Grayson Wynne was among a party of about 15 family members that left Saturday, June 21, 2009 from the Spirit Lake trailhead in Daggett County of Northern Utah. The group stopped to tighten a saddle on a horse at some point, said Grayson’s dad, Kynan Wynne. But Grayson didn’t realize it and went ahead of the pack before diverting onto a smaller trail in the thick forest.
When he realized he’d been separated from his family, Grayson’s thoughts turned to television. He watches “Man vs. Wild” on the Discovery Channel every week with his brothers and his dad. On the show, host and adventurer Bear Grylls strands himself in the wilderness and then shows viewers how to survive the sticky situations. That’s where Grayson says he learned to leave clues behind to help searchers find him.
On Saturday, when he was scared and alone in the Ashley National Forest, Grayson started tearing up his yellow rain slicker, despite the intermittent downpours, and tying pieces to trees. “I just used my hands,” said Grayson, “I don’t know how many times I tore the thing but quite a lot.”Grayson also created a small shelter overnight under a fallen tree. The next day, he decided to follow a creek in hopes of finding help.”I (thought I) might find the lake, that there might be somebody at the lake,” he said.Grayson also left a couple of clues for searchers that he didn’t mean to.He dropped a granola bar wrapper about 300 yards off the main trail. Searchers also found a small footprint and a backpack about 400 yards from the wrapper.
“I was just being pretty stupid that I dropped the backpack,” Grayson said. “I was just panicking too much.”
When Grayson heard a helicopter overhead, he ran into a meadow and waved the last piece of his jacket. But two searchers on horseback saw him first.
“It was such a good feeling that I was going to be all right,” said Grayson, who will start fourth grade in the fall, spent a total of 18 hours lost in the wilderness. When he was reunited with his father, his first words were “Happy Father’s Day.” Grayson got back to normal Monday by playing in a Little League double-header.
