July 7, 2022. The rivers were swollen, the waterfalls were spectacular. This hadn’t presented a problem until now. We were about 4 miles up Hyalite Canyon. The small creek I had been expecting to come to had swollen to about 50 feet wide and the usually photogenic cascade above the crossing was a raging torrent. Still the crossing was safe, it was just a matter of wet feet or dry feet. If we made careful use of our trekking poles to keep our balance and extend how far we could step, it looked like there were just enough rocks to get our way across without having to plod through the water and get our boots soaked. I was with my 15-year-old nephew Josh. He was new to backpacking, so I instructed him: “Unhook the chest strap and waist belt on your backpack before crossing, just in case you go down, you want to be able to free yourself from your pack.”
I started across. About halfway across the rocks I needed to step on were about an inch underwater. No problem, as long as my weight placement doesn’t cause them to shift and me to go down. I anchored my poles ahead of me in the creek shifting my weight forward and placing my foot squarely atop the first rock. It stayed put. I repeated this maneuver a half dozen times and I was across with dry feet. My Gore-Tex boots worked as advertised. I turned around; Josh was just starting across. This was his first time having to face an obstacle such as this, but he was a capable young man. I was confident that he could make it across even if he had to dunk a foot in the water.
He got almost halfway across then decided to turn around before he reached the stretch with underwater steppingstones. Instead, he started heading up the slope looking for a better place to cross. I watched him casually as he tried to get across about 10 feet up the slope, until the realization struck me that if this kid falls in, I have to be in a position to grab him. I dropped my pack and headed up the slope staying a few feet below Josh and going as far out into the creek as I could while staying out of the water. He turned back again and moved higher, and then higher again, and I matched his movements upward. After he made 5 or 6 tries, we had gone high enough that I could see the trail about 30 feet above him, and I realized that it switched back. I would have to cross the creek twice, but if he stayed on the side he was on, Josh didn’t have to cross it at all. I screamed out to him to get his attention. “Josh.” I waved my arms, he looked at me. “Josh, the trail switches back.” I drew a sideways V in the air to mimic a switchback. “Go up and then stop.” I motioned up by lifting my left arm with my thumb raised and indicated stop by stretching my arms out in front of me with both palms facing Josh. We were less than 50 feet apart, but with the roar of the cascade, I wasn’t sure how well Josh could hear me. But he shook his head yes and backed away from crossing the creek. Even if he didn’t hear me that well, he would surely see the trail.
I went back down to my pack, put it on and worked my way around the fallen tree that was blocking the trail. In retrospect, I should have only motioned to Josh to STOP, and I should have gone back across the creek right there, so that he never lost sight of me. I made judgment errors. I was not used to being out in the mountains with someone so young, with so little experience. He was a boy scout, but he was from central New Jersey, and his troop didn’t go backpacking.
Instead, I completed the switchback. I was at the second crossing about 10 minutes later. I expected to see Josh on the other side, but I didn’t. I figured that he must have found a place to sit just out of view. This crossing was much harder. There was one move that required that I step on a large round wet rock that was about 18 inches higher than where I was standing and a few feet away. It wasn’t obvious to me that I would be able to step in just the right spot to maintain my balance and not slip into the water. An uncontrolled fall could be dangerous, and Josh still wasn’t where I expected to see him. I had to get across. I finally committed to walking through the water. Gore-Tex is of no use when the water pours in from the top. I splashed across; I would deal with my wet feet later. Josh wasn’t just out of view. He wasn’t there, and neither was his pack. Just his orange water bottle that must have popped out of his side pocket. I looked around but didn’t see him. My first thought was that he had headed into the woods to take a dump and didn’t think to leave his pack behind. This rationalization comforted me for a few minutes. Then I started calling out, “Josh, … Josh.” With this raging torrent right next to me, all the screaming I could do wasn’t likely to get me an answer.
I started looking around. I looked up, it was incredibly steep forested terrain. I looked down, we had just come from there, he wouldn’t go that way. The trail, he must have started hiking up the trail without me. I shouldered my pack and headed up the trail screaming his name every 10 to 15 seconds. It was July 7th, but it had been a cool snowy spring. I knew that we were going to hit snow in the upper basin above 9,000 feet, but I had been surprised by that first snow patch only 3 miles in when we were still in the bottom of the canyon. As we hiked our way higher, the snow patches had become more regular and were getting much larger.
There were footprints post holed through the snow. I stopped to examine them. Were they fresh? Some showed boot sole impressions. Could these be Josh’s prints? There weren’t many people up here, but we did see one other party start out from the trailhead about 10 minutes ahead of us. These could be their prints. There was no way to know. I hiked for maybe 10 minutes to where the footprints cut off a switchback to avoid even more snow. I knew instinctively at that moment that Josh wouldn’t have continued up here alone. I turned around and headed back down.
I made it back to the creek crossing; Josh still wasn’t there. I dropped my pack. I looked up, I looked down, I screamed his name. I had to do something. I headed up the slope. It was steep. I didn’t go very far up because it steepened into a rock face. It wasn’t vertical, but it was steep enough that I couldn’t imagine him climbing it. I went back down. I started looking in the creek, for his pack, … for his body. I couldn’t imagine him falling in and dying, but he had to be somewhere. Luckily there was no sign of him or his gear in the creek.
I looked around me. I had a sudden sense of the enormity of these mountains. We were in the Hyalite Range south of Bozeman, Montana. Hyalite Canyon, where we were hiking is 3,000 feet deep and it is rimmed by 10,000-foot peaks. The flora was lush where the snow had melted and the snow was still deep where it hadn’t. I was comfortable in these mountains. I was out in them regularly trail running, mountain biking and backpacking. The trails were usually busy, but not today. There was no one else out here. My guess is that word had gotten out on social media about the snow, downed trees and swollen creeks. We passed other hikers in the first few miles, but except possibly for that one other party, no one was this far in.
I thought back to the satellite phone my wife offered me back at the house. I turned it down, it seemed excessive to me. “We are just heading into the Hyalites.” I consider them to be Bozeman’s back yard. When I was young, my buds and I were out here every chance we got. In the early 1980s, the parking lots for the trail heads were little more than a wide spot at the end of a rough dirt road where one could squeeze a few cars. These mountains felt more remote then. That has changed, Bozeman has changed. Each lot can now hold 50ish cars, and the road is paved almost the way to the trailheads. Seeing another party every 15 minutes is now pretty standard. It has gotten more crowded, but so has most every other desirable place in the world. Crowds and all, these mountains are still spectacular.
I looked around again. The search area was expanding by the minute. I needed to get help. Without the satellite phone, I had to try and get a signal on my cell. I knew that if I climbed high enough, I would be able to get a signal and I could call for help. But how high did I have to climb, and what if Josh came back? I used small stones to make an arrow on the trail and I placed Josh’s water bottle at the head of the arrow pointing up the trail. If he came back this would tell him where I went. I shouldered my pack and started hiking up the trail, calling out regularly. I hiked up to where the footprints cutoff the switchback to avoid more snow and I followed the prints to the trail higher up. There was a lot of snow up here. I was switch backing up the steep face at the head of the canyon. In some stretches snow covered the entire trail and I hiked on the margin of what felt like infinity with maybe half my hiking boot on snow, and half hanging out in space. As I climbed higher, I’d check now and then for a signal. No luck. I kept climbing.
At one point I heard a noise. Was that a scream? I stopped. Do I go back down? I stayed there for about a minute, but then I heard a rock go bonk as it was pushed down to the next level of a nearby cascade. Water moves them along, makes them round and grain-by-grain transports them to the sea. That must have been what I heard. I kept climbing.
Between pushing myself up the trail as fast as I could go and calling out “Josh,” I found myself checking the view. I chastised myself for looking around. “You can’t enjoy this until you find him.” But I knew that a view of the classic glacially carved canyon that I was in was coming up. I couldn’t help myself. I looked. I kept hiking and screaming, but I looked.
I continued up until I came to a waterfall that I knew Josh didn’t cross and that I didn’t want to cross. Our planned destination was Hyalite Lake. There is a headwall below the outlet of lake and a steep cascade flows down it. Whenever I have been here in the past, the cascade was pretty to look at and posed no danger where it crossed the trail. Today, a flood of water was pouring over the headwall and the waterfall landed on the trail. Below the trail the slope was steep and the risk of being swept off the trail seemed real. I pulled out my phone again, still no signal. I dialed 911 just in case that had some magical properties. It didn’t. I looked at the headwall, it was wet, it was steep. If I was going to get a signal, I had to climb it. I started up. I made it no more than 20 feet, and I was sliding down in the mud with every step. This wasn’t going to work. I wasn’t going to be able to climb high enough to get a signal. I was going to have to go back down.
On my way down I formulated the next plan. When I got to the creek crossing where we got separated, I was going to make a sign from stones that read “Gone Down,” and leave my tent poles beneath it to underline it and make it easy to spot. I would race down to find someone to ask to head out until they had cell reception to call for help, then I would head back up.
On my way down I also spotted a nice camping spot. A mix of meadow and widely spaced trees that was flat enough to make a good campsite. There was even a fire ring from previous campers. If I find Josh, we aren’t going to make the lake, this is where we will camp, ran through my head.
I was less than a minute from the creek crossing where we had gotten separated when I heard it for the first time. It wasn’t clear what was being screamed, but it was clear that it wasn’t a rolling rock. I was a little closer when I heard the next scream. I could make this one out. “Uncle Chuck.” I screamed “Josh.” He came into view. We ran to each other. It was like one of those love scenes with a man and woman racing across a meadow into each other’s arms. Only we were two sweaty guys in sloshing boots wearing backpacks.
Josh’s story was simple. He crossed the trail without seeing it, He didn’t understand that he was supposed to stop. He climbed higher and higher up the rock faces until he finally found a place to cross. Then he had to descend the equally steep other side. When he got there, about 10 minutes before I got back, he had to make his way across the creek. Like me he plodded across. Now we both had soaking wet boots. The irony of him climbing up and down rock faces to avoid getting wet feet only to finally yield to the need to dunk his feet was not lost on me. I told him about the campsite I found and offered the options to hike out or hike up to that camp. He was all for heading to the camp. We shouldered our packs and continued our trek.
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