This morning we took off on a 21 mile round trip hike out to Goat Lake and back. Since we were coming back to the same campsite we only took light packs with supplies for the day. I told everybody to pack a jacket before we left knowing that even though the weather looked nice it could change in a hurry and we would be a long ways from camp. As we got closer to the lake, we wound up in 2 main groups. Some of the boys and leaders were a little slower and didn't know if they could make it all the way to the lake before turning back. One of our leaders had brought along a friend named Ben. He was 26 and just returned 3 months ago from deployment in Afganistan. He runs some and has done some Ragnar Relays. As we got closer to the lake he had fallen back from the group a bit. I know he already had some terrible blisters before we had started out that morning. We got to the lake and spent about 2 hours. The last 1 1/4 miles to the lake is a steep decent from 9,400 feet to 8,000 ft. It was daunting to look down at the lake at the end of that already long hike and know you'd have to climb all the way back out of there. So we were not surprised when the slower group nor Ben joined us. We were actually hoping they would turn back early.While we were at the lake we built a fire and cooked lunch along with a 16 inch cutthroat trout I had caught. While we were there a storm moved in and rained and hailed for about 40 minutes.
When we all got back to camp that evening, We realized Ben wasn't with us. My son and I and 2 other boys had been in the lead coming back and had caught some of the slow group. When we discussed it later Ben had never caught up to them so we realized he must have been clear out by Goat Lake when he was last on the trail. We were all thoroughly exhausted and only had about an hour before dark. All we could do was hope that he came in. It got dark and he never made it. Then it started to thunder and lightning. It got colder and started to rain. I knew he didn't have a jacket because that morning just after I told everyone to bring jackets I overheard him say he wasn't bringing one however there had been 2 guys [a father and son] on horseback that we had seen up on the rim overlooking the lake just after we had gotten down to the lake. They had just looked off the rim for a bit and then left before descending. When we were leaving the lake, my son and another boy who had climbed to the rim first, ran into this pair on horses who had come back down the trail to look for a poncho they had lost. They had seen Ben the first time they had come and he had taken their picture for them. They figure Ben had picked up the poncho since he was the only other person out there. They told my son where we could meet tomorrow to get it back. This information was now much more important than it was earlier when they first talked. If he had a poncho it could mean the difference of life and death. It would be tough to survive the night soaking wet in a short sleeved T-shirt with the temperature dropping below freezing by morning.
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