Nancy and George

We've been dealing with a stressful situation for the last 31 hours: Nancy and George have been out alone in the wilderness of the Pioneer Mountains. I'm going to share some details here for their friends, but due to our search activities and my plans for the next 48 hours, I may not get back to this post (or any others) until late Wednesday.

Here's a high-level summary of how it started:

• We went up to Vipond Park on Sunday afternoon (Mother's Day).
• Out in the middle of the giant subalpine meadow at Vipond Park, I decided to let the dogs run off-leash for a while. Nancy had done well off-leash the last two times, so I thought she was maturing and getting mellower and we'd be able to get her back on-leash after a while. I was extremely wrong about this.
• With Nancy in the lead, the dogs ran around for a while, then ran far away to play in some snow, then ran up over a hill and into a thickly forested area surrounded by huge snow drifts.
• Megan and I split up to cover the perimeter of the forested area, and eventually Isaac came back out at the same spot where they had all gone in.

After we had Isaac back, there were multiple sightings of Nancy and George by various people, and we spent three hours following up on those and trying to find them. Then I was briefly in a spot with cell coverage (rare up there), and got a text from a woman who had seen Nancy and George at a cabin 2.5 miles back down the road from where we were searching.

As I write this 28 hours later, that was the last sighting of Nancy and George. I've spent nearly all of those 28 hours searching that area, except for coming home for a two-hour nap late last night, while Megan and Isaac have stayed home so that they can handle text and phone messages as needed. Megan has also been posting on social media to raise awareness of the search, and she has gotten posters put up in bars, post offices, and stores at several small towns surrounding the search area. We're offering a generous reward for any leads, and I've already run into people heading up to help with the search after seeing Megan's posts.

We haven't found them yet, but there are some factors that are in their favor. The weather is mild – highs in the 70s and lows in the 40s – and the area they're in doesn't have many bears or mountain lions. And if they're in the area above that cabin they visited (which seems likely for several reasons), then they have plenty of water from melting snow.

I came home for a good night's sleep this evening, because I need it. And tomorrow night I'll probably be staying at the cabin Nancy and George visited – the owner has graciously offered it to me. In case Nancy and George come by before tomorrow night, this evening Isaac and I left some jerky treats on the cabin's front steps, as well as the knit cap I usually wear on hikes and dog walks.

It's a stressful time for us, and we don't have any firm answers yet, but I wanted to share what's going on. We'll post more when we can.