She is Why You CAN'T Go Alone in National Forests Anymore...

Today I'm gonna be giving you a chilly example of why you can't go alone in National Forests anymore. And once I've finished that story, I'm gonna tell you an even more disturbing story of what is most definitely the worst death in the history of backpacking. And make sure you stick around until the end because I'm gonna close this episode out by telling you three rapid fire stories that are gonna sound fake, but are actually 100% real and 1000% dark. If you've listened to a few episodes now and you're enjoying the show, please leave us a five star review and do it right now. I have a goal of reaching 1000 five star reviews for the show and we're not even close to that and so please help us out and join the movement. Listen up, you should never go alone in the North Cascades or in any National Forest. And on August 1st, 2018, Samantha Sayers learned that lesson the hard way. On that day, Sam set out to conquer one of the most majestic peaks in the Mount Baker Snoqualmie National Forest and two days before the hike, Sam posted on Facebook. She wrote that she would be tackling Vesper Peak in just a few short days. Now Vesper Peak is known for its technical scrambly sections, Alpine conditions and of course iconic views of the North Cascades and all around them, right? The hike is about eight miles total with more than 4,000 feet of elevation gain. In her Facebook post, Sam warned that it was quote, not a beginner's hike, but she still extended an invite to anyone who saw the post and wanted to tag along. In the moment, it read like Sam was sending out an open invite for her friends to join her in her favorite place on Earth, the great outdoors. But looking back, that fateful Facebook post now reads a lot more like a mysterious first clue. Samantha, Sam Sayers, was 28 years old around 5 foot A and roughly 125 pounds and she was born for big adventures. She also had a very distinct look due to her alopecia, which is an auto-immune condition that causes hair loss. Now I'm sure that most of you are familiar with alopecia, but just in case you're not, you'll definitely remember that time Will Smith attacked Chris Rock at the Oscars. And that moment was so insane and viral that you might have forgotten that Will Smith did that because Chris Rock had made an off-colored joke about his wife's shaped head, which was shaped due to her alopecia. That moment really stuck with me and I've really sympathized with folks that have alopecia, and it's only partially because the Fresh Prince of Belair gave me some very good reasons to do so. But back to Sam, instead of hiding her condition, she embraced it. She shaved her head and she proudly got a set of stars tattooed around it that her mother actually designed. It paired well with her piercings too. Sam studied theater in New York and then moved across the country to Seattle to make just enough money to adventure in the Pacific Northwest wilderness as much as she possibly could. In Seattle, Sam started dating a New Orleans transplant named Kevin Dares. Now the two of them had originally matched on Tinder and then chatted for a bit, but in classic dating app fashion, nothing really came of it. Now some people might call that a textbook case of ghosting. And no, while we're on the subject, please don't ghost me. Hit that subscribe button right now, especially if you're a repeat viewer. It's totally free and you'll be helping us reach our goal of 1 million subscribers. We're getting close. Now Sam and Kevin definitely defied all the stereotypes of ghosting and dating apps. Even though after they first matched, they ended up kind of losing contact. They did kind of randomly find themselves at the same Mardi Gras party in February of 2016. And folks, that's when the romance finally clicked. They bonded over their love for the outdoors, but it was always clear that Sam had a different level of hunger for chasing higher and higher peaks. And yet, they loved each other all the same. Neither of them knew it at the time, but reuniting at that random party would eventually change both of their lives forever. In Sam's Facebook post on July 30, 2018, she warned that she might not be back from her Vesper peak hike until six or seven o'clock at night. She added that she still had three spots left in her tiny blue Ford Fiesta, but no one ever took her up on the invitation and Kevin had to work that day, so he couldn't go. And because of all that, Sam would plan to hike all by herself, which is another decision that would change her life forever to. On August 1st, 2018, Sam left her apartment around eight in the morning. Kevin actually texted her that morning to be careful and to send him an SOS if anything went wrong. And to that, Sam replied, "Okay baby, I love you." This was a thoughtful text exchange, a very normal one, not unlike any simple good morning and good night texts that they would trade back and forth through their whole relationship, as a lot of us do with our significant others, right? And I think most of us certainly see these kind of exchanges via text as just simple ways to show each other that we care. But this particular I love you text was a little bit different than all of the rest, because as it turns out, that text would be the last one that Kevin ever received from Sam's phone. Sam's on her way to the hike, right? She proceeded to drive to the Sunrise Mine Trailhead, and she signed the trail register sometime between 10 and 1030 in the morning. It was a hot August day already by this point. Wildfire haze clouded the ridge lines in the distance, and hikers later remembered seeing the bald woman with the tattooed head and trekking poles. She was wearing a sports bra and gray pants, you know, stripped down for the heat, and she carried a dark backpack. And frankly, all of those things made her pretty hard to forget. Sam had hiked this trail plenty of times before, and she clearly knew her way around the Washington wilderness. Now let me tell you about Vesper Peek a little bit. The route to it is no joke. I haven't done it, but like researching this, like it's crazy. Now first of all, again, this was in August, but as a lot of you know, anytime a year, mountains can have slick rocks, even snowier conditions, and of course unpredictable weather, especially as you get closer to the top. Now the first stretch of the hike hides under forest canopy, you know, the trail crosses a boulder hopping creek, and then switchbacks into a place called Wurt's Basin, which is a stone amphitheater that appears to be a dead end until you start to see the scramble towards headly pass. From the pass, it traverses to the tiny green bowl of Lake Elan, and then comes the last push up to the actual peak. Now this is not a perfectly marked trail, and so it's it's kind of like a choose your own scramble over large blocks of granite, right? And for strong hikers, that that final pitch usually feels a bit like being a kid again, you know, back on the playground or more specifically the jungle gym, but for everyone else, this is where the mountain makes it abundantly clear who's in charge. Multiple people placed Sam at or near the summit between two and three p.m. One hiker remembered seeing her sitting and enjoying a sandwich, what kind of chilling with some other hikers that were up there. Another witness said that he had lunch with Sam near the top, and later, you know, from a distance will say, this witness saw a woman that he believed was Sam heading towards Spada Lake, which is on the west side. And this is a problem because the route towards Spada Lake is not on the normal route that hikers take while they're descending Vesper Peak. It's not towards Sam's car, but by the time this witness realized that Sam was taking an unusual route, she was too far away to do anything. And then another hiker told the sheriff that he saw Sam coming down from the top towards the southwest aspect of the mountain, right around 3 p.m., which is a little bit weird because that's also the opposite direction of the standard descent. This hiker remembered feeling worried, even then before you know, anything had gone wrong, feeling worried that Sam wasn't taking a very safe route down the mountain. And based on these reports, we know that Sam was up there at the top, and she was seen by tons of folks on this hike, but we also know that she wasn't really acting normal, at least in terms of her decision making, either she was trying to spice things up because she had hiked this route a lot before, or maybe something stranger happened, and I really don't know what that is. Now back in Seattle, Kevin, Sam's boyfriend, well, he expected to get another text from her by around 6 p.m., which is again similar to the timeline that she put in her Facebook post. But six o'clock came and went, and Kevin never received that text message, and that was the first red flag. He waited for another hour or so, getting a little bit more anxious with each passing minute, and when he just couldn't handle this fear anymore, he decided to call Sam, but to his horror, the call went straight to voicemail, and that of course was red flag number two. But I do have to be fair here guys, most of the trail that Sam was hiking didn't really have cell coverage, and so it wasn't completely abnormal that Kevin wouldn't be able to reach her, but Kevin was still concerned, because he also knew that there were scattered patchy spots of cell reception on Vesper Peak, where in the past he could sometimes get a hold of her. And so his instincts were just firing off, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong at this point, and so rather than waiting for a third red flag, Kevin sprang into action. He didn't call the authorities at this point, instead he decided to take matters into his own hands and go straight to the trailhead to see if he could get some answers for himself. And when he arrived there, around 10 p.m. Sam's blue Ford Fiesta was still sitting in the dark parking lot. Kevin had bought a flashlight on his drive-over and so he fired it up and he began hiking this trail all alone, illuminated by this kind of cheap flashlight, right? He pushed towards like Elan, kind of scrambling in the darkness. And again, we talked a lot about how this wasn't a beginner's hike. And frankly, it sounds even harder to do when it's pitch black and you're kind of panicked, like in a hurry. So while Kevin was rushing up the trail, he suddenly slipped and he smashed the flashlight against a slab of rock. The flashlight was useless after this. And so Kevin tried to like use his phone's flashlight after this, but it wasn't really bright enough for the rocks above. And so Kevin had to turn around and conserve what was left of his phone battery to dimly illuminate the three and a half demoralizing miles back to his car. He was sure that Sam was still out there just out of reach and now he had no way of finding her himself. When Kevin finally got back to the trailhead, Sam's car was still sitting there completely untouched. And of course, at this point, Kevin knew that it was finally time to call someone, but remember, the cell service is spotty as hell on this mountain, especially at the lower elevations, you know, down at the trailhead. And so Kevin had to get into his car and drive. He didn't know how far he'd have to go before you could finally call it. And again, every single second matters in a situation like this. But thankfully, in a stroke of what was literally the only luck he had on this night, Kevin would end up passing a ranger station, which was one of the last places that still had a working pay phone. There's still no cell phone service here, right? And so using that phone, sometime after 130 in the morning, Kevin was finally able to dial 911. And that's a call that none of us ever want to make, right? For some reason, whenever I'm researching these stories, just like the part where the loved one has to call the authorities and tell them that someone's missing, like, I don't know, just imagine having to do that for for your significant other, for instance, like that's terrible. And obviously, Kevin hated to admit this to himself, but there was nothing else that he could do, right? And so at this point, Sam Sayers was officially declared missing. Snohomish County search and rescue sergeant John Q Adams met Kevin at the ranger station. This was Adams first year running wilderness search and rescue. And up to that point, he had taken plenty of calls that resolved themselves overnight, along with a handful of calls that didn't. And when he saw the crushed look on Kevin's face, he almost immediately knew that this was going to be the second kind of call. He gave Kevin some food, a helmet, a headlamp, and then began waking people up. And I'm talking about volunteers, mountain rescue climbers, and the helicopter crew. He told his deputy that they would throw everything they had at Sam's disappearance. And when Don finally rolled around, that is exactly what they did. On August 2nd, teams fanned out from the trailhead. They swept the creek for tracks, they studied the ground for footprints, and they called Sam's name out into the woods. Snowhawk 1 lifted off with a forward-looking infrared camera mounted beneath the fuselage. Its pilots leaned into doorways to search along cliff bands and benches where heat signatures might hide. And through a nearby wildfire haze, they did see a tree that was on fire, but they didn't see Sam. As soon as the search started, Kevin quickly posted on Facebook about Sam's disappearance. He even created a Facebook group dedicated to her, and he also started a GoFundMe, which would eventually raise $60,000. As the story gained more and more attention, one thing became crystal clear, which was that the public really wanted to find Sam's sails, but that would be no easy task. To understand why all of this was so difficult, you really just have to understand the terrain of Vespru Peak. Again, it's mostly steep and scrambly, and its north face is actually just a cliff, and then at the base of the cliff, there's some unmelted ice that every summer forms into a treacherous seasonal moat, and to make matters worse, as if we need to do that. This area is also peppered with old mine shafts that are hidden by brush, and so people began to wonder if Sam had slipped into either this moat or one of those mine shafts, but there was just no way for search and rescue teams to safely enter every single pitch black crack in the mountain without risking another tragedy. Over the weekend, the search grew bigger and bigger. Ever at mountain rescue sent out experienced climbers, who all knew Vespru Peak like the back of their hands, more search and rescue units arrived from multiple counties all over the state. Clearly, this was an all-hands-on-deck kind of search. Everyone involved knew that the North Cascades were not the kind of place you mess around, and they also knew that time was going to be the difference in this desperate search for Sam. And then, on August 4, three days into the frantic search, something unbelievable happened. You see, they had an Air Force unit monitoring Sam's cell phone number, just in case it somehow came back online, or somehow pinged on a tower that could lead them to her, right? And on August 4, they finally managed to get a signal from her phone, but it was definitely not what they expected. This Air Force unit reported a cell ping coming from Belltown, which was the Seattle neighborhood near the apartment that Sam shared with Kevin. This, of course, left crews dumbfounded. For a brief moment, they wondered if they should even be relieved, because maybe Sam had somehow made it off the trail, found a ride back home, and then plugged her phone in. Maybe it had died or something. Maybe this was a miracle, but at the same time, it kind of sounded impossible. Like, how could they have been spending all this time in energy searching for her along the trail to Vesper Peak, while she was actually 75 miles away, you know, just south of the space needle. They needed answers fast. And so, Seattle PD went to the address of the cell phone ping. And as it turns out, this ping hadn't been from Sam's phone at all. It actually came from Kevin's mother's phone. I guess in like a desperate attempt to access some of Sam's account data, she had worked with the cell phone company to clone Sam's sim signature on her device, and then the network somehow pinged from this clone. Folks, it was nothing but a false alarm. The ping had caused hope, fear, and a lot of confusion all at once. But for a moment, it was at least a lead that they had all prayed for. And now it was nothing. But despite this false hope, I guess, the search didn't slow down. Divers dropped into Lake Elan to search the bottom. Volunteers started caching ziplock bags that had ponchos, socks, energy bars, and notes that said, stay strong. We're looking for you. You know, they cached these bags. And the hope that if Sam was kind of moving at night, she might be able to, you know, find one of these caches and then use the supplies to survive. But despite these efforts, nobody found a dropped phone, a hiking pole, or any scrap of gear. They found absolutely nothing. And after 22 days, and one of the longest searches of its kind in Washington state history, the county suspended operations. They had burned through time, a lot of money, and risked the lives of a lot of people. And still, there was no trace of Sam. Absolutely nothing. Now folks, the story of most disappearances would probably end here. But this one, well, this one doesn't. Despite the official search being called off, Kevin, Sam's boyfriend, he refused to give up. That very same morning, he launched what would become a massive private effort. Kevin reached out to a nonprofit founder from Minnesota named David Francis. David Francis' son had vanished in the wilderness in 2006. And he would take that heartbreak and turn it into a life of helping families navigate the exact same thing. Francis flew to Seattle to organize the unofficial search, and his first piece of advice to Kevin was very simple. He told Kevin to call a man named Bud Carr. Now Bud Carr was a survivalist and self-taught searcher with a military mindset and what some would describe as a sketchy past. He's lean. He's tattooed. He sometimes sports a mohawk. He smokes American spirit cigarettes, and he dresses in military camo. Bud Carr did spend some time in prison for a felony gun store burglary when he was only 19 years old, but he would end up finding Buddhism after he was released. And from that point on, he devoted his life to service. I'm telling you, all this guy is one of the most colorful characters that exists in the search and rescue world. But at the same time, to a lot of people, Bud Carr is just the kind of guy that gets stuff done, right? Bud has searched for numerous families missing loved ones, and despite his work ethic and even some of his results, which we're going to talk about in a second, he has made some enemies in the process. Critics accuse him of self-promotion and dangerous theatrics, but his supporters say that he shows up when everyone else has already gone home. Which makes sense, because again, he's the guy that doesn't give up. And so with Bud's help, Kevin started covering his apartment walls with maps of Vesper Peak. They tracked moon phases and water sources and they asked Kevin's father, who was the command chief warrant officer of the Louisiana National Guard, to run the new base camp. They even gave the whole program a name, which was Operation Relentless Pursuit. And look, that name might seem a little goofy and maybe a little overly dramatic, but I gotta say I just got done reading a book about World War II. And wow, there were some insane Operation Hames in there. Let's get a load of this. Operation Minsmit, Operation toenails, and even one called Operation Chattanooga Chuchu that involved the allies sabotaging German railways. So I guess it goes to show that it doesn't really matter how wild your operation name is, as long as the operation itself is a success, and that's precisely what Bud and Kevin hoped for Operation Relentless Pursuit. They brought in private helicopters, drones, and even a tracker they crawled into gullies that even seasoned climbers wouldn't go near. They fought government agencies for access, and they begged obsessed internet strangers for a little bit of patience, right? Bud posted videos that made many search and rescue veterans roll their eyes, but also at the same time made some families feel at last that someone was speaking up on their behalf. Kevin and Bud worked tirelessly until the snow finally started pounding the mountain, hiding any evidence that might have been out there. It's now mid-October, and unfortunately, at this point, winter forced the operation to kind of wind down. From friends to family to everyone in between, people were desperate for answers, and running through every possible scenario to answer the question, where the hell was Sam Sayers? I mean, did she have some kind of crazy accident out there in the wild? That's certainly the first question that most people thought. I mean, she was at or near the summit between two and three pm, and credible witnesses said that she headed off the southwest side, or possibly towards spot a lake. Did she slip on some hearts? No, or slide over some slick rocks, or did she take a wrong step and land to a fast-moving creek? Both the official and unofficial operations searched tons and tons of ground in the area, but ultimately, you can spend 22 days and thousands of hours searching and still miss the 10 yards that really matter, right? They easily could have missed the one spot where Sam had fallen in this fast wilderness. And I know that's not satisfying, but it is the harsh truth of these rescue missions. Or, you could consider the possibility that maybe the reason they never found Sam on the mountain is because she's not there to begin with. Now, if you asked her mother, who was named Lisa Sayers, she would start to tell you that she suspected foul play. She even hired private investigators, and she believed that Sam had possibly been abducted or trafficked, and she even said that she held information that proved this. Although, for an unknown reason, she went on the record stating that she couldn't share this information. I don't know why. Lisa Sayers also started to cast some suspicion on Kevin. And now, it's important to note that Kevin has never been charged with anything in Sam's disappearance, but it is clear that Lisa Sayers was growing more and more desperate by the day to find her daughter, and she was willing to point at anyone and look anywhere, right? And maybe that's a good thing in mysteries like this. You know, it's not really my place to say, but all of this heartbreak and uncertainty clearly caused a strain on the people who loved Sam the most, and Lisa grew convinced that if she was going to find her daughter, she needed to look for answers away from the mountain. I mean, there were so many unanswered questions out there, and as many of you know, when a mysterious case like this one leaves a void, the internet theorists will always find a way to fill it. The Find Sam Sayers Facebook page was created, and it quickly grew to tens of thousands of followers. And then there were these spin-off groups, including some groups that leaned heavily on rumors will say people were posting tips from psychics, some swore that they saw bald women at Wal-Mart's all over Washington State. And I'm not even sure how this next one's possible, but one hiker claimed that they saw Sam watching an episode of the Bachelorette on the trail. I don't know, but the bottom line is that people really wanted to find Sam and they were getting desperate. And these more far-fetched sightings and theories were a clear sign that people were running out of options. And though I'm kind of goofing on them a little bit, you can't really blame them. But actually scratch that because I can kind of blame them a little bit for this next part. So some people online unfortunately started to pick apart every little one of Kevin's actions, right? A lot of people were suspicious of him. So in one of Kevin's Facebook posts, he referred to Sam as his fiance, which was technically not true. They weren't engaged. And so that kind of raised some alarms for people. But Kevin would go on to say that Sam's family actually agreed that the word fiance kind of better reflected their relationship. People online also took issue with the fact that Kevin went to the trail alone the night that Sam disappeared without notifying the authorities first. You know, a lot of people thought that it didn't really make sense that Kevin would try to chase after Sam in the dark on a difficult trail with just a cheap flashlight that he bought on the way there. The go fund me that Kevin started was an issue with people as well as, you know, the public nature of the search with a controversial figure like Bud Carr. But the kicker was that the internet really didn't like when they found out that Kevin had returned to the dating apps after some time and past and Sam was still missing. Now with that said, it's not like Kevin downloaded Tinder the day after Sam disappeared. Obviously, like I don't know exactly how much time went by. And honestly, I kind of think that the fingers were being pointed at Kevin simply because he was close to Sam. And in another light, all of those actions simply paint the picture of a man who was desperate to find his girlfriend by any means necessary and ultimately heartbroken and lonely after his efforts turned up nothing. Kevin spent more than 100 perilous days on Vesper Peak searching for Sam. He worked his ass off and the online theorists repaid him with suspicion and conspiracy. But despite all of that internet nonsense, Kevin never gave up on Sam and he also began fighting for other missing hikers as well. Flash forward to October 2019, when a red-headed 28-year-old named Rachel Lackaduck went missing near Hidden Lake lookout in the North Cascades. The story was strangely similar to the disappearance of Sam Sayers, right? A young, strong female hiker vanishes an early winter comes and a family is left praying for some kind of miracle. The county search for Rachel for ten whole days found nothing and quickly suspended operations. But nearly two years after Rachel vanished, one person was still looking. And I'll give you a chance to guess who that person was. Yep, that's right, our old pal Budkar. He formed a small team of volunteers that bush-wacked through the forest and Kevin Dares joined them. Now, one part of Kevin genuinely hope to help find answers for people who have lost loved ones just like he did. And another part of him deep down hoped that his continued searching just generally would ultimately lead him back to Sam. And on August 15th, 2021, Kevin was searching the Hidden Lake lookout area for Rachel when he decided to take a quick break. This is really hard work. He was exhausted and so he leaned up against the boulder and he lit up a cigarette, which was a bad habit that only got worse after Sam disappeared. Now, though he was resting, he never stopped scanning the landscape around him, because you know, he had trained himself over the years to always be searching. I mean, you're up there, even if you're taking a break, you might as well kind of peek around, right? And so he's doing this and suddenly he noticed something that just didn't seem right. Kevin saw a tiny rectangle that looked out of place, specifically because it was a bright color that definitely didn't belong in the woods. And so he quickly got on his radio and he called to headquarters and asked, quote, what color was Rachel's pad backpack and sleeping bag? And someone answered back right away saying green pack purple bag. And then there was a pause, but not long after that, Bud Carr got on the radio and he added a detail that he'd been holding on for two years. Bud said, quote, she had an orange thermarest sleeping pad when he heard that Kevin's heart sank because he was staring directly at an orange pad that was folded up like a seat. And then he saw a green backpack. And then he found the purple sleeping bag to trekking poles to boots. And then a flash of red hair. Kevin could not believe what he was looking at right in front of him. He hop back on his radio and he said the line that he had wanted to say for three years now, but on a different mountain about a different person, he said, I've got her. Bud and Kevin clearly made a good team and the two of them had certainly worked wonders for the family of Rachel Lackaduck. But at the same time for Kevin, this discovery was very bittersweet if that makes sense. I mean, And he was able to help Rachel's family find closure, but at the same time, he was still desperately searching for that very same thing for himself when it comes to Sam's case. And he's actually still searching to this day because, and it's heartbreaking to say this, Sam Sayers is still missing. And as if this story wasn't already heartbreaking enough, Lisa Sayers, Sam's mother passed away just a few months ago in June of 2025 after a long battle with cancer. And she never found the answers that she searched so hard for. And if we ever do find out what truly happened to her daughter, she'll unfortunately never get the peace and possibly the justice that would come from it. And so what the hell could have happened to Sam? Was it foul play? Like her mother started to believe and was that foul play committed by someone that she knew or from a complete stranger on the trail? Or did Sam somehow disappear on purpose? I mean, we've talked a lot about theories like this with missing hikers, other missing hikers on this channel. And in Sam's case, there, there just isn't really a motive that I'm aware of that would back up this theory. But since, you know, we haven't been able to prove anything else with 100% certainty, we can't rule this out as a possibility either. And for what it's worth, if you ask me, I'm still curious about that deep seasonal moat on the north side of Vestper Peak or even the scattered defunct mines all over the mountain as well. I mean, Sam was hiking all alone and it would have only taken one wrong step for her to tumble into one of these dark holes, never to be heard from again, which is hard to say, honestly. And look, I know that theory isn't as dramatic as the ones where private investigators are like chasing down abduction leads or online psychics trying to locate Sam from thousands of miles away. I don't know. All I'm saying is that the network of mines that exist all around Vestper Peak just feels so vast and so full of secrets. And I wonder if the answers to Sam's case are at the bottom of just one of those deep dark pits. That's pure speculation, nothing more. Until someone finds her, Vestper Peak holds that secret. And until that secret is uncovered, this video is for Lisa Sayers and it's for Kevin Ders. And of course, it's for Sam Sayers. I hope she's found soon. And please join me in donating to the Children's Alopecia project. Before she passed away, Lisa Sayers encouraged people to donate to that organization in Sam's honor. And so I've made a donation to them and I'd love it if you join me, even if it's just a few dollars. It doesn't have to be anything crazy. I've got their link in the description. And now get ready to hear the story of what has to be the worst death in the history of backpacking. You're going to know what I mean very soon. But first, be sure to hit that follow button on the show. It's totally free and it helps us out a ton. On the last day of August in 1998, a solo hiker was struggling past an unnamed lake deep in the Wind River Range of Wyoming. This hiker was on a nine day off trail expedition that would be taking him through some of the most remote terrain in the mainland United States. And as if that wasn't already daunting enough, when he arrived at the trailhead, this hiker was greeted by an eerie sign. It was a missing person's poster for a man who had disappeared only a few weeks earlier while covering a nearly identical route through the same mountains. This hiker was undeterred by this, however, and they set out anyways, though they definitely made a mental note to keep their eyes out for anything suspicious. And then a few days later, this hiker, this man was making his way along some loose rocks near the shore of a remote Alpine lake. There were no trails in this area and the man probably figured that he was all alone, likely the first person to traverse this lake in months if not years. But this was not the case because all of the sudden when the man looked up, he noticed another man about 50 yards away from him just sitting in the rocks. Nothing seemed off about this man because he was just sitting there completely still. You could even say eerily still. This hiker called out to the sitting man and asked him if he was okay. And to this, the hiker got no response. Three days later, this very same hiker walked into the Sublet County Sheriff's office and plopped down a wallet that belonged to Reverend Mike Turner. Mike Turner had vanished while on a backpacking trip in the Wind River Range a few weeks earlier. And it was actually his name that was plastered on the missing person posters at every trailhead in the area. So even though Mike Turner's body had now been discovered, his disappearance remained shrouded in mystery. Well, at least initially this didn't last very long because right there next to his body, investigators found his journal. And through that journal, Mike Turner's friends, his family and eventually the world were able to take a detailed look into the final days of a man who lived and died through every solo hiker's worst nightmare. This is the story of Reverend Mike Turner. Alright, folks, I'm not going to lie to you this story. Well, it's pretty f*** up. It's definitely not for the fan of heart, but it's also incredibly unique, even somewhat inspiring and also certainly morbidly fascinating. So with that said, at the end of July in 1998, Reverend Mike Turner set off into the Wyoming wilderness. He had a very ambitious plan. He was going to take roughly nine days to travel 60 miles through the Wind River Range on a route that was largely off of any established trails. He was also planning to do this route without a hiking partner, completely solo. Well, that is, I guess, unless you consider his dog Andy, a hiking partner because he was bringing along the dog. Mike was far from a beginner backpacker and reportedly felt very comfortable in the outdoors. He had spent numerous nights backpacking in Wyoming, the Sierra Nevada, Rocky Mountain National Park, among many other wild and beautiful places. He reportedly felt close to God when he was in the backcountry, and it seems as though his adventures in the mountains were more than just a good time for Turner. They were essentially a very important part of his spirituality. Prior to his trip to Wyoming, Mike Turner had been a pastor at Boone Memorial Presbyterian church in Caldwell, Idaho. During the last few months leading up to his Wyoming trip, he had actually been on sabbatical, and unfortunately, maybe his sabbatical was coming to an end, so he wanted to finish it off in epic fashion. And for someone adventurous like Mike Turner, that meant traversing the high glaciers, 12,000 foot passes, and untouched alpine lakes all by himself. He even came up with a name for his itinerary, which was Wander and Wander. The night before his adventure began, Mike Turner took his wife out to a James Taylor concert. And then the next morning, he surprised her with flowers and a handwritten card, which read, quote, "Thank you for letting me live this adventure. No, wherever I am and whatever I'm doing, I'm thinking of you." And with that said, on July 30, 1998, Mike Turner and his dog Andy hiked into the Wyoming backcountry, eventually settling in for the night at Eklund Lake in Bridger Teton National Forest. Since Mike Turner was a man of deep thought and frequent reflection, it's no surprise that he brought along a journal with him. I'm not sure if he was one to share his journal entries with others. I feel like it's most likely that these journal entries were only meant for his eyes and his mind. In time, however, the whole world would be reading parts of this particular journal and this journal would essentially become Mike Turner's final words. On the first night of his trip, Turner relaxed and he pondered God's impact on the natural world and God's impact on Turner's trip through the mountains. He wrote, quote, "You send the winds and the rain and yet even emits the deep savagery and destruction of life, I sense your hand. In threatening my comfort, even my life, you challenge me to cope. In beauty and peace, you refresh me and all of it, I need." God bless this trip. May it fulfill your holy purposes. Mike Turner would write similar sentiments over the next two days all the way until day four of his trip. Day four is when everything fell apart for Reverend Mike Turner. So nine days go by, nine days after his adventure had began, Mike's wife was waiting for him to finish and she was starting to get worried. So their plan was that Mike was going to meet his friends and his family at the big sandy trailhead in Bridger Teton National Forest. Once again, nine days after he had entered the wilderness, which would have put his end date at August 8th. 1998 and to be even more specific than that he actually planned to get there at noon But of course Mike's wife knew that this was wishful thinking it would be far too difficult to pinpoint an exact arrival time Before the trip had even begun and sure enough Mike was nowhere to be found when noon rolled around I'm sure this probably made his wife a bit uneasy But she was also far from calling and rescue at this point They actually had a plan B, which was for them to hike in a little bit and meet Mike at dad's lake But as the day went by Mike failed show up there at their plan B location as well The gravity of the situation slowly started to sink in and Mike's wife began to recall a conversation that she had had with Mike and their daughter before he left in that conversation all of them had decided that if Mike didn't arrive By 4 p.m. Sunday then the authorities would be contacted Sunday came and then Sunday went and sure enough There was still no sign of Mike friends and family waited a bit longer than they're agreed upon time hoping that they would Eventually see Mike come stumbling down the trail But unfortunately this never happened and so finally on monday august 10th 1998 at 10 o six a.m. Mike Turner was officially reported missing Searchers knew that finding Mike was going to take an absolute miracle They needed to cover hundreds of square miles of basically untouched wilderness and they needed to do it fast Tip top search and rescue a volunteer search and rescue organization in the area were called in They searched on foot they searched by horse and they even searched by helicopter They searched as hard as they could for two whole weeks but by august 23rd they still hadn't found any trace of Mike Turner And eventually the active search was called off But then five days later something happened that nobody saw coming On august 28th Reverend Turner's dog Andy walked out of the wilderness battered bruised and starving but alive This renewed the search efforts for Mike as the searchers hoped the dog could lead them in the right direction And this is reportedly what the dog actually did although unfortunately by the time they got the dog out there it was pretty much too late On august 31st a man who was traversing the wind river range on a near identical route to Mike Turner Discovered Turner's body near an unnamed alpine lake Turner was reportedly sitting up with his legs jammed between two boulders The hiker who made this discovery was actually aware of Mike Turner's disappearance because this hiker had seen missing person posters at his starting trailhead And so he actually grabbed Turner's wallet and continued on through the wilderness to report what he had found This should give you an idea of how remote this area is by the way Mike Turner's body was discovered on august 31st But it wasn't until September 3rd that the man finally reached the sublet county sheriff's office to report the tragic news When investigators finally made their way out to Reverend Mike Turner's body they were greeted by a very depressing site Turner's legs had in fact been pinned between boulders which rendered him completely unable to move and perhaps even more disturbingly The injury caused by the boulders was not what led to Turner's death In fact he was barely injured by them at all He just couldn't move He was 100% trapped In autopsy actually revealed that the cause of death was hypothermia and dehydration Despite the fact that he was trapped only 30 feet away from a lake So the overall picture of what happened was becoming clear But what makes the story of Mike Turner so fascinating is that he actually kept a detailed journal during his ordeal And so now the world has been able to take a glimpse into the mind of the man's intense struggles with mother nature His inevitable death and his fate Through this journal we are able to learn in excruciating detail the disturbing but also inspiring story of what really happened to Mike Turner In his journal he wrote that on day 4 he was hiking through a boulder field above 11,000 feet in elevation And one of the boulders that he stepped on came loose In response to this he quickly jumped to the next one but he actually fell And as he did this the boulder that had come loose moments earlier came tumbling down and trapped his legs According to his journal it was a roughly 800 pound rock One of Mike Turner's close friends said quote when he tried to extricate himself his legs wouldn't move They weren't broken barely even injured but his feet were suspended in air He couldn't push them down or pull them up, sideways motion was equally impossible beyond an inch or so The two boulders had come together in the perfect configuration to form a pair of granite shackles Mike Turner fought hard to free himself in the immediate aftermath of what happened He was carrying a camera tripod and he actually attempted to use this tripod to pry himself free He struggled for over an hour, nearly breaking the tripod before he realized that the effort was pointless And so with this realization, this very scary realization I'm sure Reverend Turner opened his journal About two hours ago a large rock rolled upon me and trapped my legs I was very careful, be sure of that, but I hurt I am in your hands lard, I don't know what I face Eventually Turner realized that his only hope was for someone to come to his aid And so with that realization he turned his attention to surviving rather than rescuing himself and freeing himself There was actually some snow within like reaching distance of him and so he was able to use his stove to melt this snow for drinking water And since he had his overnight gear with him, he was able to awkwardly insulate himself in order to survive that first night I'm sure it wasn't comfortable or pleasant, but he did make it through the night and he wrote this the next morning I am concerned about first losing my legs, second running out of snow to melt for water and fuel, third hypothermia My biggest concern is water, I only have two quarts left The irony is that the lake is only 30 feet away And then in an almost sarcastic tone, but also a very disturbed, he wrote this super disturbing I am also saving my urine, I wonder how it will taste with crystal light Mike Turner had to be meticulous about all of his gear because if any of it fell out of reach it was basically gone for good Because he couldn't move, he couldn't go grab it At this point, he still had a week's worth of food and he used his tense rain fly to try and capture some of the rainfall After he had melted all of the snow within his reach, he tied his water bottle to a rope and tried to throw it the 30 feet into the lake in order to grab some more water Amazingly, it actually almost made it, but it didn't quite make it It instead fell short of the lake and it got caught in the rocks and he wasn't able to get it back Despite the just incredibly scary situation he was in, Turner was actually initially optimistic about his chances of survival He wrote, quote, "I had dreamed of a special time alone with God facing the elements, the passes, thinking about my life, the direction of the church, about my family Indeed, this has been all of those things only magnified 100 times When I think about it this way, I believe I will survive smarter or wiser, more thoughtful, more aware of my limits I do feel confident in my Christian hope God will make a way either earthly or heavenly This optimism unfortunately did not last and you can probably understand why Mike Turner had now been pinned for days with no side of help and this brutal reality was spiritually challenging for even the strongest of believers in God It became evident in his writing that the reverend fell abandoned by the very God he had dedicated his life to serving God is with me but I am angry with him Why is this terrible injustice or is it the product of pride? How am I failing him or what does he need me to teach? What is the purpose of this ordeal? Will I ever know or continue to be puzzled, angered and feel quite abandoned by the one I serve? This would have been the perfect time for another hiker to come along, rescue Mike Turner and provide a happy ending to this story But unfortunately that's not what happened because things only got worse from here One evening Mike Turner noticed that he had completely lost feeling in his left leg and this sent him into a desperate frenzy to free himself But of course there was nothing that he could do and he probably did knew this deep down and ultimately his struggle trying to save his leg ended with the leg just being trapped even tighter. I cried out and cried out to God who doesn't seem to care about my suffering, struggling and pain and the loss of my left leg. I begged and prayed for some help in moving the rock but none seemed to come. After either five or six days, Mike Turner accidentally dropped his journal out of reach while he was shifting around. In a testament to how important documenting his struggle was to him, he was actually undeterred by losing his journal and he began using anything at his disposal to jot down his thoughts. He was carrying a pocket Bible with him and he began filling the blank pages in this Bible with his writing. Eventually he did run out of space there and at this point he turned to the margins of the instructions for his stove. Mike Turner eventually became consumed with regret. At one point during his hike he had actually decided to stray a little bit from his planned itinerary and he took a different pass through the mountains and unfortunately it's on this detour that he became pinned by the boulder. He wrote quote, "I feel so foolish taking this longer pass so lonely more than I imagine." Thought I would be found yesterday. Many thoughts, most of church, future for kids, some friends, I love you Diane referring to his wife, terribly sorry for stupid illegible. So he was obviously in a very bad situation and you know just mentally and spiritually, I mean this is just really tough but at some point Reverend Mike Turner did come to accept his inevitable death. His body was breaking down and he knew that there was pretty much nothing more that he could do. Rather than questioning God expressing bitterness and anger, he turned to God and he turned to him with open arms. "Fill me with peace, Lord, may the conditions not deny my love for you. I am ready to die though missing my family. To live is Christ. To die is gain. I will trust in God though he will slay me yet I will trust him. He is the way the truth, the light." At some point Turner placed his wedding ring on a rock next to him so that it would not fall off his fingers and get lost. After surviving for 10 days pinned to the rock the entire time unable to move. Turner stopped writing in his journal. The last line he ever wrote said quote, "God loves a legible. Love dad, Mike." So obviously things were different in 1998 but I will note that today if something similar like this were to happen if a hiker were to become pinned down or just immobilized in any manner, a satellite GPS with an SOS button could be used to call for help. Again, I'm not really sure if these devices were widely available in 1998. I don't blame Mike Turner for not having one of these. But nowadays I think every hiker should certainly have one and I think an important takeaway from this story is that not only should you have one of these devices when you go in the backcountry but you should also pack it in a place that is easily accessible and pack it in a manner where it's not going to fall or become out of reach. Myself and a lot of other hikers will hang it with a carabiner on your shoulder strap. I also want to note something that I'm sure many of you maybe already have pointed out in the comments. This is that if Mike Turner had not been hiking solo, his hiking partner could have either helped push the boulder off of him or gone to some and help and Turner probably would have survived. It is true that solo hiking, especially off trail in remote areas like this, carries greater risk. Let's be perfectly clear about that. However, a lot of people still choose to do it anyway. And to this point, Mike Turner's wife was actually quoted saying, "We knew an extended solo hike could be dangerous, but I've always believed that to live fully sometimes involves risk." Our Christian faith points us towards a life of courage. So I've mentioned her a few times now. Mike Turner is survived by his wife and he's also survived by two daughters and a son. Though they were obviously devastated by the loss of Mike, the journal that he left behind did bring them some comfort and it served as an inspiration for all of those that have had the privilege of reading from it. My heart goes out to Mike Turner, his wife, his kids, and all of his other friends and family. Folks, that was a tough one, but we're not done yet. Today I'm going to be telling you three stories that at first glance seem like total BS. However, they're not. All three of these stories are 100% real, so real in fact that you probably couldn't even make this stuff up if you tried. From a man who disappeared in a ski resort in Northern New York, only to reappear in Sacramento with no memory of how he got there a few days later, to a deadly booby trap left on a hiking trail in Utah. I'm telling you these stories, they're fascinating and a little bit part of my language here. They're a little bit f***ed up to be honest. So to start off here, let's head to an area that I know very, very well. That would be the Adirondacks of New York State. I absolutely love this place so much and in February of 2018, a group of Toronto-based co-workers took a ski trip to Whiteface Mountain in the Adirondacks. What was supposed to be, you know, a fun normal vacation for these folks? Well, it quickly turned into a mystery that was so bizarre that it would end up making national headlines very quickly. So at the time of this story, I was actually finishing up my senior year of college, only about an hour and a half away from Whiteface Mountain. I was at Clarkson University in Pottsdam New York and because I was so close to where this happened and because I've hiked Whiteface and skied it before, well, this story caught my attention right from the beginning and I remember it unfolding quite well and so I'm excited to tell this one. 50-year-old firefighter Danny Filippidis was in the group that went to Whiteface Mountain. On February 7th, Filippidis left his friends to take like a quick run back to his car so he could retrieve his phone as my understanding. No, obviously, I wasn't on the trip. I don't know these people, but from what I've gathered, I'll say, is that this group of skiers were just like, you know, they were just normal skiers. You know, they were staying in bounds in the resort. It's not like they were ducking ropes and then going, you know, deep into the backcountry. And by the way, the reason that I that I wanted to specify that is because, well, after Danny parted ways with his friends, he literally vanished into thin air. I feel like a lot of the stories that I read and hear about when it comes to missing skiers. Well, a lot of the time I feel like they they leave the boundaries of the resorts, whether intentionally or unintentionally, and then they get lost as a result, but that is not what Danny was doing. He just disappeared. Super strange. And when he failed to meet his friends at the ski lodge later that day around 4 p.m., his friends and his co-workers unfortunately knew that something had gone horribly wrong. So Danny just vanishes off the mountain basically, and his friends report him missing. And then after this, they searched hard for this dude. Searchers absolutely just swarmed the area around Whiteface Mountain with desperation growing and growing with each passing day by the way. I'm telling you, over 135 people were involved with the search they used helicopters and of course they used search dogs as well. They searched and they searched. But this yielded precisely no results. They just couldn't find him. He wasn't like trapped in the woods somewhere. He definitely wasn't hiding out in a hotel in the nearby town of like Placid. He wasn't found with like an injury off of a ski trail, and he wasn't even found back in his hometown of Toronto. However, he was eventually found. Or more more accurately, I should say, he reappeared. Danny finally reappeared, still dressed in all of his ski gear, by the way, in Sacramento, California. So that's pretty strange and just to make it even stranger, Danny had no recollection of how the hell he got from Whiteface Mountain in New York State all the way to the West Coast all the way to Sacramento. No idea. According to a Google map search that I did, Sacramento is some 2,865 miles away from Whiteface Mountain. It's literally the opposite side of the country. Now when Danny was dropped off in Sacramento, he somehow had a brand new iPhone with him, and he had also managed to get a haircut along the way. And all this and yet still the only thing that he could remember was that he ended up hitching a ride with a truck driver who told him somewhere along the way that they were driving through Utah. And so as more of these strange details started to come out, the story understandably got more and more press coverage. And to be honest, a lot of the details still remain a mystery even to Danny himself apparently. However, investigators have been able to piece together like an overall picture of what likely happened in this incredibly bizarre scenario. So it all started after Danny parted away with his friends on Whiteface Mountain that day. He apparently took a wrong turn while skiing back towards his car. and investigators believe that at some point going down the mountain, somewhere near a children's ski slope, ironically enough, he took a fall, which caused some sort of like traumatic brain injury affecting his judgment, and, well, completely wiping his memory. After this, he must have, you know, gotten the rest of the way down the mountain, and then flagged down a truck driver. And at that point, he began his trip across the country. The truck driver, or maybe even there was multiple drivers, we don't even know, but whoever these folks were, that Danny hitched a ride with, were never identified, unfortunately, and so we're probably never really good to know, like, what Danny told them, and like, you know, especially about his intended destination, like, you know, I'd be incredibly curious to hear about that, but they weren't able to find any of these people, unfortunately. But what Danny eventually found was that he was in California, just like that. And he was dropped off near Richard's Boulevard, which is just off of Interstate 5. And then the next day after this, he made his way about 13 miles to the Sacramento Airport, where he was finally picked up and brought to the hospital. Another strange thing about this is that investigators still have no idea how he got from Richard's Boulevard to the airport. And just as a reminder, once again, he was still wearing his ski clothing and his ski gear when he showed up there. My understanding is that Danny Philippidis would go on to make a full recovery from this bizarre incident, which is, you know, awesome. Of course, you know, we don't want anybody to get hurt here. And many doctors, at least in the articles that I read, have suggested that he probably suffered from amnesia. This could have been either due to a concussion or something else. Again, I don't really know, but I'm just so glad that he was okay. But he doesn't remember much from it. And so we're likely never going to know exactly what the hell happened. I do remember, you know, at the time that all of this happened, and especially after they found him in Sacramento, there was lots of like wild theories about how he ended up there or why he went there. Maybe he was running from something all this stuff. But in the years that have passed since then, I think it's become pretty clear that this literally all just stemmed from the head injury. There was no conspiracy. It was just a very rare and bizarre case. Now, the searchers that were looking for Danny around Whiteface Mountain were absolutely just giving their all to find them. And though he wasn't there, it's not like he was purposely trying to hide from them, right? I mean, that seems like something that wouldn't happen. If you're lost, of course, you want to be found. But in our next story, as searchers tore through the backcountry to try and find a missing hiker, this hiker was actually evading them because, well, she thought that they were chasing her. So let's flash back to November of 1989. There's a young woman who had just graduated from college. And on November 4th, she decides to take a backpacking trip on the foothills trail in South Carolina. I would go on to hike the foothills trail myself some 30 years after this story took place. And it was great, although I will say it was far less eventful than this woman's hike. I've actually decided to keep her name anonymous in this story, honestly, because it happened so long ago. And I also feel like she probably doesn't look back on this experience with very fond memories. So this 22 year old woman was about six months out of college. And she decided that a solo backpacking trip would be a good way to like spend some time pondering, you know, where she was in her life and where she wanted to go next. At some point on her hike, she accidentally strayed from the trail and she found herself lost. And that's obviously an incredibly scary situation, of course. But for this woman, it was even scarier than it probably should have been, to be honest, because after she got lost, she became convinced that there were men in the woods who were trying to follow her and were trying to harm her. Again, this happened in 1989, so long ago, before the internet and stuff, obviously. And so there really isn't that much information about this story online. I could only find like one or two legitimate sources. And so I apologize about how general the rest of the story is going to sound, but I'm giving you what I know. And so with that said, authorities believe that this woman after she got lost, she saw some hunters in the woods. And for whatever reason, she thought that these hunters were like coming after her. She even said that the men were carrying walkie talkies and she could like hear them talking about her. I'm not exactly sure who reported her missing or even exactly when she was reported missing for that matter. But at some point, search and rescue was called in to try and locate this missing woman. Authorities searched this very rugged and remote terrain for a full week. Again, they went all out. They utilized more than 100 people in the process, but eventually they made no progress. And so eventually, they had to call off the search. And that could have been the end of the story, um, to be honest with you. But thankfully it wasn't about two weeks after she had started her trip. This missing woman was found alive by ironically enough, a different hunter. She was found in Table Rock State Park, which is near the highest point in South Carolina, which is Sassafras Mountain. And so they found her and they took her to the hospital, of course. And thankfully she was pretty much okay. She had a few like infections on her feet from blisters and stuff. I'm sure. But otherwise, she was in pretty good health, you know, especially given what she had just gone through for the past two weeks. However, when the authorities, you know, started to interview her and tried to get an idea of what the hell it happened, they quickly started to piece together an incredibly frustrating story for the lack of a better word. So not only did this woman believe that the hunters were after her, but she also believed that the people that were searching for her, search and rescue, the authorities, all these people, she also believed that they might have been after her as well. She knew, you know, after enough time had passed that rescuers were likely gonna be looking for her, but this poor woman was just so terrified that she actually hid from these rescuers, fearing that they might also have been after her or that they were the men that were originally after her and trying to harm her. One official from this case said quote, "From the very beginning, before the search was initiated, she became frightened or paranoid that someone was trying to run her down. We feel that had she wanted to come out and be rescued, the opportunity was probably their numerous times." The authorities also specified that there is no evidence that any hunters were stalking this poor woman. Another official said that he personally believed that the woman probably heard construction workers talking via walkie talkie like speakers on their trucks and that she had thought they were talking about her for some reason. And so all this is coming out and the authorities are kind of piecing this together and yet still after that, even after talking to the authorities and everything, the woman still insisted to the press that something wasn't right with her situation. She actually said quote, "I could tell there was no good intent involved in that she quote used instinct like a deer." Very strange story. And listen, please go easy on this woman in the comments here. She obviously made some bad choices. We can acknowledge that. But at the end of the day, this was so long ago, she was only 22. I'm sure she has probably gone on to regret a lot of her decision making in this story. Thankfully, no one was harmed in the process either. I hope that she was able to make a recovery physically and from this paranoid mindset. I hope that she's doing well now. Seriously. I encourage you to leave some love for her in the comments as well. Now, the search for this woman was obviously very involved. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the name of the search and rescue agency responsible for looking for her. It's possible that it was just like volunteers working under the leadership of the government. I'm not sure what the search and rescue situation was like back then. But still, I love the mountains of Northwestern South Carolina. I've spent a good amount of time up there. I even lived in Greenville, South Carolina for a couple months last year. And so with that said, my give back call out this week is going to be a volunteer group named Foothills Search and Rescue. Their mission is to quote, "assist law enforcement and emergency agencies in locating lost and missing persons with highly trained search and rescue canine teams to help locate lost and missing persons." Once again, this group is made up of unpaid volunteers. I'm not affiliated with them at all, but I have made a donation to them. I like to call out these groups in most of my videos. So I'd encourage you to make a donation as well, even if it's just a few bucks. It doesn't have to be a lot. I'll have their website in the description if you can do that, please. So that was a very bizarre story. I feel like I'm using that word a lot in this video. In our next story, to be honest, is equally as bizarre. Although it is much more evil as well. And if you don't believe me, I'm not just being dramatic for the video. Take a look at this photo right here. In April of 2012, a forest service worker was patrolling along the Big Springs Hollow Trail near Oram, Utah when he noticed something incredibly disturbing. Somebody had built a structure, like a man-made structure out of fallen trees and branches, and inside the structure were two booby traps. Now, thankfully, this forest service worker who was named Officer James Sheffler. I'm pretty sure I'm saying that last name, right? This gentleman had been trained in hazardous device detection. It just so happened that he had those skills I believe this isn't in my script But I want to say when I was writing this I remember seeing that he had served in Iraq or something like that I know he was in the military at some point and so yeah He he had training in not only you know being able to spot these kinds of Devices but also in how to disable them and so that's what he did when he found them He took him apart. He made sure that they weren't a hazard to anybody anymore Uh, which was incredibly lucky that he was the one that found them because if you just think about it Imagine if it was just like your average hiker somebody like me or even like a little kid or something I mean, they wouldn't have known any better. They would have seen this interesting for it They would have gone over and then they would have easily fallen prey to these booby traps this The structure the shelter was built as a lure essentially like to kind of draw somebody in and then once somebody stepped inside of it They would have set off a trip wire and when they did this it would have caused a massive 20 pound spiked boulder to come swinging down and Strike the unsuspected victim right in the head and then there was another booby trap in there too This one was designed to trip somebody and have them fall into a hidden bed of sharp wooden stakes That were sticking out of the ground something straight out of like Vietnam I mean just an incredibly disturbing find that was clearly meant to kill or injure random hikers Utah County Sheriff's Sergeant Spencer cannon said quote it took some time to build these traps They took rope heavy duty fishing line and they intended what the traps were going to do a lot of people go up there after dark as well Were very very fortunate that it was officer Sheffler who found it these traps were located only about a half mile down the trail Very close to the popular big springs park trailhead is my understanding. So just a terrible location for this Cannon also said quote who goes up this trail thinking I'm gonna have to look out for booby traps a kid could say Oh cool a shelter and run right across the trip line. So naturally the question is Who the hell would do this? Like this is just evil and also why the hell would they do this and We don't really have an a clear answer to the second question there But authorities thankfully were quickly able to find the answers to the first So after this story broke an anonymous person submitted a tip to the police based off of some photos. They had seen on Facebook of course and these photos made it possible for the authorities to quickly discover That two young men from Orom and Provo were the ones responsible 19-year-old Benjamin Rutkowski in 21-year-old Kai or Kay Matthew Christianson were arrested and They soon argued that the traps were not intended to hurt people, but were rather for animals in the area the authorities However, we're not buying this story Cannon said quote this is a shelter put together by people Visited by people anything that would be impacted by their device would have to be humans Rutkowski's attorney argued that the young men were kind of just messing around You know mimicking what they had seen on TV, you know, manverse wild, whatever They were essentially just doing that his attorney said quote It was just a stupid decision when he realized and thought about it He went up there and tried to disable the devices But by that time the ranger had taken them down I don't think they ever really intended anybody to get caught in the thing It was more games capture the flag and military type of stuff just a couple of boys messing around and who knows if that's true or not But either way, it's a super sketchy situation now both of these men were originally going to be charged with felonies But these charges were later reduced to misdemeanor reckless endangerment I guess because nobody was actually injured by the booby traps. Thank God in October of 2012 Benjamin Rutkowski was sentenced to 20 days in jail in a year of probation which I mean he got lucky Dude very very lucky that his sentence was so light Because if someone had been killed or injured by those traps I feel like there's a pretty good chance that he would still be behind bars as I make this video the other dude Christian sin Kai k Christian sin well He was sentenced to 30 days in jail and 18 months of probation I really hope that during the years following 2012 These two young men got their freaking act together, dude I hope that they learn their lesson and I hope that they appreciate how lucky they are that they got away with these crimes Relatively unscathed, you know not even being charged with a felony It could have been so much worse and so I'm so glad that no one was hurt and with that Thank you all so much for watching