Cloud Peak. In the 27-mile spine of the Bighorn mountains. The range is known for sharp summits, sheer rock faces, and glacier-carved box canyns. In the Big Horn National Forest. Cloud Peak reigns as the tallest point.
Six days since last contact with Grant Gardner
TEN SLEEEP, Wyo. — Ground and air searches intensified for a Minnesota climber missing on remote Cloud Peak, a 13,000-foot granite crag in the Big Horn wilderness. Missing a week has been Grant Gardner of Lakeville. He was on a three-day hike. The rugged terrain is a challenge for searchers and so too the unpredictable weather at high altitude, said Sheriff Ken Blackburn. There are few visible paths in the cliffs and boulder fields above timber line. Nightfall would have made Gardner’s descent all he more dangerous, the sheriff said. The last that anyone heard from Gardner was a 7 p.m. call home to Minnesota from the summit. He told his wife that he would be heading down. The peak can be dangerous even during the day but thist was sunset . Sheriff Blackburn said two searchers already have been injured, bith in daylight. . Besides ground teams, search sorties have been flown by the Wyoming National Guard, First Flight of Wyoming, and private aircraft flying out of Cody, Riverton and Sheridan. Ground team, some with K-9s, have been from Wyoming’s Big Horn, Johnson, Park. Sheridan and Washakie counties.
View from top. Cloud Peak;’s xact elevation 13,167 feet. In 191,900-acre Cloud Peak Wilderness in north-central Wyoming’s Big Horn mountains. Lower elevations still snow-covered on the sunny summer day this photo was taken.