Miracle on the Mountain

Jacob didn't burn everything. He pocketed his driver's license, in case he didn't survive. He knew rescuers could use it to identify his body. It wasn't something he wanted to think about.

He sat so close to the fire that flickers burned his bare legs. The tree cover trapped the smoke.

In two hours, Jacob's clothes and shoes had dried. Jacob pulled on his clothes, grabbed his digital camera and lay next to the fire. He scrolled through the pictures that he and Josh had taken on top of the mountain.

Looking at the images, Jacob worried that Josh had fallen and injured himself in the boulder field.

The thought kept him awake the rest of the night.

The sun crawled up slowly Sunday morning. Jacob abandoned his makeshift camp and marched through nearly 7 inches of snow. As long as he was moving, Jacob didn't think about being hungry.

Walking near the stream, he thought he heard faint voices, like two people having a conversation.

"Help!" he yelled. "Help!"

He stood still and listened. More voices.

"Help!"

No one answered.

Wondering if his mind was playing tricks on him, Jacob continued searching for the trail.

Simply climbing down the mountain wasn't an option. Jacob, thinking his brother was still lost in the boulder field, wasn't about to leave him. Besides, he wasn't sure he was lost.

After about three hours, Jacob found a clearing. He looked at Mount of the Holy Cross and couldn't see the snowy cross. He realized that he was heading in the wrong direction.

The sun had warmed the ground enough to melt some of the snow. Jacob's clothes were soaked from trudging through the heavy wet snow and brushing against soggy trees. He had to dry them again.

Jacob set up another camp and used the little fluid left in his lighter to start a fire. The fire burned long enough to dry his clothes.

About two hours later, Jacob got dressed and resumed his search for the trail.

At about 12:30 p.m., Jim and Jean Gately returned home from the Sunday service at St. Matthew Apostle Catholic Church in south Kansas City. Jean, tired and coming down with a cold, stretched out on the couch. Jim flipped on the Chiefs game.

At 3 p.m., Jim asked, "When are we supposed to pick up the boys?"

"We should find out when they'll be back," Jean said.

Jim called Jacob's cell phone, but the call went straight to voice mail. He tried Josh's phone.

Josh answered.

"How's everything going?" Jim asked.

"Not good, Dad," Josh said. "I've got some bad news. Jacob's lost."

Jean sat up. She couldn't hear the conversation, but a bad feeling came over her.

Josh explained that they'd been separated in a boulder field, and rescue teams were searching for Jacob. Josh told his father that he was waiting at the campsite, in case Jacob came back.

"I need to conserve my cell-phone battery to talk with the authorities," Josh said. "I'll call you when I know more."

Jean called family members and asked them to pray for Jacob. Then she and Jim did the only thing they could do — wait.

Rescue workers had planned to call off the search as night fell. But at about 7 p.m., they found large sneaker prints in the snow. They kept searching.

Meanwhile, the rescue team took Josh off the mountain at about 9 p.m. They paid for a hotel room for him and bought him dinner. Josh called his parents from his room. He told them that the rescuers had found size-13 shoe prints — Jacob's size.

Jean was elated.

All but five of the 25 rescuers were called back to the base. The remaining searchers began tracking the sneaker prints. They followed the tracks for two hours to East Cross Creek and found tracks leading out of the stream. Seeing the tracks leading from the icy waters, the rescue workers feared that Jacob might be hypothermic.

Continuing the search was dangerous for the rescuers. Wind gusts were whipping falling snow at 20 miles an hour. The snow was blinding. The rescuers kept their flashlights and headlamps focused on the ground. The tracks seemed to lead into a forest of towering pine trees and huge boulders about seven miles from where the search started. They found Jacob's fire pit but no Jacob.

The blizzard conditions forced Norring to call off the search for the night. The five rescue workers finally marched out of the woods at 1 a.m. without Jacob.

Jean's glimmer of hope faded when she found out that the search had been called off for the night.

Jim and Jean talked about going to Vail that night. But they were too tired to drive, and their nerves were shot. Jim searched travel Web sites for flights to Denver, but no more were leaving that night. Jim bought two tickets for an 8:30 a.m. flight on United Airlines on Monday, and Jean started packing.