Garrett Bardsley: Utah Boy Scout Vanishes Without a Trace
12-year-old Garrett disappeared during a camping trip
Young Boy Disappears
Garrett Bardsley, a 12-year-old Boy Scout, went camping with his father, brothers, and other Boy Scouts in Utah’s Uinta Mountains in late August 2004. It was meant to be a fun trip before the start of a new school year. But what had begun as an enjoyable outing in the wilderness would unexpectedly turn to tragedy.
Garrett got up early on the morning of August 20th to go fishing with his father at one of the nearby lakes, but the boy would soon mysteriously vanish on his way back to camp. And though the search for him was initiated within just 15-20 minutes of when he was last seen, neither Garrett nor the fishing pole he’d been carrying would ever be located.
What happened to Garrett Bardsley?
Garrett Alexander Bardsley
The youngest of four children, Garrett Alexander Bardsley was born on July 24th, 1992, to parents Heidi and Kevin. The family was Mormon and active in the LDS Church.
Sweet and happy, 12-year-old Garrett loved school and being a member of the Boy Scouts. Though he struggled with reading, he had a determined spirit and was intent on improving.
“Garrett was always the kid who had the most fun,” remembered his father Kevin, “he was the one that made us laugh.”
Garrett enjoyed the outdoors and camping, and had earned a merit badge for wilderness survival skills.
But his time spent out in nature wasn’t always carefree. In fact, he’d had a disturbing encounter once while in the woods:
“Garrett ran face to face into a bear, and it scared him to death,” recalled Scoutmaster Wally Trotter.
Fortunately, though, Garrett walked away from the incident unharmed.
Early Morning Fishing
On August 19th, 2004, Garrett and a group (which included his father Kevin, his two brothers, 18 Boy Scouts—ranging in age from 12 to 18—and 8 other fathers) reached the Cuberant Lake area of the Uinta Mountains for an end-of-summer camping trip. Wally Trotter, the scoutmaster, was unable to accompany them as he couldn’t get the time off work.
The Cuberant Lakes Trail is approximately 6.6 miles long and reaches an elevation of 1,000 feet. Aside from Cuberant Lake itself, there are several smaller lakes in the region, none of which have ever been officially named and have been assigned numbers instead.
The hike was uneventful and the group set up camp around a third of a mile away from Cuberant Lake.
The following morning, Kevin woke up his youngest son and told him to get ready to go fishing. Kevin and Garrett walked to one of the unnamed lakes with their fishing poles. It’s unclear how far away from camp they were, as sources vary—citing anything from 150-300 yards.
However, the map that law enforcement would use in their search for Garrett indicated that the father and son had been at the northern shore of the lake, placing them more than 300 yards away from the camp. The lake is situated in a basin, with a mixture of open and wooded areas around it. The basin itself is surrounded by steep terrain.
Garrett suddenly fell into the water (it’s not clear where exactly, but either in a boggy area beside the lake or in a stream next to the trail) and his pants and shoes were soaked. Because of this, he became cold and wanted to change into dry clothes and shoes.
Kevin thought this was a good idea and suggested that his son head back to camp, since that’s where his extra clothing was. He asked Garrett if he knew his way back and Garrett assured him that he did. Which made sense as the camp is said to have been a fairly straight shot away from where they were set up for fishing.
However, as Garrett started to leave, Kevin noticed that he went in the wrong direction and corrected him. Now heading the right way, the 12-year-old soon disappeared from view around 8 a.m.
After 15 minutes had passed with no sign of Garrett, Kevin wondered where he was and returned to camp—only to find out that Garrett had never arrived. They began to search for the missing Boy Scout immediately, calling out to him as they went, but neither heard nor saw him anywhere.
“We thought he’d yell, or hear us and come toward the sound,” said Alex, one of the missing boy’s friends.
But he never did.
Where is Garrett?
Kevin and the others knew how crucial it was to locate Garrett before nightfall, as the temperatures would plummet then. But no trace of the 12-year-old (not even his fishing rod) turned up.
In the coming days, the Bardsley family, with the help of search and rescue team members and over 1,000 volunteers, tirelessly looked for Garrett. Searchers—on foot and horseback, utilizing helicopters and bloodhounds—discovered nothing.
“We don’t want to leave Garrett on this mountain,” Kevin said. “We want to bring him home.”
The only clue yielded by these extensive efforts was a single sock, but DNA testing would ultimately prove that it did not belong to Garrett.
At one point during the search, Kevin was overcome by a strange feeling.
“I remember one of the first particular times I knelt down by myself and tried to bargain with the Lord, that I’d do anything to have him back. I got an overwhelming impression that I didn’t have to worry about Garrett, that his test was done.”
Sadly, after several days had gone by, the search for Garrett became a recovery mission, as they knew that he likely couldn’t have survived this long in the wilderness, especially with the low temperatures at night. Still, no trace of him was found.
“It’s hard to remember those two weeks,” said Garrett’s sister Courtney, “because you’re just kind of in a blur and your body’s kind of numb. I thought we were going to find him.”
The loss was devastating for the entire family, but perhaps had the strongest impact on Garrett’s brother Cameron, as the two had been very close.
The Garrett Bardsley Foundation
“We have two lives,” stated Kevin. “We have a life before Garrett, when Garrett was here, and we have a life after Garrett.”
The family attempted to channel their grief into something positive and formed The Garrett Bardsley Foundation, whose mission is to help locate missing persons, as well as to build schools in poor nations.
Kevin would go on to join the search for another Boy Scout who had gone missing in the Uinta Mountains—11-year-old Brennan Hawkins—who would ultimately be found safe.
YouTuber The Missing Enigma visited the area in which Garrett Bardsley vanished and shared the experience with viewers. He noticed that the trail leading to the lake is narrow and poorly defined in some spots, making it easy to get off track.
What he found to be less clear, however, was how Garrett would have managed to leave the basin region—if he did—as the area within the basin was thoroughly searched and the land surrounding it is rather steep and difficult to navigate.
Perhaps Garrett sought shelter somewhere that is hidden from view and this explains why he was never discovered. As other cases have shown, it is unfortunately easy to not only get lost in the wilderness but also to never be located.
The authorities do not believe that foul play was involved. Though, interestingly, investigators reportedly spoke to an inmate in connection with Garrett’s case. Neither the name of this individual nor the content of the interview have ever been released to the public.
The most common theories are that he either succumbed to the elements or might have been attacked by a wild animal—although no blood or signs of a struggle were ever discovered.
The show America’s Most Wanted received a tip in 2009, from a woman who claimed to have spotted Garrett with two unidentified men in a grocery store. This sighting has never been substantiated.
In 2006, a hunter discovered a shoe while hunting near Cuberant Lake. It looked to have been there for some time and was similar in appearance to the shoes that Garrett was known to have been wearing at the time of his disappearance. Yet, upon closer examination, it became clear that the sneaker could not belong to him, as it was too large.
To this day, Garrett Bardsley has never been found and his disappearance remains a mystery.
Of the unnamed lake near which he was last seen, Wally Trotter had this to say:
“We don’t care what the rest of everybody calls it. In our mind that is Garrett’s Lake and that will always be Garrett’s Lake.”
Heidi Bardsley took comfort in the memory of the last interaction she had with her son, which she poignantly described:
“I know he knew that I loved him. The last time I saw him, he gave me a big hug. That’s what keeps me going through this. I can still feel him squeeze me.”
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