Larry & Dawn Aug.
14 2011
Jerry & Darinda
After
spending the night with your son’s, and Kevin being one of them, I believe we
were the benefactors of some “Tender Mercies” by our Father in Heaven in the
search for Jared. While our actions had no impact on Jared and his ability to
save himself and find help, I do believe they speak of the greatness of your
sons, things learned & situations to be cherished. I hope to be as accurate
as possible and am writing this while my thoughts are fresh.
As I was driving around the south side of Pine view
Reservoir around 1:00 pm Friday on my way to take the kids to Dad’s for an
overnighter since Erin & I were staying another night up on Monte Cristo
because she was in charge of our Stake 11 year olds overnight camp. I had a
distinct thought of my kids and Jared, and one of them being hurt and loss of a
life. The thought was out of the norm and very unsettling but I knew I had my
kids in the back seat and they were fine and I had earlier warned them not to
ride dad’s four-wheeler so I didn’t think much could happen to them, but I had
no idea Jared was with the scouts but thought perhaps he will come over to dads
and play with my kids when I drop them off. Tears came to my eyes for a brief
moment-a first while driving-this is more of something that would happen to a
women. As I arrived home to hurry and bath the kids before dropping them off to
dad he called to inform me of Jared’s situation. I left the kids with mom and
hurried back to Monte Cristo to help Erin. The more I thought about it the more
I thought I should go then and help rather than waiting until morning because
most people that are lost are found either that day or the next morning and
after that the odds fall off greatly.
After getting an ok from Erin, I knew where to find cell
reception on Monte from my snowmobiling days and I got the correct info of
where Jared was from Justin’s Mother-in-law.
A little to Kevin and dads surprise I caught up to them along with Dave,
Jeff & Wayne on the dirt road to Spirit lake. The guy in the Command Center truck was
telling Dave of a trail we could search all though it would take us all night
and he didn’t seem to care, usually they want you back shortly after dark
(maybe he thought me & Dave were expendable). After heading up the trail
that quickly disappeared we kind of separated into teams Dave & I, Marc
& Kevin, Wayne & his family and Jeff. I quickly recognized that look in
Dave that said we were going to the end of the trail at Spirit Lake regardless
of what it would take, we would hope to make it by morning.
We had conversations of all sorts of things while walking, I
mentioned to Dave my thought earlier in the day at Pine view and that I didn’t
have a good feeling about the outcome of the situation, it wasn’t made to be
discouraging but more of a confirmation of the seriousness that we both felt of
the situation to do all that we can do.
Today (Sunday) I thought of why perhaps some would have
thoughts of a different outcome than what actually happened, while others
perhaps had thoughts all along that he would be found. One might question their
testimony in that scenario; it only strengthens my testimony. I believe some things that take place in
life are predetermined and some thing are not, just as if a family has a plan
to do something particular and the kids plea with the parents to do some thing
else and the parents change and go with the kids idea. Is our father in heaven
so different? Is he also able to hear ones plea and the many prayers & testimonies
and answer those? -Most certainly. Was my thought more of what could happen
rather than what would happen? -I believe so.
As it had gotten dark Dave and I had followed the trail that
turned and headed straight South while Marc & Kevin that were north of us
stayed on a westerly route. As we went
periodically we would communicate briefly by radio, as we got farther apart we
lost communication except for a word once and a while but as we would try back
it was very garbled. Some time after 10:00 o’clock we were moving continually
up hill on the trail that seemed for ever, and through the densest forest I
have every seen, there was dead fall every where and the trees were extremely
close together, some how Marc contacted us on the radio and we could clearly here
him say they wanted to catch & join us.
We tried to discourage this because we thought they would have turned
and went back to the road because they were headed in a totally different
direction than us hours ago and we are a long ways apart and we could make it
to Spirit lake ok without them and we could not image the mental strain that
Kevin had been going through since first hearing of the problem some 10 hours
ago. They also would have to continue to go cross-country to catch us because
they were not even close to our trail. They estimated to be about 1.5 miles
away which we thought would take them a couple hours at least not to mention we
did not think it would be physically possible for them to cross all the dead
fall to reach us. As we tried to discourage them a second time we both had a
change of heart & felt like we should now allow them to join us even though
it meant we would have to wait for them which is hard to do when you want to
continue searching forward. We told them
we would build a fire and wait for them.
As we had gathered wood and were ready to start a fire Dave
pulled out his matches and the first match didn’t light off of a rock as
planned-we laughed, the second match didn’t light-not as much laughter, now we
tried lighting it off a zipper-no luck & no laughter. We tried every thing
& not even a spark; old matches are not good. We tried rubbing sticks
together etc-no luck; we did smell burnt wood once, and now the laughter
returned because we knew we were not going to have a fire afterall. As we
waited it got a bit cold and we covered ourselves in pine bows to keep us warm,
perhaps warm enough to take a nap as we waited but it was just a bit to cold
for that. I was thinking of what Jared must be going through since the only
report I had gotten on him was the one I pulled off the Internet while driving
(FYI -it is hard to get info while going real fast on a windy two lane road in
route to the Uintahs) the report said he had on only a T-shirt. We were also
trying to remember when we were 12 and what we knew at that time and how we
would act-that was not a reassuring thought, we hoped Jared was smarter &
different than us.
Eventually Kevin and Marc joined us, they were tired, as
they should have been, we continued uphill on the trail. We were resting
periodically and Marc was getting light headed and dizzy but we were all
determined to continue on to help in the search. Marc is extremely tuff both
mentally & physically and he was doing a good job of hiding what he was feeling.
He eventually said he was getting cold and that seemed a bit odd at first
because it was ok for Dave & I and Kevin seemed ok also, although he did
joke that he wished he hadn’t ripped his pants open, I thought he was just
making a fashion statement. We took his
backpack and Kevin let him wear his jacket and Kevin put on a thin poncho that
could not of been very warm. We had him eat a bunch of candy bars etc for
energy and we continued and things seemed to get worse. We realized the toll
the cross-country walking they had done had taken, not only the mass amounts of
energy they used up in a short time, but also that there clothing was damp from
sweating earlier. We continued on slowly trying to burn just enough energy to
keep him warm but not make him sweat. We all joked we were a little out of
shape, Randi must be a good cook. We rested frequently and even though you
could tell he needed more rest he would pull him self up and continue on after
each time we stopped. Exhausted and cold Marc laid down & curled up as soon
as we stopped one time. We asked how bad was it and he said with a serious
voice “I’m real cold”. Since we all
needed a rest and we could see the severity of Marc’s coldness Dave and I laid
up against marc to share some warmth (Marc was ok with this-so you now know the
severity of the issue) Kevin also took a rest. After a few minutes me &
Dave were now frightened for Marc because we could now hear his breathing was
not normal and not only was he shivering but it was a shivering that you could
tell was not normal, he just wasn’t right and it was getting worse real quick.
Were probably about six miles in at this point and know we are it as far as
help goes. Dave had Kevin move over by marc (Kevin was probably not very warm
either) and he gathered up some pine bows and covered marc as he rolled over on
his back, he laid his legs flat and I put my legs over his big “running back”
thighs and I could just feel his body pulling the warmth out of my legs, after
awhile you could tell it really helped and we got up and kept moving. We
emptied the one pack into the other and let Marc wear the empty pack to help
keep him warm, and he and Kevin traded the jacket and thin poncho back and
forth to keep each other from getting to cold.
Eventually we made it to the top of a leveled off large area
called “Wayman Park” with scattered trees and grass. We now lost the trail
because it was no longer there due to the late season thaw and the tall grass.
It was breezy and colder on top but we now had Marcs GPS that had the trail
downloaded on it so we could take a shortcut to the trees across the opening
and actually find the trail again. A “Personal thought”: what if we hadn’t
changed our minds and let Marc & Kevin join up, would Marc and Kevin still
of ran into issues because they were still exhausted and damp before they got
out to the trucks? -Possibly so. Would Dave and I been able to continue on once
we hit that plateau and lost the trail-defiantly not. I know we were blessed in
being able to help Marc and being able to continue on and finish something that
we all wanted so desperately to do. As
we continued we lost the trail many times and would have to find it again which
was time consuming. As we now started down into the drainage of where we
thought Jared was last seen it was extremely steep and hard walking. We now all
felt our old sports injuries in our legs and ankles as we descended down. I now took the lead for David and quickly
realized the extra mental strain Dave had endured the past 4 or 5 hours of
trying to follow the trail, it was hard on your eyes constantly trying to
figure every few steps if you were on the trail or if it was to your left or to
your right. It didn’t take very long before I got us off the trail and we had
to find it again with the GPS. Even though we were on a trail it was exhausting
because every step was on a rock that you could not see in the dark and your
ankles were twisting and we were stumbling constantly. We had flashlights but
we used them sparingly because we did not know if we would need them later and
it was easier a lot of times to see the faint shadows of the trail from the
moonlight than from a flashlight that brightened the ground to much-I know it
seems strange but this was the case, the draw back was constantly stumbling
over the rocks.
I think around 4:30 or 5:00 the moon was now low in the sky
and it was getting darker and more difficult to stay on the trail, we were in
the bottom of the drainage of where the scouts were and you could defiantly
feel it was colder due to the river/creek in the area as the cold air settles
in the bottoms. We lost the trail again at this point but decided we would find
a place to cross the creek, rest and eat a bit on the other side. I went first
and fell in and my right leg was wet midway up to my knee and the left foot was
soaked. I now had wet feet like the rest whose shoes were not the best as we
had crossed many wet areas previously. The others tried a different spot and
had better luck. As we were trying to find the trail we realized we were
exhausted and just needed to eat and rest first. After a few minutes I could
here Dave snoring and eventually Marc, as for me I wished we would of rested on
the other side of the river because for the first time I am now cold from the
water of the river and there is no way I can fall asleep. I pondered how cold
Jared must be and I doubted at this point that someone in just a t-shirt could
make it all night because of how Hypothermia tricks the mind into wanting to
just lay there. I was hoping he had something more than a T-shirt on or that he
kept moving to stay warm, anything. As we were there for about 20 minutes or so
the sun started to come up, I looked over and seen Kevin was a wake also, I
don’t think it was the elements that kept him awake, I’m sure he was having
troublesome thoughts also, mixed with the many silent prayers we had in our
hearts. I’m sure his mind was overloaded with concern. Even though we were
exhausted we got moving again because it was now getting light and we wanted to
get to the trailhead so they didn’t think we were lost also and use resources
to come after us that needed to be used to help Jared. The sun gave us new
energy and we thought we were close but actually we were about 5 miles out
still. Kevin took the lead at times, you could tell he was drained and wanted
to get out, hopefully get some news, anything. Looking back I wish we would of
gave him more comfort but I think he was dealing with it in his own way as best
possible, I suspect many silent prayers as we all had. I’m sure it was even harder on him when we
would yell out Jared’s name every couple of minutes while walking the past 12
hours, always waiting for a reply but never hearing anything in return.
As we reached the other ridge of the drainage the scouts
were in, we now understood how some one could get lost, a bad turn here or
there and the up’s and down’s in it, the thick pines, the location of the lake
that is not seen as a typical lake in a drainage is seen from a ridge above.
Half ways up the ridge there was also a basin or shelve with a meadow that was
covered in thick frost-so it was defiantly cold. But since we just crossed this
entire area we now felt that he would defiantly still be in there probably just
down lower or out the bottom as he ended up doing. Our hopes raised because we
felt like we should now be seeing searchers coming up the trail now that the
sign said we were 2.5 miles away, we
took that as perhaps they found Jared during the night or something. We yelled
and thought we heard a boys voice, it happened again and we were a bit
optimistic an then a lady & search dog came up the trail, we asked her if
she had yelled from that direction and she said yes and said her voice sounds
like a boys, our hopes were extinshued as we now new they had not found him.
While walking with Dave slightly ahead of Kevin & Marc I asked Dave how far
he thought that lady was away from us when we heard her voice, we guest maybe
100-150 yards, that destroyed our hope, for we had just covered 12-13 miles of
area thinking when you yell Jared’s name that it sounds like it carries a long
way’s, only to realize we would of actually had to come within in a few yards
of him for him to hear us and even closer in the areas that had the noise of
creeks/rivers and the area we were currently in was by far the least dense
& most open in the trees of all the areas we had been. We passed many search dog teams that all
asked where we had been, after about the third group it got a bit emotional
because we realized we had done every thing possible we could do, we were
exhausted and spent, and didn’t have much to offer them. And now that we had a
better understanding of the area we felt perhaps that we should of started at
the bottom of the drainage and came up it. As we came to a group of guy’s on horses I
could not even look up because I knew two of them and I was filled with emotion
as all of us were at this point, one was Brad Hodson & the other Matt Brown
both friends and neighbors of Larry’s. The emotions were strong for I knew we
had done all we could do and it was as if we were reluctantly handing the job
of searching for Jared over to them and I couldn’t think of two better guy’s to
have go look for him, I knew they would look in the hardest and most rugged area
and would not quite. I knew I had about
a mile to get my emotions under control before we got to the bottom. This was
the hardest part for me, physically spent and now just realizing I was also
mentally spent, still probably just a fraction of what Kevin and other family
members had been going through all night. I think we all had the same
overwhelming flow of feelings. As we reached the bottom and seen Jerry &
Darinda. I lost control for about 2- 3 breaths and appreciated her comfort for
I truly realized we had done all we could and the enormous task still at hand,
and out of all the people that showed up to search that there were probably
only a small few that also realize the difficulty of finding Jared and the
difficult night he must of endured, and that Jared is truly in God’s
hands. David, Marc & Kevin are
extremely strong men and shouldered the majority of the strength needed to
accomplish our hike. I’m so thankful for
them and the fact that Jared is smarter than many of us were at 12 years of age
and our father in heaven had blessed us all, especially Jared.
Sincerely,
Scott
Ropelato
