The Unexplained Disappearance of Garrett Bardsley
Photos of Garrett Bardsley before his disappearance. Photo: The Charley Project
Garret Bardsley was fishing with his dad at Cuberant Lake in Utah, when he decided to return to camp for a change of clothes. Even though the camp was only 250 feet away from the lake Garret never made it back and has never been seen since.
Who was Garret Bardsley?
Garret Bardsley was a 12 year old boy from Summit County, Utah. He was a happy child who loved the outdoors, baseball and wanted to be a missionary when he grew up.
He was described as caucasian, with light brown hair and hazel eyes. At the time he went missing his hair was shoulder length. He had a little gap between his two front teeth and a birthmark on his right forearm.
When he disappeared he was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt from QuickSilver, with the brand name written on it, and it was a size medium.
His pants were reversible Nike sweatpants. On one side, they were red and made of silky fabric, with black and white stripes running down the legs. On the other side, they were made of black mesh and had red and white stripes on the legs.
He also had a white t-shirt on, which may have had some words or a logo on it. He was wearing Nike ankle socks, and his shoes were white Converse sneakers with a black or navy-colored star on the sides. They were sized between six and eight.
The Disappearance of Garret Bardsley
Lake Cuberant where Garrett Bardsley was last seen. Photo: Strange Outdoors
On the morning of August 20, 2004, and 12-year-old Garrett Bardsley and his dad, Kevin, were on a camping trip with a group of Boy Scouts in the Uinta Mountains in Utah.
They woke up early and went to a nearby lake called Cuberant 1 for some fishing. They had been camping since August 19 and planned to leave on August 21.
While fishing, Garrett's shoes, pants, and socks got all wet, and he didn't feel comfortable in them. So, he asked his dad if he could go back to their campsite, located just 150-250 feet away, to change his clothes.
He promised his dad that he would be back soon to try and catch a fish for breakfast. The rest of their Boy Scout group was camped nearby at the Cuberant #4 campsite, up the hill from where Garrett and his dad were fishing.
Kevin had walked the trail with his son several times before, so when Garrett asked if he could go back to camp alone, Kevin didn't think twice about it. He kept an eye on Garrett as he walked around the lake and even shouted directions, making sure Garrett knew which path to take to get back to camp.
But after about 20 minutes, Kevin began to wonder why his son hadn't returned yet. He decided to head back to camp to see what was going on, but when he got there, Garrett was nowhere to be found. None of the other Boy Scouts had seen him return to camp.
The Search for Garret Bardsley
The campsite was really close to the lake, less than a quarter-mile away, and there was a well-established path that connected the two places.
A family friend said that the distance from where they were fishing to the camp was no more than 150 paces away. The path also connected to a road about another quarter-mile away.
Despite the short distance, more than 200 volunteers and search and rescue team members searched for Garrett into the night on August 21.
Teams from Utah, Salt Lake, Wasatch, and Duchesne counties were joined by additional search and rescue teams from Cache County to help. Garrett had no backpack or provisions with him. He only had a short, black and chrome ice-fishing pole with him when he disappeared.
After Garrett's disappearance, hundreds of volunteers and personnel from the Summit County Sheriff's Office searched for him on foot, on horseback, and with dogs. However, the effort was eventually scaled back to 50 professional search and rescue personnel who continued to search on foot.
The only evidence that searchers found was one of Garrett's Nike socks, which was discovered half a mile away from where he disappeared in a granite boulder field. Summit County Sheriff Dave Edmunds commented on the sock, saying, "The sock appears that it was taken off of a wet foot, wadded up, very consistent with what we know about Garrett."
Given where the sock was found, Edmunds suggested that Garrett may have sought shelter from the cold weather, possibly by going into the boulder field to find a crevasse or outcropping to protect himself. The mountainous terrain meant that the temperature dropped to around 18 degrees on the night Garrett went missing.
The local police concluded that there was insufficient evidence to suggest that Garrett had been kidnapped. The official search for Garrett lasted nine days and covered a three-mile radius in the rugged mountains from where he was last seen. Despite the extensive search efforts, no significant evidence was found.
After the official search ended, Garrett's family, along with many dedicated friends and volunteers, continued to search for him. They returned to the area at least two or three times each week until October. Further searches were conducted after the winter of 2004, but unfortunately, they did not yield any new clues about Garrett's whereabouts.
Garrett has never been seen since.
Theories about the Disappearance of Garrett Bardsley
Any theories about what may have happened to Garrett Bardsley are pure speculation at this point in time. A number of things are possible:
He was kidnapped
He was murdered by someone at the scout camp
He was attacked and dragged away by a mountain lion
He fell into a crevasse that is too deep for searchers to explore
Some have speculated that Garrett’s disappearance could be connected to other cases of missing people in the wilderness as one of the missing 411.
What do you think might have happened to Garrett Bardsley? Let us know in the comments.
Other Strange Disappearances:
The Disappearance of Vladamir Bastl
The Disappearance of Frederick Valentich
