TEN SLEEP, Wyo. — A Minnesota climber’s automobile was found parked at a trailhead for 13,000 Cloud Peak. The wife of Grant Gardner had called authorities that she feared him missing. The last she had heard from hm was three days earlier. He called from the summit as night fell. She described him as exhausted. The peak, in the Big Horn Mountains east of Yellowstone Park, can be challenging. Typically snow remains until mid-July. Weather patterns include winds, thunder and lightning storms. Gardner was described ny friends as an experienced outdoors enthusiast and climber. At the trailhead to Cloud Peak he logged in for a three-day hike alone up the Mistymoon Lake Trail. The log-in suggested “a well-thought-out, very planned, meticulous itinerary,” said Big Horn County Sheriff Ken Blackburn. A friend back home in Lakeville, an outer-suburb of Minneapolis, said that Gardner often took solo trips and was used to cold conditions.
Gardner. Age 38. A marketing agent. An amateur licensed pilot. Father of two. His last call home: Exhausted but triumphant from Cloud Peak summit at nightfall.