The father of a missing Yellowstone National Park worker shared the eerie contents of a shakily handwritten note from his son on the last day he was heard from before he vanished while hiking during bad weather.
“I can’t feel my fingers and my glasses are so fogged from the ruthless weather of the mountains,” Austin King, 22, wrote in the registry atop the 11,361-foot Eagle Peak in Wyoming on Sept. 17.
“I truly cannot believe I am here after what it took to be here,” King wrote in the note, a copy of which his father shared with Cowboy State Daily.
“I endured rain, sleet, hail and the most wind I have ever felt.”
King also revealed that he could not see Eagle Peak “for most of the day due to the most fog I have ever seen in my life.”
He also wrote that he free-soloed — or mountain climbed without the help of ropes or other equipment — “too many cliffs” to get to the top from a connecting peak “AKA not the right path.”
Brian King-Henke said on Friday he was setting up a local basecamp and organizing rescue crews to search for his missing son, according to a GoFundMe page he started to pay for rescue efforts.
More than 40 donations flooded in on Saturday, bringing the campaign over its $10,000 goal.
Austin King started his seven-day solo backcountry trip to the summit of Eagle Peak, the highest point in Yellowstone, on Sept. 14.
He talked to his family about troubling weather conditions on Sept. 17.
When the Minnesota native, who worked as a concession employee in the park, didn’t appear for his scheduled boat pickup on Sept. 20, crews desperately started searching for him.
The following day, searchers reported finding his camp and personal items in the Howell Creek area.
“I will never forget today [for] the rest of my life,” King eerily concluded his registry note.
“Life is beautiful, go out and live it.”
Officials transitioned from a rescue to a recovery mission for King on Oct. 2, according to the National Park Service.
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