THE LAST TREASURE HUNT

HUNTER LEWIS GREW UP AN ADVENTURE-LOVING KID IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA. FOR TWO YEARS HE PLANNED AN ELABORATE OUTDOOR QUEST FOR FRIENDS AND FAMILY. AND THEN HE WENT MISSING

- STEPHEN RODRICK

Let’s start at journey’s end. Some adventures exact a terrible cost.

It’s the last Sunday in January. More than 300 guests walk single file into the Arcata Community Center in far North California. Some wear blazers with sneakers, and some wear gingham dresses with muddy hiking boots. They patiently wait their turn and then sign their names into the guest book.

They are here to celebrate an extraordinary young man. His achievements are perfectly organized and displayed chronologically on a series of tables. There he is as a little boy with his father and grandfather preparing to launch a rocket into the Colorado sky. There are snapshots of a handsome kid with lank hair climbing on rocks, and another where he is playing his guitar. Then a pair of blue canvas shoes with sand still clinging to shredded soles.

You glance up and see someone who resembles the young man. It’s his brother. He’s a different kind of free spirit, with glasses and blond-green hair, his skinny body clad in Doc Martens, a Phish hoodie, and a Bikini Kill T-shirt. He stops for a moment and looks at the different stages of his brother’s travels, and then moves on alone.

The tables continue. The boy grows up and his dreams get more ambitious. There is a ragged copy of The Fellowship of the Ring. Then, a list of astronaut requirements scrawled in a teen’s hand. One of the prerequisites is a private pilot license. Magically, the next table features the young man standing outside a plane. He got his license last fall.