We woke up now for the second morning with ice on the ground and Ben still missing somewhere in the wilderness. Knowing he could be dead or alive and possibly never found in that vast back country. This is the largest block of roadless back country in the lower 48 states. Today was the day we were planning to pack out and needed to get boys home. It was hard to not be able to do something but with the search area 10 miles away it was all you could do on foot to just get there and back like we did the day before let alone do much of a search while you were out there. We were instructed to wait for a sheriff and some searchers that were coming in on horseback. They asked us some questions then headed in to search. They had no gear to spend the night and at their slow pace I doubted they would even make it all the way in before they would have to turn back. It didn't appear they could do anything we hadn't done yesterday. They told us the best bet was a National Guard helicopter with infrared heat sensing that would be coming in after dark. It was very hard to leave without him but we divided up his tent and gear and pack to carry out and left. When we got to the trail head, the member of our group that was his friend decided to stay behind where he could get updates. We piled 14 boys and men into the other 2 vehicles and headed home. About 20 minutes before we got home we got a phone call and got the word that a helicopter had spotted him and they thought they could get to him that night. They dropped him some food and supplies. The sheriff said they had no way to get to him on horseback and the helicopter had no place to land. They called in a National Gaurd helicopter that ended up winching him up with a cable.They took him to the hospital in Salmon and checked him out and released him.
He later said that he had sat out the afternoon rainstorm on Thursday then had started off while the fog was still there. I guess he got disoriented with the fog and lost the trail. He had picked up the poncho lost by the horsemen and he truly believes that it saved his life. He said that it was the most spiritual experience of his life. It is just amazing that the only other people out there that day just happened to loose a poncho and that Ben happens to find it just before he gets lost. With all of the hiking I have done in my life I don't ever remember finding a poncho or raincoat of any kind. That can't just be a coincidence. He was truly being watched over.
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