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Show VAILY ungay, August £8, 2vU> HERALD Garrett's story Little League Family trip to the Bahamas Garrett, right, and friends on a Scout campout. “Thelast thing I wantedto do wastell Heidi that Pd lost Garrett. I could almostimagine him walkingthrough thosefields crying; crying for Mom,crying for Dad.” Later in the weekend Garrett Bythis time Heidi Bardsley hadarrived on the mountain, with hope but not expecting much. She knew,though, her husband needed her, and she knewthey hadto do everything they could to find Garrett. With Heidi there, Kevin calmed down some. Buthe still searched and worried and searched moreto getrid of the worrying. “I rememberoneofthefirst particular times I knelt down by myself andtried to bargain with the Lord,that I'd do anything to have him back,”hesaid.“I got an overwhelming impression that I didn’t have to worry about Garrett, that his test was done.” Continuedfrom Al 150 yards from the lake, a walk ofjust a few minutes. Kevin returned to camp about 15 minutes later and learned Garrett had not madeit back. The12-year-old had only been missing for a fewminutes, and no one thought he could have gotten far. Kevin,althoughstarting to panic, focusedonhis task. “I rememberthinkingthat I've gotto find him,” he said. “I just ached inside because I wantedto hold him sobad.” For Alex Trotter, finding outhis friend was lost wasn't muchof a concern — atfirst. “Wethoughthe'd yell, or hear us and come toward the sound,”hesaid. Notuntil seeing a trusted leader's fear did Praying was hard after that, Kevin said, be- cause he was afraid he'd get the same answer again. Hedid,several times. By Sunday, twodays after Garrett hadlast been seen, the mood was moreurgent. Searchersstill held a desperate hope the missing boy was alive, but the day progressed with no sign of him. To addto the bleak picture,it snowed on Sunday, and manysearchers,including Wally, had to returnto their homes,jobs andlives. On Tuesday, the rescue mission becamea recovery mission. Just a couple hundred people wereon the mountain later that week when Wally returned. The numberof volunteers swelled to about1,000 that second weekend,but by Sunday, Summit Countycalled theofficial searchoff. “That was a tough day,” Wallysaid. “I was going homewithout oneof myboys.It wasn’t right to leave onethere.” Alex begin to understandthe seriousness. “I just rememberlooking at Brother Hansen’s face, and he was wild-eyed andpale, and he’s a tough guy,” Alexsaid. Tanner Dunn rememberedbeinga little scared. He teamedup with oneof the adults and they. spread out to search the immediate area, confident that Garrett had just wandereda little ways in the wrong direction. Theseriousness sunk in later for the two boys, who wereplaying with the others while the leaders searched. “Garysaid, ‘Guys, you need to help us look, becauseif not, Garrett’ll be dead by morning,” Alex said. Back home Acceptance For Wally, Friday morning was anything but The reality took sometime for the Bardsleys to digest. “It's hard to rememberthose two weeks because you'rejust kindofin a blur and you're body's kind of numb,” Courtney Christen, Garrett'ssister, said. “I thought we were going peaceful. He was sitting in his office interviewing people when he suddenly got concerned about Alex. Thefeeling bothered him two or three times, until just as suddenly, he gota feel- ing that Alex was fine. Wally put the concerns behind him to find him.” Heidi accepted it more quickly than Kevin. Laterthat morning, he got a prompting to call Gary Hansen,the young men’s president on “IT remember days I would wakeupsaying, ‘Today's the day we're goingtofind him,’ ” Kevin said. “And I never thoughtthat,” Heidisaid. They noticed immediate changesin their family; Courtney, Jared and Camerongrewcloser and moresensitive to each other. For Cameron, whowas closestin ageandrelationship to Garrett — the twocould pass for twins in pictures fromjust a couple of years ago — the loss was especially hard. The two had always'shared a room until just a few months before, when Cameron decided he wanted his own room. “But whenthis happened, Cameron didn’t wantto be alone, and Jared immediately took him into his room andsaid,‘I want Cameron to be with me,’ ” Kevin said. He was moresensitive to Heidi's feelings as well, Kevin said; he didn't wantto add to the pain she was already feeling. That pain wasespecially acute because of how close Garrett and his mother were,closer than she was with the other three. we hadto packa lotin in 12 years,” Heidi the trip. He dismissed the thought, since no one could get cell phone reception in the mountains, although he found outlater that by that time Gary was downfrom the mountain and calling for help to search. Then Wally’s phonerang. “I said, ‘OK, I'll be there,’ hung up the phone, ran upstairs and told myboss,‘See ya,I’m gone,’ hesaid. Wally madethe drive to the mountains,reasonably confidentthat as soon as he got there he would hear Garrett had been found. It was when hearrived and didn’t hear that newsthathereally started to worry. The bears Garrett had just turned 12 a few weeksbefore the campout, and while he’d been camping before, he wasn’t very experienced. Kevin called him ipnocent, “without any hardnessof the world.” Wally said any numberof factors could have caused Garrett to get lost. He wondered if Garrett worried aboutthe wildlife. “Garrett ran faceto faceinto a bear, andit scared him to death,” Wally said, remembering an earlier Scout camp with about 400 boys. Garrett came running into campsaying he'd seen a bear; Wally, not quite believing him,started asking questions. A few observations later Wally was believer. “Yep, you sawa bear,” he told Garrett. “Let's gosee ifwe can find him.” He gathered up the Scouts and theystarted heading toward the woods,all eager to demonstrate their bravery — until Wally stopped and threw his arms out “T yelled out, ‘Look out,thereit is! And boys just started to go everywhere,”he said with a laugh. Garrett's fear was real, though, and Wally wondersif maybe, when Garrett found himself turned around,he panickedat the thought of meeting anotheroneandjust started running. On the mountain Morethan anything, Kevin Bardsley wanted to find his son. What he wanted second most was forhis wife to be there, but that scared him too. “The last thing I wanted to do was tell Heidi thatI'd lost Garrett,” he said. “I could almost imaginehim walking throughthose fields crying, payne for Mom,crying for Dad.” hadto find out eventually. She was out Said, Baptism we 2000 of town whenher husbandcalled.with the news, and shegota sick feeling in thepit of her stomach andsaid she knew then Garrett would not be found. Kevin wasnot convinced. He spent the next few days running around frantically, always on the move but neverrunning outof energy. He searched until midnightorlater the first coupleof nights, long after the other searchers had goneto bed. Whenhe finally had to stop, he would hiketo his car, drive to Kamas andcall people — his wife, his daughter, other family members — just to hear their voices. Then he'd drive back up the mountainand, al- most against his will, fall asleep in his car for an hour or so before waking upcold, yet another reminderof the challenge facing him. “I realized if I was cold, what was Garrett?” Guilt also hit Heidi Bardsley and Wally Trotter; Heidi said she haddifficulty sleeping or eat- ing knowing her youngestson didn’t have those basic needs being met. Wally felt the guilt most Saturday night.It had rained that day, and he was cold, wet and tired. He returned to his tent, changed clothes and crawled into a sleeping bag for what turned outto be a restless night, “All could think about was I’ve got a boy out there who doesn’t havethose,andI felt guilty for being warm,”he said. Theefforts The search was in high gear the first weekend; hundreds of searchers combed the mountains yelling Garrett's name, while a helicopter and , search plane searched from above,shining a spotlight andcalling Garrett overa loudspeaker. “T've never seena spotlight that couldlight up the trees and the mountainsidelike that one could,” Wally said. “You kinda think ‘he's gotta hear it, he’s gotta see it, we're gonna find him.’" Heandseveral other men spenta sleepless Friday night at one of the nearby lakes,lighting bonfireafter bonfire around the shores, hoping Garrett would see the flames and come toward the fires to get warm. Saturday brought the sun, which warmed up the shivering volunteers, and with it renewed hope and vigor for the search. But it also saw the Scouts,including Garrett's brothers, sent home. “I think one of the hardest things for meto watch was, I watched Cameron and Jared pack up Garrett's thingsin his backpack,” Wally said. That dayit rained. The Scoutmaster in Wally knew what that meant. If Garrett was still alive, he was now wet.If he was wet when the sun went downand the temperature dropped to below freezing, he probably would not survive the night. Kevin also looksat his childrendifferently, after learning to see Garrett through God’s eyes. “It also made merealizeas a father, maybe I ae to lookat all my children that way,” he Sal Tey sawtheir children grow upquickly, shoulderinga difficult burden andtrying to take on as muchoftheir parents’ burden as they could. Kevin said he realized just how much the last year has affected his children at the search earlier this month. The Bardsleys and Summit County had organized final search effort to bring Garrett home, and about1,500 people showed up throughoutthe courseof three days. Their 18-year-old son took on the task of comforting his mother. “Jared just said to her, ‘Mom, Garrett was neveralone,’ ” Kevin said. “He just said, ‘I just wantto find Garrett for Mom.’ ” Courtney said the family had grown stronger as well. “This could either makeyoucloseror tear you apart, but we've made sureit made us closer,” she said. Their faith has held them together, as they searched for how they couldreact to this instead of wond whyit happened to them. “We've alwaysfelt there was a purpose,” Heidisaid. But knowingthere was a reason didn't make Continued on A7 |