easy to see that we should have spent more time looking for one of the trail heads. I’m a little embarrassed now to admit that we thought we could blaze our own trail through the forest. We found out later that we were nowhere close to either of the two trail heads leading to the lake, which is something we hadn’t realized. We parked as close to the lake as we could and set out. Brandon started out by carrying a bunch of wood, but after walking down the road for 2 minutes we realized that was going to be a pain, so he dropped it all. We each had our heavy packs on our backs, as well as fishing poles in our hands. In addition, Brandon was carrying a case with his shotgun in it.
We left the road and started up a steep incline into the forest. It was then that I realized that the app on my phone that was supposed to lead us to the lake didn’t actually work off road. While I was trying to get the phone to work I realized that we were heading towards another road. I went to that road and ran back and forth to get the app working. When I could see the direction we were supposed to be going we set out again. After walking for about an hour and up some very steep inclines, I realized my phone was once again not working. A few minutes later, Brandon’s phone beeped, meaning that he had cell service. We decided our best bet was to follow his phone for a while. About once every other hour, we would stop and take our packs off to get some water and give our shoulders a rest. While we were resting, one of us would search for the easiest path or run to the next ridge and see if we could see the lake. Each time we did this, we weren’t even close.
The entire area is part of the Oro Mountains, which are very steep. There were times when we were unable to keep ourselves from sliding down the steep terrain. Other times it made more sense to get on all fours to climb the rocky slopes. I’ve gone hiking many times in my life, but nothing compared to the intensity of this. At one point, we got to the top of another ridge and I was exhausted and glad that the ground had flattened out some. After going forward a little more, I realized that it started going up again; I almost started crying. Towards the top of that ridge were some rocks we had to climb up. I had to use one leg to pull my body up. Halfway up, my leg cramped and I had to stop for a moment. We could see on Brandon’s phone that we were really close to the lake, so Brandon went a little ahead and I limped behind him.
By the time we found the lake I wasn’t even that excited. I was just relieved that I could take some weight of off my blistered feet and tired legs. There was a ton of snow at the lake, but we did find some dry branches. Brandon built a fire while I set up the hammock and tent. He went off to fish for a bit and I started getting my pole ready too. While I was getting my hook ready Brandon caught a huge fish. I realized the same hook I use for the 5-inch blue gills that I’m used to catching wasn’t going to cut it. We fished a little bit more but didn’t catch anything. We strung up our food and ate. I ate some hot dogs and Brandon ate his fish (I tasted the fish, but since I hate sea food I didn’t enjoy it. Brandon said it was actually pretty good). After that I was exhausted. I climbed into the tent and was out. I slept like a baby.
In the morning we fished a little bit more, packed up camp, put our insanely heavy packs on again, and set out. We really didn’t want to take the same path we had the day before as it was a difficult path and we weren’t sure we could handle it two days in a row. We wanted to find the trail that we had read about (the one that the 5-year-old had been able to follow easily enough), but weren’t having much luck. Finally, Brandon found some trail markers on the other side of the lake so we thought that might be a good place to start. That path was still hard, though nothing quite like the day before. It still seemed too intense for a 5-year-old though. After hiking for about and hour and a half, the trail markers ended. In desperation to find the path that a 5-year-old could handle, we went back to the lake. We used Brandon’s phone to take as straight a course as we could back to the lake. So after hiking for 3 hours with our heavy packs, we ended up back where we had started for the day.
We were already out of water, since we really should have been back to the car by this point, so we filled our bottles back up at the lake. Of course, that’s not the most sanitary thing and we hadn’t thought to bring anything to purify the water, but the water was incredibly clear and it tasted fine. I think we were losing most of the water we consumed through our backs, due to our heavy packs. Every time we took our packs off I could smell the sweat. I didn’t realize we could stink so bad. (Ashley says the smell still hasn’t worn off completely, even after about 4 showers).
I was able to find some other trail markers on the other side of the lake, so we followed those for about 15 minutes (we followed these very warily, having been fooled before). After that, Brandon checked his phone and it seemed that we were headed in the direction of the car, more or less. We decided that we would find the car the same way we found the lake – taking as straight a path as we could. Brandon pointed us northeast and we continued on. I was glad Brandon has remembered to turn off his phone the night before when we didn’t need it anymore. I had left mine on and the battery was dead, not that it had done us much good before.
We decided to leave the trail we were on and head northeast (again, hindsight tells me that it was probably a mistake to leave the trail). At first, it was a pretty nice hike (it would have been better if we hadn’t had our heavy packs and if our legs weren’t already dead from the unsuccessful morning hike and the hike the day before… and if our feet hadn’t already been blistered…) because the ground was pretty level. The greenery consisted of tall trees and short bushes and grass, not much higher than our ankles, so it was easy enough to walk through. We picked a place on a far mountain as a reference point and continued in that direction. We also started to follow to the left of our shadows. The nice, flat, mostly bare ground started to slant downward, and got a little greener. After going in this direction for a while, the ground started getting wetter too.
Before much longer, our feet were sticking in the ground. We had gotten to a marshy area, and we could hear a stream nearby. This was the first time Brandon noticed a bear track. This was also the first time that I was grateful that Brandon was still carrying his gun, though I wondered what good it would do against a bear. I checked with Brandon to make sure we were heading in the right direction still, but his phone was finally dead.
At this point, we were still in pretty good spirits, despite the trials we’d already hit. The area was absolutely beautiful. And, though we were tired of hiking, we seemed to have picked a pretty easy path and we seemed to be heading in the right direction. Really the only thing dampening my spirits at this point was my aching feet and shoulders, and the angry wife I knew I would probably find once I got home. By this point, it was already about 4pm and I had told Ashley I would be home between 2 and 4.
We got to the river and used a log to get over it and the area cleared up a bit but got a little steeper. After going up and down for about 30 minutes, we ran into the river again. We used another log and crossed. The plants started to get thicker and thicker, with bushes and low trees with long bare branches. We started going down another hill, trying to stay on top of trees that had fallen over so we could stay out of the bushes and much as possible. We would fall off the trees every once in a while, but finally it got to the point where the plants were so thick, we just couldn’t go forward anymore.
We went backwards a little bit to try and find a different way around. This was the first time that I felt totally helpless. I wasn’t sure what to do. We said a prayer together and kept moving. The plants were still amazingly thick, but by going down the hill and using fallen trees as much as we could we finally got close to the river and then crossed it to the steeper, but less densely planted side. We made it to the top of a ridge and than started looking for a place to camp as it was starting to get dark. We had left our campsite at about 11 in the morning. It was now past 7 and we still felt no closer to our destination. 8 hours of terrible hiking with heavy packs, blistered feet, and tired legs was enough for me. We weren’t hungry at all, so we built a fire and set up camp. At this point we thought maybe someone would be looking for us, so we used the hammock and Brandon’s towel as flags so that if anyone happened in our direction, they might see us. Before it got too dark we threw a small pine tree onto the fire to send up a smoke signal.
Once it was dark, we went to bed, but neither of us slept too well. I woke up to some sound and then what sounded like a huge snarl. I freaked out and sat up in my sleeping bag, convinced there was a giant bear outside our tent. I then realized that it was Brandon, who had just snorted to clear his nose. Honestly, that split second where I thought we were going to be a bear’s breakfast was probably the scariest part of the whole ordeal. I realized then that it was raining outside, which was probably the sound the woke me up in the first place.
We got up and put everything we needed in the tent. About an hour after the rain started we realized that the tent was leaking water through the zipper. We used Brandon’s towel and the hammock to try to absorb some of the water coming in. After several hours the rain stopped and we get out of the tent and realized that all the dry wood we collected the night before was now soaked. As we were trying to build a fire (while it was still raining/snowing a little), I looked around at the 5 or 6 ridges that surrounded the ridge we were on.
To the south was the river and a ridge. I told Brandon that I had had a dream that there was a road on the other side of that specific ridge. He then told me that he also had a couple of dreams that there was a road on the other side of that same ridge. We had been praying for help and then we both had the same dream. We took that as a sign and knew we couldn’t ignore it. We had run out of water again, so I headed down to the river with our bottles and filled up 5 liters worth of water. When I got to the top, I began heading over the ridge Brandon and I had both dreamed about while Brandon continued to try to build a fire.
I don’t know why I was so surprised to find that there was, in fact, a trail on the other side of the ridge, just like Brandon and I had seen in our dreams. At that moment, the trail was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen (excluding my wife). It was almost flat and almost free of vegetation. I ran back excited with the news. It took awhile but I got back to Brandon and told him about the trail. Brandon was awesome enough that he got a fire going with wet sticks, which I was grateful for since I was completely soaked from moving through waist-high bushes and low-hanging trees.
Not wanting to waste anymore time (and knowing that for sure by now Ashley was freaking out and had called in some help), we started to pack up and put out the fire. This is the first time I was really cold. I had rung out my socks but they were still soaked. Once we stared moving again I warmed up a bit, but I also got wetter. We weren’t able to find a good log to pass over the river with, so we settled for a horrible log that was really high above the river. I almost fell in like three times trying to pass by a tree hanging over the log.
Finally we made it over the river and started up the steep forested area. It was much harder with the heavy pack and carrying the gun case (we both put our fishing poles in the case so we would trade off holding it). Once we were at the top, we quickly found the path, turned east, and started walking. We commented multiple times about how easy it was to walk down a path instead of steep, rocky, or forested areas.
We felt like we were making pretty good time and before long we heard someone yell “Hello!” I almost started to cry. We ran up to them and explained that we were lost and asked if they knew where the road was. They smiled and explained that they were with Search and Rescue and had been looking for us. They asked if we wanted a rest, but we replied that we just wanted out of the forest and to go home. We followed them and within half a mile we hit the road. The men told us that Eric (Ashley’s dad) had been driving up and down this road for hours and should be there soon.
It was nice to know that even if Search and Rescue hadn’t found us, we probably would have found the road. I even knew which direction we would have to go to find a bigger road. We were grateful we had been found, though, because it allowed us the comfort of knowing we were headed in the right direction – something that we may not have had if we’d continued all on our own.
Once Eric showed up, he hopped out of the car and gave me a hug. It wasn’t until my dad climbed out of the car and hugged me that I started to cry. I told him a shortened version of the story (naturally they were very curious) and then he made fun of me for not having a map or a whistle. We hoped in the truck, found Jason and Tyler (Ashley’s brothers) who were also looking for us, and then we stopped by the headquarters for Search and Rescue and told all of them what happened. They had called in a helicopter from Montana to help with the search using infrared, but they called it off.
On the way home we stopped by Subway and my dad bought us all sandwiches – which Brandon and I scarfed down (almost as fast as Ashley’s brothers who are human vacuums). While at Subway, I called Ashley and started to cry again, She said she was going to hug and then smack me, which I believed. She then told me how many people were concerned for me and how many offered to come and help Search and Rescue to find us and how many people were praying for our safe return. I was overwhelmed. If you ever wonder if you’re loved, get lost in the woods and see how many people step up to help in the search. It was insane.
While Brandon was talking to his mom he got really watery-eyed hearing about all the people that were looking for us. Needless to say, we were both really touched. My boss worked Monday and Tuesday night for me but when I went in on Wednesday night there were several people who told me how glad they were that I was found. There was also a CT tech who knows the area very well and he said that there are several roads in the area. He said as long as we were going straight from the lake, it wouldn’t have been long until we found a road. Then he added, “Well, unless you went northeast from the lake, then it would be a really long time before you hit much of anything. Guess which direction we had gone? You guessed it… northeast.
Ashley and I have had many conversations regarding those 24ish hours that she knew I was missing. While being lost definitely took a physical toll on me and Brandon, I think that our moms and Ashley at home definitely had it harder than us. We at least knew at each given moment, that we were alive and mostly well. They had no clue the entire time and I can’t imagine how difficult that must have been.
And, for the record, Ashley has yet to smack me for putting her through this.
I am very grateful for all of the prayer and concerned thoughts for me and my family. I most likely won’t be camping for some time after this.
I hope I never have occasion to write on Ashley’s blog again. I know it’s important to keep records, but writing this felt an awful lot like a homework assignment. 🙂
Peace,
Brandon