Hunter finds brother’s body in Colorado national park after he didn’t return to camp
A hunter didn’t make it back to his group’s camp in Colorado, so his brother went out looking for him and discovered why.
The hunter, 46-year-old Lance Walker, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, died in rough terrain north of Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, Alamosa Volunteer Search and Rescue said on Facebook.
Walker didn’t return to his Saguache County camp near Sand Creek the night of Oct. 30 and still hadn’t made it back by the next morning, the organization said. His hunting group signaled the SOS feature on his Garmin satellite device, and his brother went out to look for him on foot, rescuers said.
The brother later contacted rescuers and reported he’d found Walker’s body in rough terrain, the organization said.
Bad weather made a helicopter rescue impossible, so a group of 20 people from Saguache, Alamosa and Chaffee County South search and rescue teams started hiking out to the hunter and his brother’s body to confirm their location and help the brother out of the area, the rescue organization said.
But it was quickly becoming too dark for the extremely technical terrain, and it was determined the team wouldn’t be able to recover Walker’s body until the next day, Alamosa search and rescue said.
A photo shows rescuers hiking up a mountain with the park’s sand dunes behind them and the last light from sunset in the distance beyond.
High winds again prevented a helicopter rescue on Nov. 1, so three more rescuers hiked out into the field, rescuers said. A total of seven rescuers recovered the hunter’s body in the technical terrain, officials said.
The team lowered Walker’s body four times and then raised it another two times using technical rope rescue equipment, officials said. Then, they carried his body to an upper landing zone, where a helicopter flew the body to a command post.
Photos show the rope system set up over jagged rocks piled over a downhill slope.
“The Unified Command of the incident … would like to send our deepest condolences to the family of Lance Walker,” rescuers said. “We cannot thank enough all the responding teams and assets for their help in getting this man home to his family after such a tragic accident.”
According to an obituary, Lance Walker was the owner of Fish Commander Guide Services in Grand Isle, Louisiana, and was known as a stalwart in the fishing community.
“Lance’s passion for fishing was only surpassed by his passion for hunting. His adventurous spirit led him on hunting trips throughout the country, always searching for another trophy deer or elk with a bigger rack than his previous win,” the obituary read.
But his true love, according to the obituary, were his three children, who he often took on hunting and fishing trips.
Saguache County is about a 180-mile drive southwest from Colorado Springs.
This story was originally published November 15, 2024 at 3:35 PM with the headline "Hunter finds brother’s body in Colorado national park after he didn’t return to camp."
