Hypothermia claims life of 20-year-old Wasilla man

July 8, 2005

KATE GOLDEN\Frontiersman reporter

HATCHER PASS -- A 20-year-old man from Wasilla died of hypothermia Sunday after he and his cousin, lost, huddled in a small cave Saturday night, Alaska State Troopers said Tuesday.

After he was found Monday, 19-year-old Richard Kelley led searchers to the body of Hezekiah Kelley, in the Peters Creek drainage cave where he spent Sunday and Monday night.

The two young men from Wasilla had been hiking with two friends on Saturday. The temperature was in the 50s at lower elevations and cooled with altitude.

"We're having a fairly extraordinary summer down here in the Mat-Su Valley, but just a few miles up in the mountains, the environment is entirely different," Trooper Sgt. Craig Allen, who coordinated the search when he got the initial report, said Thursday night.

Troopers said Hezekiah Kelley died at an unknown time Saturday. They do not believe there was foul play.

Searchers included volunteers from the Alaska Mountain Rescue Group, State Parks, Alaska State Troopers and the Alaska Bureau of Wildlife Enforcement.

Four search-and-rescue dogs and their handlers, and four people on four-wheelers prowled the ground. A trooper helicopter, pulled from the Seward Fourth of July celebration, scoured the landscape from the air with two other planes.

Most of the searchers were volunteers.

Richard and Hezekiah had gone camping with a male friend and a 17-year-old female friend, Allen said.

They hiked up to the Lane Hut, which is about 1,800 feet above sea level and a 1.5-mile hike from the Gold Mint trailhead, with camping gear and provisions.

Around 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, Richard and Hezekiah left the Lane Hut to climb the mountain that faced them. They had no compass, no map, no rain gear, and wore cotton clothing.

Wet cotton chills skin much faster than air. It is possible to contract hypothermia in temperatures well above freezing.

The Kelleys hadn't told their companions how long they would be out or where they were going. Their female friend spotted them on the ridge on Saturday.

She and her companion in the hut, both of whom troopers declined to name, told searchers they waited that night.

In the morning, the girl drove him to town, then drove back and waited. A little before 6 p.m., she reported them missing.

Allen said he did not know why she waited so long. She told a park ranger it wasn't unlike the Kelley boys to play practical jokes like that. At first, she didn't recognize how serious the situation was.

They established a search coordinated by helicopter, starting from the ridge where they were last seen. Volunteers did most of the up-and-down work on the ground, Allen said. They found tracks through the snow toward Purches Creek, within three miles of the hut, then established that the pair had crossed a couple of miles over to the next drainage, Peters Creek.

A park ranger in a helicopter spotted Richard Kelley at Peters Creek at around 5:30 p.m. Monday. He was following the water down to the road, he said later. It would indeed have eventually led him there.

"He was tired and cold and ragged. He was hungry," Allen said, but he didn't need any immediate medical attention.

Richard Kelley immediately led searchers to the cave, about six miles as the crow flies from Lane Hut and 2,000 feet lower than the ridge.

"He never left the helicopter until they found Hezekiah," Allen said.

Hezekiah had died during the night, Richard told them.

It wasn't much of a cave -- a void left by boulders that had tumbled down the mountains -- but the shelter was better than nothing, Allen said.

Next of kin have been notified of Hezekiah Kelley's death.

Allen, who is still counting the searchers who participated, was grateful to the volunteers.

"They did all the hard work, as far as the up and down," he said Thursday.

The end was at least bittersweet.

"It's hard to recognize that we had a good outcome from this," he said. "We got somebody out alive."

Contact Kate Golden at 352-2284 or kate.golden@frontiersman.com.