A last-minute change of plan spelled disaster for a man who set out to hike across Wyoming’s Fitzpatrick Wilderness, and he left behind a poignant diary of his final days
An experienced hiker who had set off on a solo trek across Wyoming left a heartbreaking diary telling how a freak accident left him trapped between two boulders and eventually led to his death. Presbyterian minister Mike Turner had gone on a solo expedition to renew his connection with God, with just his black Labrador Andy.
It was because of Andy that Mike decided to change his plans at the last minute. Podcaster Mr Ballen explains: “He and Andy had been up at an elevation of about 13,000 ft, walking on some Icy parts of the mountain and Andy’s paws were getting really raw from walking on the jagged ice
“On the fourth day Mike had noticed Andy was whimpering and struggling to keep up, when normally he was super-energetic.” Taking pity on his dog, Mike decided to take a different route around the mountain rather than over it.
It was this decision that cost Mike his life. Not long after deviating from his original planned route, Mike was giving Andy some water when the dog sprinted into some nearby trees. Following him, Mike walked through the patch of woodland only to come across a breathtaking scene: a huge lake surrounded by a jumble of different-sized boulders.
Andy had scampered across these boulders and was happily drinking from the lake. Mike started picking his way across the field of rocks to get to his dog. But then disaster struck.
One of the boulders started wobbling as he stepped on it, and as the 48-year-old tried to regain his balance he slipped between two of the rocks. Before he could climb out of his predicament, the wobbling boulder rolled over completely, leaving him completely trapped.
While the shape of the rocks meant that Mike wasn’t injured, he had no way of getting free. Mr Ballen explains: “After two hours of trying in vain to free himself it dawned on Mike that he was not going to be able to free himself. The only way he was getting out of here is if somebody found him and rescued him.”
Mike had food, and a small amount of water, and he decided to keep a journal of his experience until rescue came. But as the days passed, his diary slowly shifted in tone from optimism to a sort of gallows humour.
“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 have only 2 quarts left. The irony is that the lake is only 30 feet away…I am drinking 1 quart today, saving a quart for tomorrow. I am also saving my urine. I wonder how it will taste with Crystal Light?”
Temperatures were as high as 37ºC during the days, but plummeted to almost freezing at night. Mike wrote of how he thought God might be giving him this experience as some sort of lesson, then changed his mind and angrily decided that God must be punishing him, before finally accepting that he was coming to the end of his life.
Andy never left his master’s side, spending days on end lying on a ledge above him. On August 5, after four days trapped between the stones. Mike wrote: “I feel so foolish taking this longer pass. So lonely, more than I imagined. Who would have guessed that four days would have gone by and no one has come this way?”
Meanwhile Mike’s wife was becoming concerned that he he hadn’t met her at the end of the trail as they had agreed. She alerted the authorities and a search was launched – but as no-one knew about the change to Mike’s planned route, the searchers were looking in completely the wrong part of the vast wilderness.
It wasn’t until August 28, almost a full month after Mike had set off on his trek and a week after the search had been abandoned, that two hikers found a bedraggled-looking black Labrador wandering miles away from the search area. After Andy had been checked over by a vet, a new search was launched – this time in the right area.
But by then Mike had been found. Another solo hiker, Jeff Stewart, was walking near the un-named lake in the Wyoming wilderness when he caught sight of a man, apparently sitting on a rock. “I had seen the posters at the trailhead and knew they were looking for someone,” he told Backpacker magazine. “So I called out, ‘Hey, are you all right?’ There was no answer. I knew there wouldn’t be.”
A final note, addressed to Mike’s wife, reads: “Thank you for letting me live this adventure. Know wherever I am and whatever I’m doing, I am thinking of you.”
Mike had died of exposure, hypothermia and dehydration about nine days after his accident. Near his body lay his journal, carefully placed in a plastic bag to protect it form the elements. On a nearby rock, Mike had placed his wedding ring: “He knew once he died and decomposed the ring would fall off his bones and be lost in the rocks below,” Mr Ballen says.
“He clearly wanted his family to have that wedding ring, so he placed it on the Rock and then he prepared to die.”
