ONE HIKER’S PEAK OF DESPERATION

He got lost climbing a 13,000-foot mountain. Could his family, his friends and a bartender named Destiny save his life?

He’d been lost for five days in the White Mountains when he limped to the top of a hill, pointing his toes outward to relieve the pressure on his bloody heels. Ron Bolen hoped to catch sight of a U.S. Forest Service road. That night, when the midsummer sun relented, he planned to make one last attempt at escaping Boundary Peak Wilderness.

The 57-year-old assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma had arrived July 13 intending to do a day hike, part of his new hobby of scaling the tallest points in states he visited. Boundary Peak was Nevada’s contribution. He’d parked his silver Toyota 4Runner at a trailhead inside Inyo National Forest, a park spanning the eastern Sierra Nevada and the White Mountains that straddle the California border.

Now, his body failing and his mind fraying, Bolen understood he very well might die here. Aircraft had flown overhead but had missed him in the endless gray landscape. He had

penned goodbye letters to his twin daughters.

It’s never one mistake that throws a hiker into catastrophe. Rather, a succession of small errors opens a door for a new set of errors, in a perilous cascade.

Bolen had pushed through fatigue when he should have turned back, tumbled off a trail, misidentified shortcuts and waffled between staying put and soldiering on. He was alone, had little food and, like many backcountry hikers, no way to summon help without cell coverage. It didn’t help that a helicopter scanning the mountain for him had crashed, stranding its crew in the same wilderness.

Yet he had a few things going for him. His twin daughters and his closest friends had united to aid in the search. And while his miscues were accumulating, so were a series of lucky breaks, including a crucial tip from a local bartender named Destiny. This summer has been a tragic one in places like these. Authorities found a Mariposa couple dead along with their 1-year-old child and dog after they went missing on a remote trail in triple-digit heat. In July, on another scorching day, an East Bay runner vanished during a solo jaunt in the hills above Pleasanton. Rescue teams, helicopters, drones and volunteers scoured 50 square miles of paths, ranches and wilderness areas for nearly a month before they found his body.

This past week, crews in Yosemite National Park were searching for a Stanislaus County man who hadn’t returned from a solo hike from Hetch Hetchy to Lake Eleanor.

The longer a search goes on, the longer the odds of finding the subject alive. As Bolen crested the hill and stared at the Forest Service road, he thought:

There are worse places to die.

***

As a business professor, Bolen liked the outlines of higher education: Summer break gave him months to spend in the outdoors. The divorced father, who grew up in the small Oklahoma city of Bartlesville, had been an avid cyclist and runner. As he grew older, he thought he could transition into hiking as a lower-impact alternative.

In 2017, he got the idea to hike to the highest point of every state he visited. He started off small, summiting some lesserknown peaks such as those in Arkansas and Missouri, which top out at just 2,753 feet and 1,772 feet above sea level, respectively. He checked off his home state, the Dakotas, Kansas and Nebraska.

In July, he hit the road with an eye on a more ambitious expansion of his list. He summited Wheeler Peak (13,159 feet) in Taos, N.M., and in Arizona conquered Humphreys Peak (12,635 feet) near Flagstaff.

After spending a couple of days in Las Vegas relaxing and enjoying a steakhouse dinner, Bolen — known to friends as “Butch” — drove his 4Runner the 4½ hours to Boundary Peak Wilderness, a barren, 10,000acre moonscape in the White Mountains just north of the Death Valley National Park border.

It would be his 10th summit. But this one was different. Boundary Peak, elevation 13,146 feet, was far from a picturesque hike, its two highest points rising like jagged brown and black molars above desert terrain studded with prickly, dense brush. Valley walls were mostly slippery scree fields of loose rocks.

“It’s a very rugged and desolate mountain range,” said Mono County sheriff ’s Deputy John Pelichowski. “There’s not a lot of stuff out there.”

Few make the trek. When Bolen reached the trailhead at 5:45 a.m. on July 13, he had the mountain to himself; no one else had signed the guestbook. That week, only five people would attempt to get to the top.

The summit was part of California before an 1892 geological survey adjusted the state border slightly. Three taller peaks stand nearby, but on the California side of the border. What attracts hikers — many with checklists like Bolen’s — is the ability to drive a vehicle to a fairly high elevation, allowing for a day hike up and down.

For Bolen, the quick jaunt would allow him to continue west to Auburn in Placer County, where he planned to hook up with friends and start a week of camping and hiking in the Sierra. Maybe, he thought, he’d take a run at California’s highest peak — Mount Whitney at 14,495 feet — before returning to the Midwest.

At the trailhead, Bolen texted his daughter Meredith, who lived in Houston. In early July, he’d driven the 27-year-old teacher to her annual paleontology dig in South Dakota, spending days with her while she excavated a triceratops. He’d promised to send a pattern of texts every time he went on a solo hike, cell phone service permitting: Ping Meredith at the start, at the summit, and one final time at the bottom.

Bolen anticipated a 12-hour hike: seven up, five down. He’d stuffed his backpack with a 3-liter CamelBak bladder of water, a 1-liter collapsible water bottle, water purification tablets, a Clif Bar and a protein cookie. He’d packed rain gear, a first aid kit and his phone, onto which he had downloaded a map of Boundary Peak from the popular AllTrails app.

He found himself struggling on the trek up. The path was not well marked, and he had to scrape through prickly brush, boulder-hop along exposed ridges and navigate steep, narrow switchbacks.

Nearly four hours later, a hiker added his signature below Bolen’s on the trail registry. Kevin Conchieri, 27, had recently graduated from dental school in Maine and was looking forward to knocking out his 38th state peak. He’d slept in his car the night before but had arrived at the trailhead later than he had wanted. The morning was beautiful, but he worried about afternoon thunderheads.

As Conchieri made his way toward the top, Bolen was losing steam. At 12,600 feet — just 600 vertical feet below the summit — he let out a groan as he folded his body over and sat on a boulder. He devoured his protein cookie and sucked down some water. At about noon, Bolen texted an old college friend, Mark McConnell, an experienced climber from Houston: “This is ugly.”

“Be smart ...” came the reply. McConnell and Bolen had met as freshmen at the University of Oklahoma and had stayed close over the years, through marriage and divorce. “He pulled me out of the depths of despair,” said McConnell, 57, who works in the energy industry turning manure into natural gas.

Now, Bolen told his friend, “I may turn back. … I can see (the) summit but I’m gassed and want to get down.”

McConnell assured him there was no shame in that, and Bolen decided to head back to his car.

“Knowing your body is key,” McConnell texted. “This sounds like the smart play even though it isn’t what you want.”But before he could begin his descent, Bolen was joined on the trail. Conchieri found the older man sitting on the rock. Bolen told the younger hiker he was thinking about heading back to his car.

Conchieri, who had spent years chaperoning children on backpacking excursions in his native Vermont, checked to make sure Bolen had enough water and food. Assured of that, he sat down beside him. They compared notes on their road trips, sharing stories of hiking exploits.

“We’re so close,” Conchieri told Bolen. “We should totally try and get there.”

***

Bolen told Conchieri to lead the way. He’d follow at a slower pace and they’d see each other at the top. Five minutes later, Conchieri stood at the summit. As he looked over the Sierra, he noticed dark gray clouds headed toward Boundary Peak.

Oh shit, Conchieri thought. Afternoon storms. Lightning flashed in the distance. Knowing how exposed the mountain was, Conchieri took off. In his haste, he mistakenly took a different path off the summit, missing Bolen still coming up. As his shoes clicked over loose stone and thunder trumpeted off the canyon walls, he kept asking himself if he should go back. If he should check on the man he had just met and warn him about the storm.

When he reached his car, Conchieri grabbed a pen and paper. “That storm moved in fast and I missed you,” he wrote in a note he tucked behind one of Bolen’s windshield wipers, before driving off to his next adventure in Sequoia National Park. “I hope you’re OK. Please call and text me when you’re down so I can make sure you’re fine.”

Back in Houston, about 45 minutes after Bolen’s last text expressing disappointment, McConnell received a new one — a selfie from Bolen atop the summit, his mouth agape.

“I hope you’re OK. Please call and text me when you’re down so I can make sure you’re fine.”

Kevin Conchieri, pictured above at the summit

“Couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t get this!” he wrote. “On my way down. Thank you (for) all your words.”

A surprised McConnell texted back: “Okay. Good deal. You know your own body.”

Bolen said he’d call his friend later and tell him the whole story, and he promised to text again when he got down the mountain. But as the hours passed, neither a call nor a message arrived.

***

Bolen began his descent from the summit, alone again. Fortunately, the storm passed through quickly with only a little rain. But he was tired, and it cost him. He had descended about 1,100 vertical feet when, as he climbed around a rock outcropping, he fell off the trail and slid perhaps two to three body lengths down a steep grade.

He could have attempted to scramble back up the loose rock, but opted for what seemed like an easier tack. He angled along the steep face and walked parallel with the trail, thinking he could intersect it.

But the path seemed to disappear. Bolen fought through scrub brush, climbing up only to slide down, in a bid to find the route. For hours, mile after mile, he snaked up and down steep walls. As the sun set, he realized he was far off the trail and lost. He would have to spend the night on the mountain.

Bolen found a small plateau, shaped like an arrowhead. He slept in short bursts under a tree in the cold, the wind chilling his sweaty gear.

That night, McConnell texted his friend. “So ... did you make it down?” The next morning, McConnell woke up and saw no reply from his friend.

“Okay. I’m starting to get concerned,” he texted. “Please reply that you are safe.”

Bolen had no cell service when he arose in the wilderness. His water was gone. He had only three-fourths of a white chocolate macadamia nut Clif Bar. Still, he wasn’t panicked, just upset with himself. He vowed to return to Oklahoma as soon as he got off the mountain. He’d skip his California trip.

He had woken up with a plan. His watch altimeter read 8,500 feet. He would climb back up to 10,000 feet, above the treeline, in search of the trail.

All morning and through the early afternoon, he trudged back and forth on the loose rock walls of Boundary Peak’s countless valleys. Finally, he reached 10,000 feet, but he couldn’t spot the trail. Unbeknownst to him, he was still 2,000 feet below it. He began to realize he was in serious trouble.

In Houston, McConnell tapped out another text. “Brother, again, call me as soon as you can,” he wrote to Bolen. “I’ve contacted the Esmeralda (County) sheriff department to check in on you.”

Nearby in her Houston apartment, Bolen’s daughter was also realizing she hadn’t received a message from her father saying he’d completed the hike. Meredith texted him, “How did the climb go??”

Not long after, McConnell called Meredith. Don’t be concerned, he said, but he was contacting law enforcement, to have them at least check for her dad’s SUV.

When Bolen was a no-show in Auburn, his friends there began calling and texting him. Meanwhile, as he drove near Bakersfield, Conchieri also anxiously awaited word from the hiker he’d encountered. He wondered if he should alert authorities, or if Bolen had simply forgotten about the note on his car.

Around 11 a.m., his cell phone buzzed. It was the sheriff. They’d found the note. Bolen was missing. Had Conchieri seen him on the mountain?

Conchieri was rattled. He’d been the only other person on the mountain, and he’d gone against his instincts.

McConnell began researching Boundary Peak online. What he found was discouraging: troublesome trails and poor signage. Reviews on the AllTrails app were a potpourri of mistaken turns and navigational nightmares. A woman who worked for Inyo National Forest recounted the time she and her husband attempted to summit only to realize they had reached the peak of an entirely different mountain.

McConnell’s phone rang. It was the sheriff calling back. Bolen’s silver 4Runner was still parked at the trailhead more than a day after he’d arrived. He was still on the mountain.

***

Exhausted toward the end of his second day in the wilderness, Bolen rested on another plateau. He had cut his right hand, possibly by grabbing at thorny brush. The temperature soared past 90. Above the treeline, there was little respite from the heat.

He was out of water and hungry. He had spent hours burning through calories, accomplishing nothing.

Hoping to signal to air crews he hoped would begin flying over, he turned his gray rain gear inside out and laid the white lining on a clearing with his red first aid kit in the middle. But there were no indications yet of any search overhead. The battery on his cell phone had died. By 8 p.m., as the temperature dropped, he put the rain gear on and fell asleep. His second night on the mountain. When he woke the next morning, July 15, Bolen’s mind was on a conversation he’d had with McConnell on a past hike. The experienced climber had told him, “The cavalry ain’t coming, you need to take care of yourself.”

Bolen hiked off the plateau. He heard trickling water.

“Couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t get

this!”

Ron Bolen text to friend

Mark McConnell

Springs on the mountain created streams, but they were surrounded by thick, nearly impenetrable vegetation. He slid down steep fields of rocky detritus, searching for an opening to the water.

Finally, he was able to squeeze his 3-liter bladder into the creek. He had purification pills, but he was so parched he couldn’t wait the 30 minutes for them to work. Microbes could kill him, but dehydration seemed to be the more urgent danger.

As he worked his way down another arduous valley descent, he heard the rotors of a helicopter echo in the folds of the mountain. The copter had flown 120 miles south from Naval Air Station Fallon east of Lake Tahoe to start a high-altitude search, answering a call local law enforcement had made to the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center in Florida.

But the roar of the MH-60 Knighthawk remained far away.

That’s OK, Bolen thought.

That means the search and rescue is on.

By this time, McConnell was on an airplane, flying from Houston to Las Vegas. He had sent a press release to a local newspaper, along with two photos of Bolen — the summit selfie and a shot of him at his daughter Jessica’s wedding in May.

Back in Houston, Meredith became the search organizer. She spread the word on Reddit and Facebook and called the Esmeralda County Sheriff ’s Office every two hours. Her sister Jessica, meanwhile, hacked into her father’s YouTube account and scoured all the popular hiking and outdoors channels he followed. She asked them to share her father’s missing-person report.

After his plane landed in Las Vegas, McConnell rented a truck and drove to Dyer, Nev., a tiny town at the foot of Boundary Peak.

Almost 1,400 miles east in Oklahoma, a 56-year-old insurance broker named Brad Schick woke up to news of Bolen’s disappearance. Days earlier, the friend he knew as Butch had texted him a photo of a cigar and glass of bourbon from a Las Vegas casino. They, too, had met as students at the University of Oklahoma. Decades later, they still had breakfast together every Friday.

Schick’s phone rang. It was McConnell, who explained that there were few searchers looking for Bolen. Like McConnell, Schick had climbing experience.

“I’ll be out there tomorrow,” Schick said.

***

A survey of more than 100 news reports of people who survived being lost in the wild, conducted by a tourism agency in the Smoky Mountains, found that the No. 1 cause was wandering off the trail. Only a quarter of those rescued had found their way out on their own. The rest were discovered in the wilderness, still lost.

The keys to survival were finding warmth, shelter, food and water. The “Threes” were critical: You could survive three hours without shelter in a harsh environment, three days without water and three weeks without food.

As Bolen listened to the helicopter’s rotors grow distant on day three, he hiked down one of the valleys. He placed his trek poles at the top of a plateau, making an arrow to show his direction in case rescuers encountered them.

Around that time, McConnell pulled into the dirt lot at the trailhead, gasping when he spotted his friend’s 4Runner. His stomach tightened as he opened the trail registry and saw Butch’s name from two days earlier. He signed the registry three spots below his friend’s name.

He soon learned from a volunteer in nearby Mineral County that four search groups totaling 13 people were checking four exit points off the mountain. The groups performed seven or eight similar searches a year on the peak.

McConnell started up the mountain, quickly encountering thick vegetation after making a wrong turn. Seeing the massive scree fields along the

faces of the mountain, he theorized that if Bolen was in trouble, he would slide his way down one of those. He searched one dotted with pine trees for three hours, stopping every 15 steps to look around, yell Bolen’s name and listen. He reached the tree line at 7,500 feet.

The two men were less than a mile from each other. But a ridge blocked their views, and Bolen was moving away from McConnell.

Before noon, when Bolen reached an impassable granite outcropping, he navigated down a valley wall. He would spend the day traveling farther from his car.

As dusk darkened the mountain, Bolen dropped to the ground. New plan: He would stay put and wait for a search team to find him. This was about as good a spot as any, he reasoned. About 100 feet below him was a stream where he could replenish his water.

Bolen spent hours digging out dirt and softening the ground where he would sleep. He inventoried everything in his backpack, including a flint starter in his first aid kit. It kept his mind busy.

Then he took out a pen. He decided to write messages to his twin daughters on his pant legs. Just in case.

As Bolen dozed off that third night, he heard a gas generator whirring at a command post at the trailhead, providing power to the search party. But there was no generator. Severe fatigue can cause hallucinations.

McConnell had given up for the night. A police dispatcher recommended a hotel in nearby Tonopah, but he was forced to turn around with a nearly empty tank of gas. He rolled into the only service station in Dyer, asking the woman pumping gas next to him where he could find a place to sleep.

I work at Dyer’s RV Park, she

told him, and they had a cabin free. He took it, showered and walked across the street to Boonies Restaurant & Saloon for a late dinner. The kitchen was closed, but they fired it up for McConnell, asking if he was looking for the man lost on the mountain.

***

Bolen woke up at 2 a.m. on July 16, shivering, facing a fourth day lost in the wilderness. It hit him: the flint starter! How had he not thought to build a fire to stay warm and summon help? He would start one at sunrise. Wait, he wondered, is it burn season? He answered his own question: If you want to fine me,

fine me.

Around 6:30 a.m., Bolen began scavenging for wood, dry scrub brush and evergreen leaves for smoke. He built a fire ring with rocks. For three hours he scraped the flint, shooting sparks at the kindling. Each time, it would smoke for a few seconds and peter out.

His fingers raw and blistered, he threw the flint down and looked up the mountain. An airplane. It flew above the ridgeline. He saw more clearly than ever that he was in trouble: No one could see him so deep in the valley, among the trees.

He scrapped his plan. He would move again.

In Las Vegas, another of Bolen’s longtime friends, Jim Webb, a podiatrist and experienced climber, had landed. He had seen news reports, spoken to Bolen’s family, and wanted to help.

Webb, who lives in Tulsa, met Bolen in the seventh grade. They’d play the “Centipede” arcade game together as kids at a local market. The men had just spent the Fourth of July weekend together at Webb’s house on the Grand Lake o’ the Cherokees in the foothills of the Ozarks.

He rented a truck and picked up Schick at the airport. Though both were close friends with Bolen, they’d never met.

Around lunchtime, the pair reached the mountain, but got lost near Queen’s Canyon trailhead, an alternative starting point farther north. By the time they found a sheriff ’s deputy, they were told not to climb the mountain. Law enforcement didn’t want to search for two more lost tourists.

But McConnell was covering a lot of ground alone. He searched the other two scree fields he suspected as viable escape routes. He watched the rescue helicopter buzz through the valleys, hoping he’d see it drop a line down to Bolen. At 11,000 feet, McConnell’s stomach began to ache — a symptom of altitude sickness. He returned to his truck.

The mountain is so big ,he thought. There was nothing else he could do. He figured his friend was dead.

***

His body and mind deteriorating, Bolen fought to stay sharp, focusing on escape plans and basic survival. It was more difficult with every passing hour. But as the fourth day wore on, he bushwhacked through dense brush and spotted what appeared to be a cattle trail in the distance. Cattle are

fat, he thought. They’ll find the easiest way down the mountain.

He reached the narrow trail. As he dropped elevation, he came to a clearing near trees and a stream. There was a trail registry pole with a binder. And about a quarter-mile past the end of the cattle trail, a Forest Service road dead-ended. I’m

saved, he thought. He imagined himself filling out some paperwork with police, then heading to Vegas for a meal.

He didn’t know that the Forest Service road stretched more than 15 miles, and that it led to Chiatovitch Road, a private and desolate track few people traveled.

For 2½ hours, Bolen walked down the road. There were no trees. No shade. No signs of life. His gait slowed. He pulled his rain jacket out and turned it inside out to the white side, wearing it over his black T-shirt to provide some cover from the sun.

As sweat poured down his face and his water dwindled, he stopped. Maybe this isn’t a good

idea, he thought. At least he had a stream back at the clearing. And shade. He felt woozy, like he was nearing heatstroke. He turned and walked back a few hundred yards, then stopped again. Three times, he reversed course, agonizing over which way to go. Finally, he walked the 2½ hours back to the clearing.

Bolen had done marathons and triathlons. But the trip back touched a different level of exhaustion. He inched his way to the end of the road. He worried he’d lose consciousness. That his heart would stop.

When he finally reached the clearing, he stopped at the trail registry and opened the binder. The most recent sign-in was from a hiker in November 2020.

Oh, God, he thought. We’re done.

Bolen gingerly pulled off his boots and dipped his bloodied, swollen feet into the cold water of the stream. He’d lost several toenails. He washed his face, then his hands. He could feel his body shutting down as he gazed into the sky peeking through tree leaves. This is it ,he said to himself. If someone finds my body, at least I’ll be clean.

He tore pages from the registry clipboard and began writing goodbye letters to his daughters.

He tried to tell them how to make sense of this. He would pass away doing something he loved, next to a stream lying in the grass. He wrote that he was sad to miss the parts of their lives that lay ahead.

Then he wrote a letter to whoever might find him. “MY NAME IS RON BOLEN. I HAVE BEEN LOST FOR FOUR DAYS ...” he began. “PLEASE COME LOOK FOR ME,” he wrote in black ballpoint pen, in all capital letters. “I WILL BE FOREVER GRATEFUL.”

He sketched a crude map of the summit and the path he believed he had taken down the mountain. As he lay there, he began to see things. To hear

Courtesy Ron Bolen Ron Bolen at Mount Washburn in Yellowstone National Park, left, and on Lone Mountain, Mont.

Courtesy Kevin Conchieri

Bridget Bennett / Special to The Chronicle

Michael Stravato / Special to The Chronicle Meredith Bolen became the search organizer for her father, Ron, spreading the word on Reddit and Facebook and calling the Esmeralda County Sheriff ’s Office in Nevada every two hours.

Michael Stravato / Special to The Chronicle Mark McConnell, above, is an experienced climber from Houston. Old college friend Ron Bolen had been missing for days when McConnell started searching Nevada’s Boundary Peak, top.

Courtesy Mark McConnell While preparing to search for missing friend Ron Bolen on July 15, Mark McConnell taped a missing-person poster to the Boundary Peak trailhead sign in Nevada.

Nick Oxford / Special to The Chronicle Brad Schick, a 56-year-old insurance broker, helped rescue Ron Bolen, a University of Oklahoma assistant professor who went missing on a mountain in Inyo National Forest.