Lost in the Mountains (page 3 of 4)

"I was a fool ..."

Hench's fishing buddy Grant Krueger was a worrier. When Hench didn't show up at the trailhead where they'd planned to meet on day five, he called McGuigan. Soon the cell phones of Hench's friends were buzzing.

Within hours they had a plan. One team would trace Hench's intended route from Lake Edison up the western side of the range. Krueger and another buddy would start at the trailhead near Bishop and track Hench's route backward, up the eastern slope. The teams would meet at the summit. They'd alerted the Fresno and Inyo County police departments, which would each send out a search-and-rescue team on foot and by air first thing Monday morning, 48 hours after Hench failed to show at the trailhead. At home near San Luis Obispo, McGuigan would run the central command, feeding identifying information about Hench to county rescue teams and logging names and contact numbers on a big board.

In Bishop on Monday, Krueger had one last thought before embarking. A former colleague, David Grah, knew the Sierra backcountry well from hiking its peaks and piloting his small plane over the range. Krueger left a note at Grah's office in town, asking for help in the search for Hench.

"Saturday, Sept. 22. Yesterday was the worst day of my life, save the day I watched my dad die," Hench wrote. Wet, freezing, and exhausted, he had found just enough room on the ledge to set up his tent. Inside, he surveyed the situation: no signal mirror, a broken compass, no cell phone reception. At least he had a few days' worth of food: freeze-dried beef stew, granola bars, trail mix, and a package of pancake mix. Search teams would come for him soon. Until then, he would stay calm. "I was a fool to try this alone," he wrote. "I hope to make it out."

But another 48 hours dragged by, and the only things he felt were pain and fear. His throbbing wrist was swollen to twice its size, and he had a huge scrape near his eye. Though the sky was clear, by early Monday the bitter cold had sunk deep into his bones.

He heard helicopters thumping across Lake Italy that afternoon, and his spirits lifted. It was just a matter of time before he'd see his friends and McGuigan again, he thought as tears rolled down his cheeks. Tying a red stuff sack onto the tip of his fishing pole, he gamely waved the makeshift flag. The sound of the choppers faded.

That night, he wrote in his diary, "I want the nightmare to end." When he pulled aside his tent flap and looked outside, the stars that had seemed so comforting back at Lake Edison were now cold and far away. "I brought along a cheap compass," he wrote, "and I'm paying for it with my life."

By dusk on Tuesday, a handful of Caltrans engineers had arrived at different campsites just below Italy Pass. The mood was grim as Grant Krueger and a friend from Bishop set up their cooking kit on the eastern slope. Choppers had circled overhead all day, sometimes just 100 feet aboveground, with no sign of Hench. "Someone should have found him by now," Krueger told McGuigan on the satellite phone he'd taken with him.

She was racked with worry, but, keeping it to herself, said, simply, "No news here. Get some sleep."

Earlier that day -- Hench's fifth on the ledge -- he again heard helicopters, then … nothing. He had lost his most detailed map but had another, which he pored over, trying to discover where he'd made his mistake. Suddenly it was obvious: His wrong turn had taken him at least a half mile from Italy Pass, so the rescue teams were searching a distant area. "I thought they'd given up looking for me," he says.

Determined to make it off the ledge, Hench packed his gear and attempted to crawl over the loose rocks, using his good hand to steady and his right elbow to pull. He needed to get closer to Italy Pass. But after 40 feet, he got stuck. As darkness closed in, he sat on a rock and pulled his sleeping bag around him.

On a piece of cardboard, he began writing a will. He would leave Krueger his fishing boat. McGuigan and his five brothers would split the house in Cambria. A full moon rose over the granite peaks. He was going to die, just like this: a big fool, stranded on a cliff in the Sierra Nevada.

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