PASS LAKE, Summit County — Hope is all but gone and still the volunteers keep coming to search for a 12-year-old Elk Ridge Boy Scout lost now for a week in the rugged High Uintas.
Heidi Bardsley said she hopes people don't give up on the search for her son even though Summit County Sheriff Dave Edmunds said there is no chance Garrett Bardsley will be found alive.
"Unless he's not up here, and that's highly unlikely," Edmunds said Thursday after more than 100 people scoured the rocky, thickly wooded mountainside in rain, snow and hail for the seventh consecutive day.
Edmunds said a white sock found Wednesday that gave searchers hope they may have been on the right track in the hunt may not have belonged to Garrett. A searcher called officials late Wednesday, telling them he had changed socks in the same area and found he was missing a sock when he got home.
"We really have no clues," Edmunds said. "We have lots of clothing (found during the search), enough to open a second-hand store, and lots of sunglasses but nothing appears to be Garrett's."
Garrett left his father Kevin Bardsley's side about 8 a.m. the morning of Aug. 20 after getting his shoes wet while they were fishing at Cuberant Lake. It appears he never made it the estimated 150 yards or so back to the campsite where he had headed to change his shoes. The Bardsleys were in the area with a Scout troop on a three-day camping trip to the Mirror Lake area.
On Thursday, an obviously tired and discouraged Kevin Bardsley thanked the 50 to 60 volunteers from his LDS stake, saying he appreciates every effort that has been made on the family's behalf. He said he, his wife and police officials will decide on Sunday whether to keep the search going.
"We still need searchers this weekend," Heidi Bardsley said. "Tell people we still need searchers."
Provoan Brian Neff read about the search at breakfast Thursday and dropped everything to come up and help.
A Logan search-and-rescue team and a pair of firefighters from Cache County left their homes at 4 a.m. to drive to the search site.
Nan Walton of Bountiful and Margaret Dowling of Salt Lake City brought their dogs, X and Diamond, to help out.
"We're here because there's a child up there," Walton said.
Lisa Baumgardner of Rocky Mountain Rescue Dogs said the dogs can jump from boulder to boulder and search rough terrain more easily than their human counterparts.
"It's difficult, but they keep going, and this family needs some closure," Baumgardner said.
A dozen or more people have brought horses and mules to help in the search.
"People get tired, that's where the horses come in handy," said Mont Davis, a family friend, who is recovering from bypass heart surgery but still came up to search.
Clayton Harper said the searching is tedious and exhausting. "When I left Sunday, I was pretty hammered," he said.
Dale Curtis and Kevin Cannon searched the Kamas and Scout Lake areas Thursday in the falling snow with no complaint.
"It's all good. Everyone's here out of goodness," Cannon said.
Edmunds said he plans to move into a limited search mode after the weekend that will include periodic checks and training exercises conducted in the area until Garrett Bardsley is found.
It was just such a search-and-rescue training exercise that discovered the remains of two women who went missing in the High Uintas last fall. Kim Beverly, 39, of Tucker, Ga., and her mother, Carole Wetherton, 58, of Panacea, Fla., went unfound after their Sept. 8 disappearance despite two weeks of intense searching and 7,500 man-hours logged by more than 100 volunteers on foot and horseback. Officials estimate that on two occasions searchers came within 300 yards of the site where their remains were found on June 5 during a training exercise.
E-mail: haddoc@desnews.com