This kid is from Heber, Utah — odds are he’s a Mormon, and he’s a Cub Scout. Wolf elective #23 includes “Tell what to do if you get lost.” But it’s an elective for a 7-year old, and in panic, a 9-year old may not remember. We hope that this training will be part of the Outdoorsman requirement for a second-year Webeloes Scout, at age 10 or 11, but this kid wasn’t there yet.
Utah, showing Daggett County - from Pioneer, Utah's online library
So, this story from the Salt Lake Tribune is a morality tale. One of the morals is that we need to drill our kids on what to do if they get lost, in the city, or in the wild:
Search crews found lost hiker, 9, after he left behind clues
Updated: 06/22/2009 10:51:25 AM MDTDaggett County search crews found a missing 9-year-old hiker Sunday night thanks to a footprint, a granola bar wrapper, pieces of his raincoat and a backpack that he left behind as he wandered through the Ashley National Forest.Grayson Wynne’s first words to his father, Kynan: “Happy Father’s Day.”Grayson, from Heber City, was hiking Saturday evening toward Daggett Lake to camp for a couple of days with his family when he was separated from the group.
Search and rescue teams, family members and volunteers — totaling more than 100 people — looked for Wynne on Saturday night and Sunday morning. Some rode horses or mules, others walked.
Grayson said he thought about his parents, prayed and cried while he was lost. He told searchers he spent the night under a log and didn’t get much sleep. He could hear searchers yelling his name but could not tell from which direction they were coming.
Searchers found a granola bar wrapper about 300 yards off of the main trail, and family members recognized the snack matched those Grayson had in his backpack. Rescuers also found a small footprint by a creek bed early Sunday, about 400 yards from the granola wrapper, the sheriff’s office said in a news release.
They later found Grayson’s black backpack, which he later told crews he left behind the night before because it was getting too heavy.
Based on Grayson’s belongings, Daggett County searchers said it appeared the boy was
following the creek, so they focused the rescue effort in specific areas along the water.A helicopter flew a bloodhound and her handler to the spot where the backpack was found. Before they could begin searching for Grayson, he heard the helicopter and headed for a meadow where he hoped the pilot would see him.
Grayson waved his last piece of yellow rain slicker to get the helicopter crew’s attention. He had been tearing the jacket apart and leaving behind chunks to trace his footsteps.
As he waved his slicker, two searchers rode up on horseback and found him in the meadow.
Grayson was taken to the command center, where he was checked by medical teams and reunited with his family. The boy’s feet were wet and cold, but he was in “good health and spirits,” the Sheriff’s Office said.
“This search was successful due to the many searchers and volunteers, and to Grayson for being such a strong little boy with a lot of common sense,” the Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
I’m not entirely sure where the family was — in addition to the Ashley National Forest, there is the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area in tiny Daggett County, in Utah’s northeast corner, for families to hike and camp in.
Daggett County was the last of the 29 counties in Utah to be organized, cut out of the much larger Uintah County. I know the story well. My maternal grandfather was one of the organizers of the county and the loser of the first election for sheriff (a great story of the power of women voting, for another time). My mother was born in a the chicken coop her family lived in, in Manila, as her father was building what was to be the biggest house in the county (and the first with rooms set aside for indoor plumbing).
Posted by Ed Darrell 
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 