This may be old news, but
Sierra Wave provided a little more information about the hiker and the situation:
The 13-year-old son of a Mammoth Lakes Emergency Room doctor remained missing in the Sierra mountains at last word - the subject of a two-day search.
Last night, Mammoth Lakes friends of Dr. Rick Shedd prepared to pack up and go help look for his son, Austin Shedd. At last word, they were on stand-by. Dr. Shedd had reportedly hiked down to Independence from the Baxter Pass area Monday where other relatives awaited word.
According to friends of the doctor, he had stopped to make a sandwich for his son during their hike, and when he finished his son was gone. The doctor and a hiking partner searched for the boy. Dr. Shedd finally hiked down to the Owens Valley to get help. The hike itself involved high elevations in the backcountry above Big Pine and Independence.
Inyo Search and Rescue is not working the boy's disappearance at last report. The Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park was reportedly conducting the search. Yeah, as a dad, me too.
But. Now that he's found:
Am I the only one that thinks that something is not quite right about this
story? He walks off during lunch, and is that quickly out of earshot while
several other party members are searching and presumably calling for
him?
Hmmmmmmmmmm . . .
I thought that odd too. Interested to get more details!
I thought some follow-up would be interesting and instructive, too. I also can't remember another SAR story with absolutley no follow-up, no interview with the family or victim. Lots of things about this don't fit. The boy disappears in the time it takes to make a sandwich, out of earshot. Lost and alone overnight at elevation, gets back on trail and finds the trail crew, evac by chopper and not a single quote anywhere from the kid, the rescuers, family. Odd.
Hmmmm... Reading the above post about dad making a sandwich makes me think -- With an adolescent boy and his dad, who knows how much cooperation or non-cooperation was going on? Who knows how much communication between the two there was? It is quite possible the kid just kept walking, thinking Dad would catch up. Or kid was angry at something dad asked or talked about and he kept walking for a while... I can think up a few scenarios where a 13-y-o kid would be less than cooperative. My son was 13 once.
A few years back, a guy related a trip he and a friend were on, and they got into an argument about getting water. Last interaction was one walking past the other at a rest stop. One then aborted the trip, and left the backcountry. The other was left to go on, with no clue where the other was. Last I heard, after a year, they had barely spoken to each other. ...Stuff happens.
