Buckle up because this is going to be long. And I may break it up into multiple posts and will explain from the search point of view and then dads to the best of my ability. I'll add pictures after the initial write up hopefully.
THE SEARCH
Thursday: A pretty normal day for everyone. We (myself and my siblings) got a text from dad that he was headed out for his hike. Now in reality he sent this text about 8am but it didn't come through to us until about 11am which we figured was just because of spotty reception. About 2 hours later, we got two screen shots from his phone of where he was on the trail. That was maybe a little strange but not really. They both came through at the same time but we knew it was again just the cell signal because of the progression of his location on the map. Thursday evening, my brother texted in our group asking dad how his hike was. No response. Again, not necessarily a huge concern, we're not always great about responding to texts but he does almost always send pics of his hike after he's done. But again, it's not always the case and can sometimes be delayed.
Friday: again a normal day, we know dad is supposed to hike again but I think we also just got caught up in the day until my brother again texted our group later that night if anyone had heard from dad yet. None of us had. I did try to call him immediately but went straight to voicemail. At this point we're getting concerned because he was technically supposed to be home but my mom mentions sometimes if he's too tired from hiking he'll stay an extra night. So we're concerned but just not quite sure yet if we should start calling around.
Saturday: we all try to call dad first thing in the morning and still straight to voicemail. At this point we decide we need find out what's going on. My gives us the hotels he's supposed to stay at each night and he's general hiking itinerary he had left written on the fridge (because she makes him). My brother calls the first hotel and they confirm he checked in and out on Wednesday night/Thursday morning. He calls the second hotel and they also say he checked out but she the lady says she would ask the cleaning ladies if they noticed anything. She then comes back and says he actually no called and no showed. Now we know there's immediately a problem. My brother first tries to call the park but can't get ahold of anyone, typical robo call options for the National park service. So I decide to call the county sheriff and explain what's going on. They said they would "make some calls" and left it at that which definitely didn't convince me. So I proceeded to contact the local game warden as well while my brother started calling hospitals. Thankfully the sheriffs office took it serious and relayed the info to the park. It probably took 30-45 minutes before the ranger finally called me to get an understanding of the situation and a high level view of what we knew and why we were concerned. They let us know they would be sending people out to dog canyon trailhead to see if his truck was there. In the mean time my brother had already started the 4-5hr drive there. The process of checking on the truck was incredibly slow. Partly because dad had picked the most remote trails in the park so it was a 2 hour drive from headquarters out there, but also because they didn't want to go out there, find the truck and not be prepared to start searching immediately. So they took time to gear up the first pair to start searching. I first spoke to the ranger probably around 9am, the first pair of searchers didn't get sent until probably 10:30ish and we didn't get confirmation his truck was there until about 1pm. Incredibly long. By then my brother was already there and the rest of the family was heading that way as well.
At that point the search was started but as you can imagine it takes time to get resources lined up so the initial search was that first pair and then my brother joined another volunteer at the park. Again all of that took time as they then had to gear up for overnight stays and make the long drive out.
In the mean time we had learned a few things: Dads hike plan was a loop Dog Canyon Trailhead to Bush Mountain trail to Marcus Trail to Tejas Trail to Dog Canyon (~13 miles). The park rangers had picked up that in the screen shots he sent, they had the time stamp of his phone so we could take his direction and that he was actually hiking it backwards from his plan. He had apparently realized he got on the wrong trail which is why sent those screen shots (one at the Mescalero Campground and one at the junction of the Tejas, Marcus and Bush Mountsin trail). But he wasn't lost, just had started the wrong direction on a loop, no biggie. There were also a group of tech students doing a thru hike that had a permit to stay out there. The rangers contacted them and they indeed had hiked a bit with my dad on the trail and confirmed his direction of travel and were able to also confirm he was wearing dark grey pants and his blue jacket he wears to hike (but critical because we didn't actually know what he packed or decided to wear). The initial search basically focused on the first part of the loop (from both directions) because of the late start in the day. But no success.
Sunday: this is a big day. At this point resources are pouring in. Border patrol flew in a tracker and the helicopter also stuck around all day to both transport people back to the search area but also search. DPS helicopter in addition to other county agencies, Carlsbad caverns rangers, and TexSAR volunteers, too many to name. The focus was get as many people back there and clear his planned trail and the immediate areas around his last point of contact. In addition to trails he could have easily accidentally got on. At this point they pulled my brother out and the family felt pretty helpless but we realized we were just going to be in the way out there and slow them down. By the end of this day, they had cleared probably 2/3 of the park trail system and also covered key drainages and canyons in the areas close to his last known location (the junction screenshot). One thing the tracker picked up on were some footprints headed north in the Marcus trail (his expected path). This was significant because the remoteness of the path and how infrequently it's travelled but also because most people hike from the other direction, that he had originally planned. That gave them some confidence he possibly did continue north and may be more on the north end of the park. But it wasn't a guarantee because we couldn't be positive it was his boots.
So the end of Sunday was frankly devastating. You don't really feel that much closer to anything because the options are basically we continue to move further south on the premise he turned around thinking he wasn't going to make it and accidentally got on a wrong trail headed towards the souther portion of the park (also possibly east towards McKitrick canyon) or did indeed head north. So frankly it felt like we still had absolutely no idea. It was devastating because we had two helicopters running for hours on end and he couldnt himself visible so either he's dead or best case very injured and can't walk to visible. And it was devastating because we knew he had water for his Thursday hike but this was 3 days past that and we generally knew what that meant. Now my brother and I did have some hope because our dad typically is notorious for not drinking enough water during hikes and usually has a lot leftover. We felt this boded well for needing to ration once he realized he was in a bad way. We learned later he drank his last water at 8pm Thursday night.
Monday: It's now or never. We know inside that we find him alive today or we don't find him alive at all. The number of searchers had probably doubled. We now have I think 3 trackers picking back up on the boot tracks headed north, and several dogs being brought in. Border Patrol special ops happened to have a training day that day scheduled so they flew in to search as training. Helicopters were in issue, we dropped to just the DPS helicopter which meant people would get out to the search area a little slower which was discouraging but the DPS helicopter was at least bigger than we had previously so it could handle more passengers.
The goal was to clear all remaining trails in the entire park, and focus a few key drainages off trail (near McKitrick Canyon and near the Bush Mountain/Marcus trail). The third area was the area to the north. The landowner was going to take the border patrol team to a dry creek bed that eventually runs into the park and intersects with the trail dad should have been on. If he had missed the turn east on the trail he would've just continued down that creek bed/drainage area towards the Hughes Ranch. Around 1PM I was outside but heading in and I saw the incident commander, chief ranger, and park superintendent heading fairly quickly our way. they burst into the area the family had been in the whole time telling us they found him and he's alive! They told us they found him on the Hughes ranch and were getting the helicopter out to him immediately. After the initial shock and tears and prayers of thanks, we were in a little disbelief because we kept saying dad would never cross the fence out of the park but he did…
THE SEARCH
Thursday: A pretty normal day for everyone. We (myself and my siblings) got a text from dad that he was headed out for his hike. Now in reality he sent this text about 8am but it didn't come through to us until about 11am which we figured was just because of spotty reception. About 2 hours later, we got two screen shots from his phone of where he was on the trail. That was maybe a little strange but not really. They both came through at the same time but we knew it was again just the cell signal because of the progression of his location on the map. Thursday evening, my brother texted in our group asking dad how his hike was. No response. Again, not necessarily a huge concern, we're not always great about responding to texts but he does almost always send pics of his hike after he's done. But again, it's not always the case and can sometimes be delayed.
Friday: again a normal day, we know dad is supposed to hike again but I think we also just got caught up in the day until my brother again texted our group later that night if anyone had heard from dad yet. None of us had. I did try to call him immediately but went straight to voicemail. At this point we're getting concerned because he was technically supposed to be home but my mom mentions sometimes if he's too tired from hiking he'll stay an extra night. So we're concerned but just not quite sure yet if we should start calling around.
Saturday: we all try to call dad first thing in the morning and still straight to voicemail. At this point we decide we need find out what's going on. My gives us the hotels he's supposed to stay at each night and he's general hiking itinerary he had left written on the fridge (because she makes him). My brother calls the first hotel and they confirm he checked in and out on Wednesday night/Thursday morning. He calls the second hotel and they also say he checked out but she the lady says she would ask the cleaning ladies if they noticed anything. She then comes back and says he actually no called and no showed. Now we know there's immediately a problem. My brother first tries to call the park but can't get ahold of anyone, typical robo call options for the National park service. So I decide to call the county sheriff and explain what's going on. They said they would "make some calls" and left it at that which definitely didn't convince me. So I proceeded to contact the local game warden as well while my brother started calling hospitals. Thankfully the sheriffs office took it serious and relayed the info to the park. It probably took 30-45 minutes before the ranger finally called me to get an understanding of the situation and a high level view of what we knew and why we were concerned. They let us know they would be sending people out to dog canyon trailhead to see if his truck was there. In the mean time my brother had already started the 4-5hr drive there. The process of checking on the truck was incredibly slow. Partly because dad had picked the most remote trails in the park so it was a 2 hour drive from headquarters out there, but also because they didn't want to go out there, find the truck and not be prepared to start searching immediately. So they took time to gear up the first pair to start searching. I first spoke to the ranger probably around 9am, the first pair of searchers didn't get sent until probably 10:30ish and we didn't get confirmation his truck was there until about 1pm. Incredibly long. By then my brother was already there and the rest of the family was heading that way as well.
At that point the search was started but as you can imagine it takes time to get resources lined up so the initial search was that first pair and then my brother joined another volunteer at the park. Again all of that took time as they then had to gear up for overnight stays and make the long drive out.
In the mean time we had learned a few things: Dads hike plan was a loop Dog Canyon Trailhead to Bush Mountain trail to Marcus Trail to Tejas Trail to Dog Canyon (~13 miles). The park rangers had picked up that in the screen shots he sent, they had the time stamp of his phone so we could take his direction and that he was actually hiking it backwards from his plan. He had apparently realized he got on the wrong trail which is why sent those screen shots (one at the Mescalero Campground and one at the junction of the Tejas, Marcus and Bush Mountsin trail). But he wasn't lost, just had started the wrong direction on a loop, no biggie. There were also a group of tech students doing a thru hike that had a permit to stay out there. The rangers contacted them and they indeed had hiked a bit with my dad on the trail and confirmed his direction of travel and were able to also confirm he was wearing dark grey pants and his blue jacket he wears to hike (but critical because we didn't actually know what he packed or decided to wear). The initial search basically focused on the first part of the loop (from both directions) because of the late start in the day. But no success.
Sunday: this is a big day. At this point resources are pouring in. Border patrol flew in a tracker and the helicopter also stuck around all day to both transport people back to the search area but also search. DPS helicopter in addition to other county agencies, Carlsbad caverns rangers, and TexSAR volunteers, too many to name. The focus was get as many people back there and clear his planned trail and the immediate areas around his last point of contact. In addition to trails he could have easily accidentally got on. At this point they pulled my brother out and the family felt pretty helpless but we realized we were just going to be in the way out there and slow them down. By the end of this day, they had cleared probably 2/3 of the park trail system and also covered key drainages and canyons in the areas close to his last known location (the junction screenshot). One thing the tracker picked up on were some footprints headed north in the Marcus trail (his expected path). This was significant because the remoteness of the path and how infrequently it's travelled but also because most people hike from the other direction, that he had originally planned. That gave them some confidence he possibly did continue north and may be more on the north end of the park. But it wasn't a guarantee because we couldn't be positive it was his boots.
So the end of Sunday was frankly devastating. You don't really feel that much closer to anything because the options are basically we continue to move further south on the premise he turned around thinking he wasn't going to make it and accidentally got on a wrong trail headed towards the souther portion of the park (also possibly east towards McKitrick canyon) or did indeed head north. So frankly it felt like we still had absolutely no idea. It was devastating because we had two helicopters running for hours on end and he couldnt himself visible so either he's dead or best case very injured and can't walk to visible. And it was devastating because we knew he had water for his Thursday hike but this was 3 days past that and we generally knew what that meant. Now my brother and I did have some hope because our dad typically is notorious for not drinking enough water during hikes and usually has a lot leftover. We felt this boded well for needing to ration once he realized he was in a bad way. We learned later he drank his last water at 8pm Thursday night.
Monday: It's now or never. We know inside that we find him alive today or we don't find him alive at all. The number of searchers had probably doubled. We now have I think 3 trackers picking back up on the boot tracks headed north, and several dogs being brought in. Border Patrol special ops happened to have a training day that day scheduled so they flew in to search as training. Helicopters were in issue, we dropped to just the DPS helicopter which meant people would get out to the search area a little slower which was discouraging but the DPS helicopter was at least bigger than we had previously so it could handle more passengers.
The goal was to clear all remaining trails in the entire park, and focus a few key drainages off trail (near McKitrick Canyon and near the Bush Mountain/Marcus trail). The third area was the area to the north. The landowner was going to take the border patrol team to a dry creek bed that eventually runs into the park and intersects with the trail dad should have been on. If he had missed the turn east on the trail he would've just continued down that creek bed/drainage area towards the Hughes Ranch. Around 1PM I was outside but heading in and I saw the incident commander, chief ranger, and park superintendent heading fairly quickly our way. they burst into the area the family had been in the whole time telling us they found him and he's alive! They told us they found him on the Hughes ranch and were getting the helicopter out to him immediately. After the initial shock and tears and prayers of thanks, we were in a little disbelief because we kept saying dad would never cross the fence out of the park but he did…
