Garrett Bardsley - The Vanishing At Cuberant Lake

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This video covers the disappearance and search for Garrett Bardsley at Cuberant Lake, a region of the High Uintas located in Utah. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Hey there, folks. When it comes to missing persons cases,
there are a select few out there that seem to
defy conventional explanation, at least at a glance. You learn
the facts of the case, and you say to yourself,
how can this be? How is this person not found?
I've asked those questions many times myself. I make it

(00:38):
my work to find cases like that, and then I
try to dig a little deeper. Usually there's something else
that presents itself as a possible explanation. Maybe it's the
layout of the terrain. Maybe it's the possibility of foul play.
Maybe there's something going on with the missing person themselves.
It's a strange thing to dig a little deeper on
a case and come up with nothing evidence pointing in

(01:00):
an obvious direction. Well, some would say that the case
I'm going to cover in this video fits that definition.
The disappearance of Garrett Bardsley made headlines back in two
thousand and four when the incident occurred, and his name
still appears in the titles of many YouTube videos today.
After giving the case a thorough review, I can understand

(01:21):
why it has stuck in the minds of the public
for so many years. The circumstances of the case can
leave one scratching their head a bit. If you're unfamiliar
with the case, you'll probably feel the same by the
end of this video, or maybe you won't. With all
the information in hand, there may just be a few
legitimate theories that could explain what happened in the High
Uintas back in two thousand and four. But before we

(01:44):
get to that point, there is a lot of ground
to cover, and I mean that both literally and figuratively.
As in this video, I will take you to the
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Speaker 2 (03:45):
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visit Aura dot com slash enigma. Garrett Bardsley was a

(04:27):
twelve year old boy in August of two thousand and four.
His mother and father were Heidi and Kevin Bardsley, and
he also had a number of siblings, including two older brothers,
Jared and Cameron, as well as an older sister, Courtney.
He lived with his family in Elkridge, Utah, some fifty
miles south of Salt Lake City. Garrett's father, Kevin, worked

(04:48):
as a general contractor, but he also was an active
participant in the Boy Scouts along with his children. The
whole family were also members of the LDS Church, which
played a big part in their lives. This story begins
with a plan for Kevin and his three sons to
go on a camping trip along with more than a
dozen additional Boy Scouts.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
While Garrett was.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
A boy Scout and had been camping before, he was
by no means experienced. To his credit, he had achieved
a Merit badge for wilderness survival skills. His father described
him as innocent and perhaps still naive to some of
the dangers and hardships contained in the wilds. Garrett did
have at least one frightening experience while in the Boy Scouts,

(05:30):
during which he came face to face with a bear.
The encounter reportedly scared him to death and would have
made Garrett a bit more cautious and fearful of the woods.
On Thursday, August nineteenth of two thousand and four, Kevin, Jared, Cameron,
and Garrett loaded up their camping gear into a vehicle
and met up with the rest of their camping party,

(05:52):
made up mostly of teenage boys and their fathers. Their
scout master and leader, Wally Trotter, brought his son to
the meeting and helped the rest get ready to hit
the road. Wally Trotter, despite being the Scout master, did
not end up going on this trip because he couldn't
take the time off work. In turn, one of the
other fathers named Gary Hansen, was set to take over

(06:12):
as the group's leader. The entire outing was not actually
an official Boy Scout activity.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
The group of fathers.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
Just wanted to do one more end of the year
camping trip with their children before school started up again.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
The sole goal of the trip was really just to have.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
Fun and enjoy themselves without any of the kids worrying
about earning any merit badges. In total, there were eighteen
Boy Scouts going on the trip, including Garrett. The ages
of these scouts varied quite a bit from twelve to eighteen,
meaning Garrett would be the youngest among them. Eight fathers
were also in the group to supervise the event. The

(06:49):
targeted camping location for this trip was Cuberant Lake and
the High Juintas. The Juenta Mountains are an east west
moving mountain range in the northeast of Utah, d roughly
fifty miles east of Salt Lake City. The trail in question,
the Cuberant Lakes Trail, is about six point six miles
out and back. Overall, there is about one thousand feet

(07:11):
of elevation gain throughout the hike, as it takes you
up over the shoulder of Mount Marcella at one point
before dropping you down into a basin where Cubrant Lake resides,
along with several other smaller unnamed lakes. This basin makes
the area a bit unique. While someone could get lost here,
there are relatively few places they could go without having

(07:32):
to navigate some extremely difficult terrain.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
More than half the area.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
Is surrounded by steep mountain ridges going up, and the
other half has a steep dropped down. The Cuberant Lakes
Trail is the only maintained route into and out of
the basin. While six point six miles out and back
is not a significant distance, the difficulty of the route
is vastly increased by the elevation in this area. For

(07:57):
those who are not acclimated to high elevation, the first
one hundred yards at ten thousand feet can take the
wind right out of you. Having the entire trail be
around ten thousand feet makes it a strenuous hike for
those who are not well acclimated. Still, the natural beauty
of the uintas draws plenty of hikers to come.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
And attempt this hike.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
For a group of Boy Scouts, the hike would still
be pretty tough, but coming from Elkridge, Utah, which sits
about five thousand feet in elevation, Garrett would have an
easier time tackling this hike than a person who lived
at sea level. It does appear that the group had
at least one mule, maybe more to help carry gear
up the trail for them. This would significantly lessen the

(08:40):
burden carried by the group. The hike up to the
basin was rather uneventful. Everyone made it, and all were
unreasonably good condition. The total hike likely only took a
few hours. The Scout group set up camp just off
the main trail and about a third of a mile
from Cuberant Lake itself. The camp site is a flat
area void of trees, but also next to a small

(09:02):
pond and a patch.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
Of boggy grass.

Speaker 1 (09:05):
This spot is one of the few areas that would
be good to hold such a large group of campers.
Almost the entire terrain of this location consists of either
thick forest or steep slopes of rock and boulders. This
is perhaps the reason they did not move on to
camp at Cuberant Lake. Their position still gave them quick
and easy access to several other lakes within this basin.

(09:27):
Camp was set up just out of reach of the
tree line, and as the sun fell everyone was in
good spirits. The quiet mountain location was likely filled with
the chatter of more than twenty men and boys enjoying
the end of summer camping trip. That night, they all
went to bed and everything was well. On Friday morning,

(09:49):
their first full day in the hy uintas Kevin woke
Garret up early, he wanted to take his sun fishing
in one of the unnamed lakes that surrounded the much
larger Cuberant Lake.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
The lake, while small.

Speaker 1 (10:02):
Still contained fish and was much closer to camp than
Cuberant Lake. The dull gray light peeking over the mountain
ridges signaled it was the perfect time to catch a bite,
so the two grabbed their fishing poles and walked off
into the cool, dewy morning. Their path first took them
through a small boggy area, then through a bit of
forest which broke out into the unnamed lake itself, a

(10:25):
perfect serene area to fish in the early morning. The
lake is almost three hundred yards from the camp, or
even further depending on where one is around the lake's edge.
That is the length of three football fields and is
by no means a short distance. While walking to or
around the lake, and certainly before their first cast, Garrett

(10:47):
fell into some water and got his shoes and pants wet.
Shortly thereafter, Garrett complained that his feet were cold and
he wanted to change into a spare pair of shoes
located back at the camp. Kevin, not wanting his son
to endure a brisk mourning in wet shoes and socks,
told Garrett to head back to the camp and get changed.
Before he left, Kevin asked him if he knew how

(11:10):
to get back to the camp, and Garrett assured him
that he did. Yet, as Garrett began trying to backtrack
towards the camp, he inadvertently began going in the wrong direction. Fortunately,
Kevin was still keeping a watchful eye on his son
and noticed this. He called out to Garrett and told
him that he was going the wrong way. He then
redirected Garrett to the correct path and watched him disappear

(11:33):
among the thick trees and foliage. The time was roughly
eight a m. While Kevin was perhaps somewhat concerned at
having Garrett head off on his own, this worry would
likely be mitigated by the fact that it was practically
a straight shot back to the camp, notwithstanding the fact
that this entire location is heavily constrained by the surrounding terrain.

(11:56):
Roughly fifteen minutes would pass, and Kevin decided it was
time to check on things, so he began heading back
to camp. When he returned, he found the rest of
the group were still just waking up and nobody had
seen Garrett. Somehow, he never made it back to camp.
Despite Garrett only being missing for a matter of minutes,

(12:17):
Kevin immediately received a jolt of panic. Everyone agreed that
he could not have gotten far considering the area they
were in. One of Garrett's friends, Alex Trotter, didn't feel
very worried at first, thinking that they would all be
able to start yelling and calling Garrett's name to get
him to hone in on their camp. However, looking at
the faces of fear on the adults quickly sobered him

(12:39):
to the frightening reality of the situation. Some scouts would
team up with adults to search the immediate area, confident
that Garrett wouldn't be far. Other scouts stayed in camp,
casually talking amongst themselves without fully grasping the seriousness of
the current situation. Whatever thoughts the scouts had, it was

(13:00):
all put to bed when Gary Hansen told them, guys,
you need to help us look because if not, Garyt'll
be dead by morning. Eventually, it was determined that they
needed to call for help. They needed more adults who
had professional experience in finding a child lost in the wilderness.
Gary Hansen was the one to make the difficult trek

(13:21):
back down the mountains so that he could get to
a vehicle and drive to the nearest location with cell
phone reception. In order to make his journey a bit quicker,
he took one of the group's mules. After he made
it back to the road, he drove until he received
a cell signal, which happened to be a location at
Lost Lake, roughly five and a half miles away. Coincidentally,

(13:42):
Scoutmaster Wally Trotter, who was sitting comfortably in his office
in the city, got a feeling that something was amiss,
but he couldn't explain what it was. The thought suddenly
entered his mind to call Gary Hansen, despite knowing it
would be virtually impossible for their phones to connect while
Gary was deep in the mountains. He put the idea
out of his head for a while, but it wasn't

(14:03):
long before his phone rang. It was Gary calling to
tell him that Garrett was missing and they were calling
in a search and rescue team. Wally Trotter left work
immediately in order to drive into the Uintas and help
search for his lost scout. The Summit County Sheriff's office
was officially notified of Garrett's disappearance at ten fifty two

(14:24):
a m. A deputy was immediately dispatched to meet with
Gary at Lost Lake. The call itself had come by
way of a forest service worker who was in the field,
probably making the report on behalf of Gary Hansen. Initially,
the deputy was working off very limited information, but once
he met with Gary at Lost Lake, he got the
full story. Both men drove back up to the trailhead,

(14:46):
hoping that by this time Garrett might have already been found.
Once they arrived, it was soon clear that there was
an ongoing emergency. The deputy immediately snapped into action. Outlining
a plan of action for.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
The start of the SA search. He established a.

Speaker 1 (15:01):
Command center at Pass Lake, right off the highway. Their
initial focus was on containment, placing SAR personnel on trails
and trailheads in the vicinity in case Garrett managed to
find his way there through wandering around. Two main SAR
groups were also created, with one heading up to Kuberant
Lake to assist the scout leaders with their search, while

(15:21):
the other was sent to do a search along the
Weber River. The Weber River and Weber Canyon are to
the south of Cuberant Lake. The river runs to the
southeast towards the road. Putting a lot of manpower along
this river was a smart decision because if Garrett somehow
made his way out of the basin, he could easily
hit the river, which would act as a natural barrier.

(15:43):
In fact, it might only be natural for him to
want to follow a downward path of travel, which again
would lead him straight to the river. If he did that,
he might either follow it up or down. Down would
lead to the road and safety, and up would lead
further into the mountains and willderness. This secondary group was
sent to search along the river and deep into the

(16:04):
canyon to make sure that Garrett was not following the
water somewhere. A group of searchers on horseback arrived soon after.
They were given the assignment of first doing the Lofty
Lake Loop in its entirety, a roughly four and a
half mile ride. This choice was perhaps made on the
off chance that Garrett caught the Cuberant Lake's trail, followed

(16:25):
it down, and then made a wrong turn. This was
a distinct possibility, as the trail is the only well
maintained route out of the basin, and even then it's
quite rough. Once the horseback team completed their journey, and
if they had found nothing, they were to report to
the Cuberant Lake basin and help the search in that area.
None of these teams turned up any evidence of Garrett's

(16:47):
presence during daylight hours. As the sun fell on that
Friday and night approached, helicopters were put into the air
to search Weber Canyon using Fleer, an infrared search device
that can easily detect a human being in complete darkness. Meanwhile,
in the Cuberant Lake's basin, a group of adults took
to lighting large bonfires around the shores of the nameless lakes. Together,

(17:11):
they continued making these fires well into the night, hoping
that Garrett, wherever he was, would see the light or
the flames through the trees and draw him in with
the promise of rescue and the warmth of a fire.
But the darkness came and went without a sign of
the lost scout. Starting Saturday, August twenty one, the search

(17:36):
ramped up significantly. Hundreds of professional and volunteer searchers joined
in to help find.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
The lost child.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
The young Scouts who were still in camp, which included
both of Garrett's brothers, hiked back out of the mountains
and began heading home. Whatever the trip was supposed to
be before Garrett disappeared was now certainly over. It was
time for emergency search and rescue to.

Speaker 2 (17:59):
Do their job.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
Up Every tool was used, be it search dogs, horses, helicopters,
or planes. The search became increasingly urgent as it began
to rain that Saturday. To have Garrett get wet and
then endure a night in the mountains might very well
mean death if he was completely exposed to the elements,
so the search staff refused to stop even at night.

(18:21):
The air search continued by using a massive spotlight that
was attempting to get Garrett's attention while also calling his
name over a loud speaker. Most everyone thought that Garrett
would have had to see it. How far could he
have gone from this basin, which is essentially fenced in
by the terrain. Yet the night search proved ineffective. Kevin

(18:42):
was eventually forced to call his wife, Heidi, with the
news that he never wanted to give. When Kevin did
call her, she recalled a sick feeling in her stomach
and immediately had a sense that, for whatever reason, her
son would never be found. When Sunday, August twenty second
reared its head, there was nothing to boost the morale
among the exhausted crew. There was still a lingering hope

(19:05):
at the time that Garrett may have survived the night somewhere,
but those hopes continued to dim as it began to
snow that day. To make matters worse. With the weekend
coming to a finish, many of the searchers had to
leave and return to their day jobs. As Monday passed
into Tuesday, there was no longer any doubt that the
search had become a recovery operation, but the poor weather

(19:27):
that had hit the mountains during the previous few days.
There seemed no possibility that Garrett could have survived, but
there was a brief glimmer of hope that Tuesday evening.
A sack was found in the woods by one of
the searchers, and it was reported that it matched those
left among Garrett's camping gear. The sack was roughly three
quarters of a mile from where Garrett was last seen.

(19:49):
The exact location of the find is unknown, but Sheriff
Dave Edmonds stated that if it was Garrett's, then he
had followed a predictable path of travel downhill and towards
the highest peak in the immediate area. The terrain the
sock was found in was a steep ravine marked by
an outcropping of boulders and small caves. This area made

(20:10):
sense to the searchers as a place someone might try
and seek shelter. Due to the find, searchers were focused
in the area of the boulder field for a while
in hopes that there might be some additional clues. By Wednesday,
whatever hope the sock provided seemed to have fizzled out.
The sack was determined to have not belonged to Garrett.
Later DNA testing would confirm this. That Wednesday, Sheriff Edmunds

(20:34):
said that they had already found a lot of clothing
items during the search, but so far none of it
had been identified as Garrett's. By that time, the search
had been scouring the surrounding thirty six square miles from
the point where Garrett disappeared. The sheriff also said that
there was nothing suspicious about the disappearance and they still
believed one hundred percent that he was in the woods somewhere.

(20:56):
Over the years, Summit County had conducted many searches in
these same mountains. Some of them ended in success and
some of them didn't. Sometimes the lost individual was found,
and sometimes they were never found. A Sheriff's Office Captain
Joe Offrett, described these circumstances in which people had been
found in the past, and it shed some light on

(21:17):
the conditions in the High juintas Afret said that many
of the victims lost in this area seek shelter under
logs or rocks. He said their bodies would often be
found in these types of areas and would be wearing
no clothes due to paradoxical undressing from experiencing hypothermia. Given
the weather in the juentas this description does make sense

(21:39):
even in August, in the summer and during the search
for Garrett, nightly temperatures went into the low thirties. As
news of his disappearance continued to spread, it only motivated
more and more people to donate their time to try
and help. When the next weekend rolled around, the number
of volunteers exceeded one thousand, and despite having the numbers

(22:00):
and manpower on their side, that weekend would end the
same as the last, with no sign of Garrett having
been found. The Summit County Sheriff officially called off the
search at the end of the day that Saturday, August
twenty ninth. There was no great explanation as to why
such a thorough and intense search had failed. Sheriff Edmunds

(22:21):
could only speculate, saying that Garrett could be under a ledge,
lodged in a crevice, or hidden in a cave. Alternatively,
he may have been attacked and dragged off by a
bear or a mountain lion. While there would no longer
be any dedicated search teams from the Sheriff's office involved
in any daily searches, they did allow for a limited

(22:41):
continuing search. This amounted to one day a week so
as to not affect the readiness of search crews for
new emergencies. In addition to that, other organizations were involved
in the search in a limited capacity. But as is typical,
over time, efforts continued to peter out. Evan Bardsley searched
for his son relentlessly. He would search the difficult mountainous

(23:04):
terrain until laid into the night, before being forced into
sleep by total exhaustion. He would spend small periods of
time sleeping in his car and waking up cold at night,
knowing that if he was cold, Garrett's conditions must have
been far worse. Even while the Sheriff's office was conducting
its own search for Garrett, Kevin, along with family, friends

(23:25):
and volunteers, set up his own large search party. Together,
they covered many locations, most of them were places already
searched by the sheriff. The goal was simply to be
as thorough as possible. Sheriff Edmonds didn't even mind that
the family volunteer group was checking his work. So to speak,
the two search parties shared information and coverage data. Working

(23:48):
together in this fashion, Kevin Bardsley was simply not the
type of man to sit back and hope and wait
for something to happen. Both Kevin and Heidi dealt with
the stress of the search differently.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
For Kevin, every day.

Speaker 1 (24:00):
He awoke, he believed it would be the day he
would find Garrett. For Heidi, the opposite was true. From
the outset, she had a feeling that the search would fail.
The family would go on to found the Garrett Bardsley Foundation.
Their Facebook page states that the nonprofit is dedicated to
using experience and resources to help search and rescue situations

(24:21):
for those in need and wilderness terrain. Kevin Bardsley wanted
to use many of the lessons and knowledge that he
had gained during the long search for his son, and
hoped he could save another family from the same suffering.
In fact, less than a year after Garrett's disappearance, another
boy scout disappeared in the Uinta Mountains. His name was
Brennan Hawkins. After the disappearance, the Summit County Sheriff called

(24:45):
Kevin Bardsley and asked if he wanted to come up
and join the search. Kevin didn't hesitate for an instant.
He dropped everything to come and help. After four days,
eleven year old Brennan Hawkins was found at.

Speaker 2 (24:57):
Lily Lake, still alive.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
Incident actually gives some insight into what kids like this
think when they are lost in the wilderness. Brennan defied
conventional thinking and went uphill instead of down. He was
always told to do two things, don't talk to strangers
and stay on the trail. He did both, but not
in a way that was helpful. As it happened, Brennan

(25:20):
followed the trail and multiple times a searcher would come
by on horseback or atv but Brennan would then hide
off trail and wait for them to pass. He was
afraid a stranger might abduct him. He was eventually discovered
by a man searching on foot. It just goes to
show how the thinking of children can significantly affect the
outcome of a search. One year later, in August of

(25:42):
two thousand and five, the Bardsley family organized a new
and final search in the area where Garrett vanished. They
spent a lot of time putting the word out in
order to get a rush of volunteers with hopes of
putting the mystery to bed. The multi day search saw
hundreds of volunteers show up, well over five hundred. During
that time, they discovered many items of initial interest, bones, clothes,

(26:07):
and other gear. In the end, none of it was
determined to belong to Garrett, and the bones were those
of animals. Kevin and Heidi Bardsley expressed their sincerest thanks
to all the volunteers, as well as their intent to
make this the last search. One of Garrett's cousins, Daniel Bardsley, stated,
we know where Garrett really is his spirit, and that's

(26:28):
what matters. The family and countless volunteers had put so
many hours into the search and somehow there was nothing
to show for it. Kevin Bardsley told reporters this was
the last big push. When it comes to the full
investigation done by the Summit County Sheriff, we only know
a pretty limited amount why because Garrett's case is still

(26:50):
open as he has not been found, and while the
sheriff has never suggested that foul play could be involved
in the case, they can't outright disregarded as a possibility. Still,
there are a few things that we know that occurred
in the years after Garrett disappeared. Mostly these things either
amount to nothing, of importance to things that we only
have fragments of information about, But in the interest of thoroughness,

(27:14):
we'll go over a few of these items. On October
third of two thousand and six, an agent from Utah's
Adult Probation and Parole Department contacted the Sheriff, saying that
he had been in the Cuberant Lake area hunting grouse
and he had found a tennis shoe. The shoe was
well worn and appeared to have been sitting in the
elements for a while. Due to the poor condition, a

(27:36):
brand name was not readily identifiable. The agent contacted the
sheriff because he believed the shoe might have belonged to
Garrett Bardsley. After authorities retrieved the shoe, they found that
its appearance and tread were similar to what Garrett was
known to be wearing, which was a pair of white
Converse brand shoes with blue and black stars. The shoe

(27:56):
measured ten and a half inches in length, which is
a bit large or the size six or seven shoe
that Garrett was wearing. Plans were made to present the
shoe to the Bardsley family, and it was later determined.

Speaker 2 (28:07):
To not belong to Garrett.

Speaker 1 (28:09):
On May thirty first, twenty sixteen, two members of the
Sheriff's office went to the Promontory Correctional Facility in Utah
to perform an interview. This facility is located within a
prison and primarily houses inmates involved in two programs. One
is a substance abuse treatment program and the other is
a sex offender treatment program. It is not public record

(28:32):
who they spoke to and why, and for good reason,
as you can make all the inferences you want about
this meeting, but in the end we simply don't know
the reasons surrounding it. The inmate was read his miranda
rights and did speak with the sheriff, but that is
all that is public. These types of interviews do pop
up every once in a while in missing persons cases

(28:53):
and are usually due to some long shot rumor or
gossip that was received by the investigating authority. Ultimately, we
don't know what information they received or what they talked about,
but obviously it did not lead to anything conclusive. Later
that same year, in June of twenty sixteen, a member
of the Sheriff's office went to meet another unknown individual.

Speaker 2 (29:15):
Again, we don't know how they.

Speaker 1 (29:17):
Got this person's name, or why they felt it was
necessary to interview. Then they told this person that they
just wanted to talk about Garrett Bardsley, and they confirmed
that this individual was at Lost Lake with one or
more people on August nineteenth and twentieth, back in two
thousand and four, basically during the timeframe that Garrett first disappeared.

(29:37):
They were asked if they ever encountered a juvenile while
they were there, and they said they did not. This
individual said that they were with at least one other
person the entire time, and between the nineteenth and leaving
around ten am on the twentieth, they never socialized with
any strangers in the vicinity. It's hard to know what
prompted this interview, especially considering this person was at Lost

(30:00):
Lake on those days. Recall that Lost Lake is over
five miles from Cuberant Lake's trailhead, so this person was
well away from Garrett's vicinity at the time he disappeared.
And finally, on May thirtieth, twenty nineteen, the Sheriff's office
received an unknown tip from an unknown person regarding the
Garrett Bardsley case. I mentioned this to show that this

(30:22):
case was continually being investigated by authorities many years after
the actual incident. I think Summit County really wanted to
find a conclusion to this case. They ran a very
thorough search and investigation, but it just didn't work out.
Sometimes things happen that way. There does not appear to
be any updates, even minor ones, since twenty nineteen, and

(30:44):
that all brings us to the present day, where we
are only left with a bit of a mystery. This
case was and always has been one of those where
I really wanted to go to Cuberant Lake basin and
see it for myself. So much of this incident has
to do with the terrain, whether in terms of how
Garrett became lost or whether he could have made it
out of the basin at all. Going there really seemed

(31:06):
important to gain a full understanding of the situation. So
in the summer of twenty twenty four, I traveled to
Utah and into the High Juintas looking for Huberant Lake.

(31:38):
From Salt Lake City, the road takes you through the
Wasatch Mountains, then a valley, and then you start going up,
and you keep going up. The road itself takes you
to about ten thy six hundred feet before you start
dropping down again. As you reach Mirror Lake and Pass Lake.
This is a recreation area, so there is a lot
of people doing things like camping and fish. I was

(32:00):
able to just park on the side of the road
near Pass Lake. From there, all you need to do
is walk across the highway and you're at the trailhead. Well,
I just got here in the you went to Mountains Utah,
and I'm right at the trailhead for the Cubrant Lakes
Trail going to be heading up there. Just here to

(32:23):
kind of check things out a little bit. I'm not
intending to do much searching, because I think the vast
majority of the searching that needed to be done kind
of has been done. I don't know there's any difference
I could make at all, but I'm curious to see
this place, to see how easy it would be to
get lost out here, to see what the trail's like.

(32:45):
I don't know what to expect. I hear the trails
moderately difficult. We'll see how bad the mosquitoes are this
time of year. Kind of a lot of unknowns, So
we'll see how it goes, and I'll keep you updated
as we move along, and we'll get to see this
area where Garrett disappeared and has never been found. So

(33:07):
let's do this. One thing that's worth mentioning that I

(33:45):
forgot to mention as we began is that I just started,
and I'm already tired, and I am not an elevation
person right now, I'm at about ten hundred feet or
something that's pretty high. Uh, just takes it out of

(34:06):
here right away. You know. It's one of those things
that is kind of a funny feeling. This trail is
not a hard trail thus far, but your ability to
breathe being affected certainly makes it more challenging. So but
you know, if boy Scouts can do it, why can't I.

(35:03):
The trail up to the lake really isn't too bad
as far as trails go. It's the elevation that makes
it difficult. The last third does get a little rough
as you begin to climb the steep, rocky hillside. It's
a slog by the time you get to it, one
step at a time, a few breaks here and there,
always watching your step. It's the shoulder of Mount Marcel

(35:25):
and it is definitely one of the most difficult parts
of the hike. Once you get to the top, though,
you're rewarded with a great view of the surrounding area.
All right, haven't gone on camera in a minute here,
because this has been exhausting. I just got up the
steep ridge. You'll see some food of that. It's definitely
the toughest part doing that at altitude. Now it's kind

(35:48):
of looks like it's all downhill from here in a sense.
We're going right into the cuberant lake basin, so I
figure I'll see you down at the lake. As we
creep up to the edge of the basin, you get

(36:09):
your first look at the area in question. This is
the bowl shaped area where Garrett vanished. The pond down
at the bottom is the location of the scout camp,
and pretty soon here we'll get a closer look at it.
None of the actual lakes are visible from this point. Still,
it's a relief to finally be in the area. As

(36:51):
you descend the steep ridge and enter the basin, the
terrain flattens out nicely. The pond is one of the
first things that come into view. The area where the
scout group set up camp. The trail that leads off
to the small lake where Garrett disappeared as easy to
miss I know this because I did miss it initially
and had to do a short backtrack. Once I finally

(37:13):
had the trail, I went through the short boggy area
next to the pond and entered the woods that lead
to the lake. At least once while on this relatively
short trail, I got a little lost and had to
spot the trail again. It wasn't long before the lake
itself came into view. So I get here and immediately

(38:11):
I get bit on the face by a mosquito. Rotten
luck today, I guess, So I've had a moment to
sit down and have all something to eat, get my
backpack off. It's a bit of a high cup here,
but I'm glad I finally made it. Some storm cloud

(38:33):
looking stuff on the horizon here, but we are at
the lake, and I got to be clear, this is
not Cuberant Lake as most people would understand it. I've
probably explained this already earlier in the video, but the
lakes in this basin are basically numbered, with the big one,

(38:54):
which was generally known as Cuberant Lake, that's number one.
This is one of the other smaller outline lakes that
had its own number, and some people say that Garrett
disappeared at Cuberant Lake, which would be number one, but
it's not accurate. He was actually at one of these
smaller lakes. They got up in the morning to go fishing.

(39:14):
They came to this one. It's actually a really nice,
peaceful and secluded lake. One thing that really caught my
eye just coming to this spot. When I was following
the trail down here, I realized that it's really easy

(39:37):
to get lost. In fact, I got lost on that
trail because the trail hardly exists. It's very thin. Sometimes
it peters out. I caught myself just wandering out in
the open, basically in the trees, and then I would
see the trail and I would reconnect with it. I

(39:58):
would imagine a lot of people wouldn't know this trail
is here unless they had a GPS or a map
or something that shown it. Because when you're walking on
the main trail, you're supposed to take a little left.
There's this little offshoot of a trail that heads as
left and heads to this little lake. But I actually
missed it on the first time around. I passed it,

(40:19):
and then when I looked at my GPS, I realized
I had to go back and turn around and come
back this way, and trying to walk on the little
trail that leads to this lake. Like I said, I
got lost once and had to reconnect with it. So
I can easily see how a child could get lost

(40:39):
going that few hundred yards. You're kind of just walking
with a trail that's barely there. And one thing we
know about when Garrett and his dad, Kevin, were down
here and trying to fish, so he got his sock sweat,
he wanted to go back and change them. Not a

(40:59):
terrible walk if you know where you're going. But Kevin
said that as he watched Garrett walk off, he realized
that he was kind of wandering in the wrong direction.
He had to yell at him and correct him. So
that already means that Garrett was unsure of where he
was supposed to go. Now, when Kevin saw him disappear

(41:19):
in those trees there, he figured Garrett knew where he
was going. But I can tell you from just walking
in there that just because you find the trail right here,
you could easily just lose it trying to walk back
to the main trail. Now, the big question is could
he really have lost it so bad that he was

(41:42):
wandered off and was never found. I don't know about that.
You would think after you kind of realized you had
lost the trail, you would be able to retrace your
steps a bit. I don't know, but I can see
how the initial disappearance could take place. I've to do
a little bit more looking around to see if I

(42:04):
can get even the remotest idea about how he could
have gotten lost so bad that he's never been found
to this day. So this is what the outlying area

(42:26):
looks like. Garrett became lost out here. This is the
kind of terrain that he'd be walking through, hilly, lots
of down timber, lots of rocks, and a fair amount
of mosquitoes. I was warned that there was going to
be a ton of mosquitoes out here, and you know

(42:49):
they weren't wrong. But I've only been a bit twice.
That's pretty good. That's really good. In fact, i'd say
this is very manageable. You want bad mosquitoes Crater Lake
this time of year July, go out into the wilds
off trail. I'd beucky to come out of that alive.

(43:11):
I think when I was doing the Bibee Creek thing
for Charles mccoller. I think I got bid over eighty
times on that one. Seventy or eighty I lost count
But here not too bad, which is pretty good considering
we're right next to a lake. And yeah, the area
around here is you know, if you got lost in here,

(43:34):
I could see. The difficulty would be that everything kind
of looks the same. It's not really any familiar landmarks
per se. The question is was how did Garrett get

(43:54):
so lost? Because the Cuberant Lake basin is kind of
an enclosed area, and I know they searched this area
real well, to the point where it's like, should I
even bother looking myself? I mean, they really scoured this area.
Garrett's father was here, just the unending search. They really

(44:15):
did a good job. But how would he get out
of this area? I mean, if he was supposed to
head back to the main trail and he was heading
from this direction, which is one of the outlying lakes,
you can't really go north because there's that impassable mountain

(44:38):
right there that he would not have climbed. And you'd
think he wouldn't really be going to the south either,
because to the south things drop off a bit. I mean,
this is its own little enclosed area, and from this lake,
the easiest path of travel takes you right back to

(45:01):
the trail. So for him to get lost, he must
have I don't know what. It's a few hundred yards
back to the main trail, which is essentially what it
would have been back to his camp, and somehow from
here to there he became so lost that he's never

(45:21):
been found. It is a genuinely hard one to comprehend,
especially given all the searching that's been done up here,
given how in the last twenty years there's been countless
people who've come up here, and those people have wandered around.
No one's found anything. There's stuff that Garrett had that

(45:44):
you would think would be found by now. Rumor has
it you get a fishing pole on him. I haven't
confirmed that, but if true, that should still be around somewhere.
You would think so very odd. To be honest with you,
it's slightly eerie here, but only because knowing what's happened

(46:07):
here just gives off kind of an eerie vibe. You know,
the lake here is very secluded, there's no one else
here right now, and you just kind of wonder, are
his remains here somewhere close by? Who knows. It's an

(46:31):
odd feeling. One thing I keep thinking about is the

(47:04):
during the search, they were lighting fires all around this lake,
maybe the other lakes too. I'd have to double check
that so that if Garrett was somewhere, he could see
the light, see the fires, and find his way back here.
Obviously that didn't work. Temperatures can drop pretty low at

(47:24):
night here and Garrett wasn't exactly dressed for that kind
of weather. I think he had a sweatshirt, sweatpants, shoes,
and obviously wet socks. Not really ideal and just a
brief reminder. I don't know. I'll probably include this in
the video earlier, but there's been reports that a shoe

(47:46):
was found and a sock was found related to this search,
and that is true, but I confirmed with Garrett's father
that those were DNA tested and both were determined to
not be his. So nothing has been found of him ever,
no sock, no shoe, So wherever he went, he was

(48:07):
able to disappear entirely, which is when you think about
the general area, you're like, well, we're in the mountains.
Of course, you could disappear entirely. This is kind of
a unique spot. Like I've said before, you're in a
basin here in the mountains. The easiest way in and

(48:31):
out is through the trail. So where would he have
gone if he made it out of this basin? And
why would he go that way? You know, if you
start going up real steep, you know you need to
turn around. If you start going down real steep, you
know you need to turn around, stay in this area.
But you know, at the same time, Garrett was only

(48:51):
twelve and he didn't have a lot of outdoor experience,
so maybe he didn't know what to do. And that's
kind of the tragic part about it. So I've spent
a lot of time walking around here now, Like I've said,
a lot of this area looks the same. Once you
just walk away from the lake, easy to get lost.

(49:15):
It would seem though, that it is harder to stay
lost because once you get to a certain terrain, you
would think you would know to turn around. And believe me,
they searched for They searched areas far and away from
just the basin itself, because they believe they cleared it

(49:38):
so well. And if they got to that point. They
must have done a hell of a job because there's
plenty of places to search just within the basin. And again,
it's one of those cases where someone only has to
walk a few hundred yards and in that span they
vanish without a trace. This one in particular, it's kind

(50:03):
of weird. If I was trying to come up with
a rational explanation for it, it would obviously be that
he wandered off and got lost, because it's easy to
get lost trying to find the main trail. The question
is how did he stay lost? Did he get near

(50:25):
the edge where it's steep over on the south side
and fall? That is entirely a possibility. You know, there's
plenty of areas around here to fall. It was dangerous
coming up, it's going to be dangerous going down, So
it could be as simple as that. But then you

(50:49):
just get to the point where you go, well, why
haven't we found him yet? And there could be a
million reasons for that too, you know. It's one of
those things that you don't know the answers to until
you get the answers. So, I mean, I can't tell
you how many times there's been cases where everything looks
unexplainable because we don't know what happened. And then as

(51:11):
soon as you find out what happened, you find them
buried under a bunch of rocks and realized they were
taking in a landslide or something. That's when you realize
what you thought was unexplainable was entirely explainable. We just
didn't really have a full grasp of the circumstances, and
that could easily be the case here. I'll also briefly
mention that I don't really see how foul play could

(51:34):
apply here. I know they looked into it, and of
course they did. He wasn't found, But my gosh, it
was hard enough carrying my backpack up here. How are
you going to carry a kid out of here? I mean,
you're at ten eleven thousand feet. I just don't know

(51:54):
how someone would do it. And of course they looked
into it, and there's I've heard rumors they've spoken to
some people about it. Who knows what. Maybe they had
some leads, but obviously it didn't lead anywhere, because here
we are today, still hasn't been found, no one's been
charged for anything. So the assumption is there is nothing

(52:17):
to think of here. As it comes to foul play
because of a lot of reasons. So, you know, I
always keep it in the back of my mind, but
is it realistic, not at all. So overall, I'm glad
I came out here today as much of a hike
as it was, but mission accomplished. And again, the end

(52:41):
result here is that what I learned is that it's
just easy to get lost from this lake right here,
going back to the trail. The trail is that way.
Can you see the trail? I don't know. Maybe you
can because you're looking at it. So easy to get
lost if you don't know where it is. If I

(53:02):
didn't have my GPS, I wouldn't have found it. I
mean I probably would have eventually found it, but it
would have been a real hassle because I would have
had to turn around and come back and dig around
for it. And again, even I got lost trying to
come out to this lake right here, I just didn't
get lost bad. You know, I didn't wander off so

(53:23):
far that I couldn't see the trail was I was
looking around. And again that is one of the weird
parts about this. You know, if Garrett's wandering back this way,
why didn't he see the trail at some point? Was
he aware of his surroundings? Was he looking around? I
don't know. You wonder all these things. Every time I
come out to one of these places, I just I

(53:45):
can't help but wish that I was back there at
that moment to see and stop whatever it was that occurred.
I'm sure his father feels the same way. But you
get to these places and you just you realize that
these people disappeared in areas where it's you wouldn't expect it.

(54:06):
Garrett's father had no reason to expect that Garrett would
get lost completely on the walk back, and you just
wonder how it happened. What was the set of circumstances,
What are the things that happened one after the other
that let this occur? I don't know. You know. Again,

(54:26):
when he was walking back, Kevin had to correct him,
told him that he was going the wrong way. There
was a bit of a sign. It seems like cuse
he ended up going the wrong way. It seems well
it was finally time to leave. One thing I did

(54:47):
want to capture was the experience of walking on the
trail from the lake back to the main trail. I
basically filmed the entire thing, but to save you at
least ten minutes of trail footage, I'll show you a
good side chunk as an example and speed it up
a bit. You'll see that the trail is certainly not
well defined in areas, but it's always a bit easier

(55:08):
to follow a trail when you're actually walking on it.
If you lose the trail, especially one like this, it
can be seriously difficult to spot, even if you're only
a handful of yards away. When you walk this path,
you can't help but wonder what direction Garrett went when
he was trotting the same ground, and what was he
thinking as he was doing it. Once I made it

(56:33):
back to the main trail and looked up at the
ridge I had to climb to get out of the basin,
the only thing I could think was that it didn't
make sense for Garrett to come this way. It would
have been obvious that this was the incorrect path, and
it also takes a great deal of effort to climb
these steep boulder fields.

Speaker 2 (56:51):
It made me wonder how familiar.

Speaker 1 (56:53):
Garrett was with the layout of this area. Had they
ever gone over any maps of this place? Beforehand, had
they ever been here before? If Brennan Hawkins had taken
an upward path when he was lost in the Uintas,
then could Garrett have done the same? Regardless of how
illogical it may seem. There's not much footage from my

(57:22):
climbed down, not that it's really needed, but I will say,
just as a bit of a warning to those who
actually need to hear it, this trail can be dangerous
for people.

Speaker 2 (57:32):
I think it was.

Speaker 1 (57:33):
Probably the last mile of the hike for me that
really got bad. I started having just about the worst
headache of my entire life, just a pounding headache, and
in the last few hundred yards I was vomiting off
the side of the trail.

Speaker 2 (57:47):
This is altitude sickness and it's not fun. It can
be deadly.

Speaker 1 (57:51):
There was just no choice but to tough it out
and get back to the car so that I could
get out of the mountains. The drive back to Salt
Lake City was no fun at all. The symptoms lingered
for quite a while, even after I came down some
six thousand feet. Why did this happen to me? Well,
I came from sea level, so zero feet in elevation.

(58:12):
I drove to Salt Lake City, which is around four
thousand feet. I spent the night there, then the next
morning traveled to over ten thousand feet. In reality, that
made it about a ten thousand foot elevation change within
a twenty four hour period.

Speaker 2 (58:26):
That's not great.

Speaker 1 (58:28):
Altitude or mountain sickness is probably a common occurrence in
the juentas it sneaks up on you a bit more
because you get to drive up to ten thousand rather
than having to climb it. As I was leaving the
Cuberant Lake trail, I actually ran into another group of
people who were heading back to the road as well.
They were on the side of the trail tending to
a man who was clearly very altitude sick. He just

(58:51):
couldn't keep going without the support of people on either
side of him. They asked me to get to the
road and find a member of their family who was
apparently waiting for them. They wanted me to tell this
person about the situation and maybe get some help or something. Fortunately,
I met this family member on the trail as they
had started walking up it after getting concerned that the

(59:11):
group was overdue. At that point, it looked like they
had the situation under control, as they could carry the
sick man the last mile if they had to. The
point is never underestimate altitude. Everyone has a different reaction
to it as well. Some bodies handle it good and
others just don't. I'm probably in the latter category, So

(59:31):
test your tolerance before undertaking any big, high altitude hikes.
I certainly recommend acclimating if you have the time for it. Anyway,
now that we've seen the location in question, let's move
on one aspect I want to discuss, because it changes
how you look at this case. Are the details of
the moments before the disappearance, mainly where Garrett and Kevin

(59:54):
were exactly before they separated. Some sources make it sound
like they were at the lake, maybe moving around it,
and Garrett fell into the boggy grass surrounding the lake
before heading back to camp on his own. In that scenario,
it is a full three hundred yard walk back to camp.
It's a long enough distance for someone to get lost in.

(01:00:14):
Other sources describe something quite a bit different. One says
that Garrett fell into a stream that feeds the unnamed lake.
This honestly would make sense. Having been there, I can
confirm that the confusing. Trail is located next to a
small stream that leads from the scout camp and towards
the lake. It's so close, in fact, that sometimes the

(01:00:35):
trail seems to weave in and around the stream. I
could see how someone could trip there and get their
shoes wet. The biggest difference this makes is the distance.
One source says that when Garrett got his shoes wet,
he was about one hundred and twenty paces from the camp.
If they're using that metric in a technical sense, it
would mean that they were two hundred yards from camp,

(01:00:57):
which would put them in the woods between the camp
and the lad If they're not using that distance literally,
then someone could interpret them being even closer. Either way,
some sources place the duo closer to the camp than others,
and it's difficult for me to discern which one would
be true. The story that places them closer has a
lot more detail, which makes me inclined towards that direction.

(01:01:19):
On the other hand, a map used by the Sheriff's
office and conducting the search placed the point last seen
as the shore on the north side of the lake.
This would place Kevin and Garrett more than three hundred
yards from camp. This might seem like minutia, but again,
the longer the distance back to camp, the more it
makes sense that someone could get lost.

Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
In the end, we can.

Speaker 1 (01:01:41):
Probably say that Garrett was at least two hundred yards
from camp, the length of two football fields, and within
a thickly wooded forest. This could be enough distance for
someone to get lost. Another thing I want to mention
is the condition of the trail between the Cuber and
Lakes Trail and the unnamed Lake. You'll find some sources
out there describing it as a well established path. Obviously,

(01:02:04):
my experience was the complete opposite of that. The path
is confusing in parts and almost non existent in others.
I will grant, however, that I was there many years
after Garrett was lost. A lot can change in that time.
I will also say that, in my experience, side trails
that lead to unnamed lakes are rarely well maintained. If

(01:02:25):
this one was at one time, it no longer is.
It's also clear from the story of Garrett's disappearance that
he wasn't sure of the correct path back to the camp.
Right off the bat, he immediately went in the wrong direction.
To me, that says something about the clarity of the
trail even back then. I think the story itself is

(01:02:45):
telling us that the way to and from the lake
was no more obvious then than it is today, so
a child could definitely get lost there. The answer to
how did Garrett get lost in this area might best
be summed up by one of the searchers who looked
for him, Ed Bonner, who was very familiar with this
area of the uintas related it to the times he

(01:03:06):
brought a group of boys to go hiking in this location.
He said, when I come, I make a couple of
them go ahead and be out front. They ask me
where do we go? And I make them think about
what they're doing. Boys that age they don't think, they
just go. I think that quote really captures what we're
dealing with here. I could totally see a kid walking

(01:03:28):
this trail and then they see it visibly disappear in places,
so they turn around and ask what they should do next.
Multiple times I had to search for the correct path
to take while I was there. When a kid is
on their own and they can't ask for advice, they
are forced to make a choice, and sometimes they don't
think that choice through. So yes, it does seem possible

(01:03:51):
that Garrett could get lost on his way back to
the camp. To me, the larger issue when it comes
to the question of how did he get lost is
actually how did he get out of the Kuberant Lake basin.
To leave the basin means you went down a very
steep ridge somewhere. You would hope that if Garrett encountered
something like that, he would realize it was the wrong way.

(01:04:13):
There were no steep slopes leading from the scout camp
to the unnamed lake. That was all flat terrain with
a boggy area and some woods, So you would think
that someone would recognize that a steep slope is unfamiliar.
I didn't pass this way before. I need to turn back.
But as Ed Bonner stated, sometimes kids just don't think

(01:04:34):
wherever Garrett is. I have to think he somehow made
it out of that basin. That area must have been
searched to death, And in fact, the area pretty much
was searched to death. The GPX tracks from the search
just blot out the entire map. The question of where
is Garrett now is a much more difficult thing to answer.
The basin and surrounding area was searched thoroughly. Is it

(01:04:58):
possibly still within that initial search perimeter. Sure, there was
always the possibility that he found shelter somewhere under some
log or rock face, and he is just completely hidden
from view. Beyond that, you have to consider the possibility
that he made.

Speaker 2 (01:05:14):
It out of the general search area. Perhaps he was able.

Speaker 1 (01:05:17):
To walk to an area that nobody thought possible, as
exemplified by the disappearance of Brennan Hawkins.

Speaker 2 (01:05:24):
Sometimes kids do things.

Speaker 1 (01:05:26):
Differently, they think differently, and Brennan was pretty much the
same age as Garrett. Beyond that, there is one thing
that truly troubles me about Garrett's disappearance. His fishing pole
has never been found. I wonder how long he would
have continued carrying it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:43):
It was an item that.

Speaker 1 (01:05:44):
Was essentially useless to him. But more than that, it's
annoying to carry around a fishing pole in the woods.
It snags on all kinds of things. And besides that,
I can tell you from hiking around this area, if
you're off trail and climbing around steep bouldery slopes, you're
gonna want to use both hands. I really think he
would have ditched the pole at some point. But even

(01:06:06):
that has never been found. The fishing pole is an
object that might also hold up reasonably well to weathering
that occurs. It's something that would stand out. This area
was searched relentlessly and still no fishing pole.

Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
I just find that odd.

Speaker 1 (01:06:22):
Now. What that means could be different for different people.
Some might see it as a foul play indicator, or
he simply did just carry the pole for a very
long distance despite it being a real hindrance to me.
It seems to indicate that he might have passed away
well within the search perimeter and perhaps very near the basin.

(01:06:43):
If he didn't travel very far but found a good
spot to shelter or burrow, then he could have passed
away with his fishing pole still in hand. Alternatively, he
could have slipped and fallen along the steep slopes leading
out of the basin and ended up in a place
where people just couldn't see him. In that scenario, his
poll would still be with or near him. If either

(01:07:05):
of those theories are viable, it would likely mean that
he did not walk very far. I mean, they hit
that area with fleer helicopters shortly after the search started
and picked up nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:07:18):
No life, signs.

Speaker 1 (01:07:19):
Is it possible he wasn't alive by that point. Who
knows Neither the fleer helicopters, the searchers, or the bloodhounds
were able to detect even a hint of what happened
to Garrett, and that is very strange. I think that
is probably why this case often gets attributed to the paranormal.
And I see where people are coming from when they
think that, given the facts of the case, it seems

(01:07:42):
like none of this should have turned out the way
it did. These days, instead of going to the paranormal
for answers in a case that seems to defy my
understanding of how people act when lost, or of how
effective searchers.

Speaker 2 (01:07:55):
And bloodhounds should be.

Speaker 1 (01:07:57):
I try to remember that there can always be a
confounding that I have not considered, maybe something that is
so unusual it wouldn't normally pop into your head when
you consider how people disappear. There is a particular case
I always think of when I consider this point. It's
the case of Greg Monroe in California. He was a
sixty two year old man who went out on a

(01:08:18):
solo hunting trip in the Mojave National Preserve back in
twenty thirteen, and he just vanished without a trace. When
the search started, they found his truck and his campsite,
but Greg was nowhere to be found. They put the
usual resources into this, but it wasn't successful. The only
way they discovered what happened to Greg was by having

(01:08:39):
a ground searcher almost suffer the same fate. There was
a thirty by thirty inch square hole in the ground
that was forty feet deep. It was an old and
forgotten well shaft that was covered by brush, and so
it was impossible to see. The fall killed Greg, and
luckily the searcher caught themselves before they fell in as well.
The point is it was only a stroke of luck

(01:09:01):
that found Greg. That situation could have easily played out differently,
and Greg Munroe would be another person whose disappearance would
be debated to this day. I'm not necessarily saying that
Garrett fell down a well shaft, but it's the same
idea of some confounding factor, something you wouldn't normally think of,
that is the cause of the disappearance, and obviously it

(01:09:22):
doesn't always have to be paranormal.

Speaker 2 (01:09:24):
At this point, we may never know.

Speaker 1 (01:09:26):
What happened to Garrett, but it certainly seems like there
was nothing left that could have been done back when
they were searching for him. I can't even begin to
imagine what the Barsley family had to go through. The
not knowing of what happened must be incredibly difficult to
come to terms with, especially when Garrett only had to
walk a couple hundred yards. The emotions that must be

(01:09:48):
involved to have something like this happen, it's unfathomable to me. Understandably,
Kevin no longer seems interested in talking about the case.
At least that was the impression I got from a
brief interaction I had with him, and I get that
he spent many years putting Garrett's name and story out
there in the public eye. He appeared on multiple television programs,

(01:10:11):
including Oprah back in the day. His organization participated in
search and rescues for other lost children. He built a
school in Ecuador that bears Garrett's name. He spent a
lot of time talking about this story. I think it's
certainly had a lasting effect. Garrett Bardsley is a name
I've heard consistently since I started this channel, meaning many

(01:10:32):
people wanted me to cover this incident as usual. I
hope that even the folks who were familiar with this
incident learned something new. I'm looking forward to hearing all
of your thoughts and theories about the case and the comments,
and until next time, thanks for watching, and then ban