A 78-year-old hiker was lost in the Sierra. Boy Scouts came to his rescue

At first, Charlie Hey, 12, didn’t think much of it when his Boy Scout troop passed an elderly man standing at the edge of a trail deep in the Emigrant Wilderness.

- BY JESSICA GARRISON

DOUGLAS Montgomery warms up after rescue.

The man, Douglas Montgomery, 78, was lightly dressed for the conditions in the High Sierra and, more curiously, was carrying no water.

“I thought, ‘Oh, he’s doing a day hike,’” Charlie said.

Following a few steps behind the boys, Scoutmaster M-J Hey — Charlie's father — wasn’t too alarmed, either, at least initially. “He didn’t look like he was in major distress,” the elder Hey recalled.

But Hey had training in search and rescue, so he struck up a conversation with Montgomery and asked a few important questions. Among them, he recalled: “Mate, have you got a backpack?”

Montgomery's story was a long one. It touched down in places such as Vietnam and Alaska and ended with a helicopter ride to safety for Montgomery and a sober but ultimately uplifting lesson in wilderness survival rules for Troop 26.

Montgomery was highly experienced in wilderness survival and a former scoutmaster himself. But on this trek he had lost his pack and was at the mercy of the elements ever since, hungry, dehydrated and shivering under a bed of needles. He was having trouble walking when Troop 26 arrived.

“It really hits home,” Charlie said. “Wow, this can happen to anybody.”

“It’s true,” Montgomery agreed in a recent interview. But, he added, the trip also contained an important — albeit rueful — lesson for him. “I allowed myself to lose my pack,” he said. “I am 78 years old, so I shouldn't be out there, but I love it so much, I couldn't give it up until it was proved I couldn’t doit anymore.”

The nine boys of Troop 26 set off Aug. 2 fora six-night trek through the High Sierra north of Yosemite. On Day 4, the boys — along with five adults — were heading up from their campsite near Long Lake when they came upon Montgomery.