A Wyoming pilot and father of three remains missing in the Grand Canyon after a violent weekend flash flood tore through the canyon bottom, killing the two friends he was hiking with and leaving search crews combing a devastated stretch of Bright Angel Creek.
Timothy Allen Smith, 53, lives in Star Valley Ranch in western Wyoming and was hiking with longtime friends John Giusti, 46, and Brent Rosenkranz, 42, both of Granbury, Texas, when the flood struck Saturday afternoon.
The National Park Service announced Tuesday that searchers had recovered the bodies of Giusti and Rosenkranz. Smith remains missing, and search and rescue operations continued Wednesday morning.
Smith's wife, Carrie, and their three children are waiting in Wyoming for word.
On Tuesday, Carrie Smith posted a video sitting on a sofa with their children. Their daughter, wearing a Joshua Tree T-shirt, cried beside her. Their oldest son sat with an NIV Bible open across his lap.
“Our dad, our husband is one of the ones still missing, and his two friends have been found dead,” Carrie said.
The family spoke about their Christian faith and the uncertainty of waiting while crews continued searching the canyon.
One of the Smith children read Matthew 19:26 from the Bible, the passage in which Jesus tells his disciples that with God all things are possible.
Another of the children led the family in prayer, thanking God for the three friends, praying for the families of the two men who died and asking for protection and guidance for the search crews still looking for his father.
“No matter what happens, you'll keep us strong,” he prayed.
Carrie described what the family is enduring simply as a “journey of not knowing where Tim is.”
Wyoming Pilot, Husband And Father
Smith was born and raised in Granbury but now lives with his family in Star Valley Ranch, a small community near Thayne.
He is a pilot and has been identified by his family as working for NetJets. He and Carrie have been married for 18 years and have three children.
The family also attends Emmanuel Bible Church of Star Valley in Thayne.
His family has described Smith as an outdoorsman who loves hiking, camping, exploring and helping others.
The Grand Canyon trip brought Smith back together with friends from his Texas hometown for several days of hiking, camping, fishing and exploring.
The three men last spoke with their families Thursday and reached their campsite at the bottom of the Grand Canyon on Friday.
Three women hiking through the canyon Saturday told The Washington Post they repeatedly noticed a group of three men traveling behind them.
The women remembered seeing the men in the distance, cooling themselves in Bright Angel Creek and hearing them laugh and marvel at Ribbon Falls.
Later, after surviving the flood themselves, a National Park Service investigator asked the women whom they had encountered on the trail.
They immediately thought of those three men.
With two members of Smith's three-man group now dead and Smith missing, the women told the Post the timing and location left them with a gut feeling that the hikers they saw may have been Smith, Giusti and Rosenkranz.
Authorities have not confirmed that identification.
A Canyon Turned Violent
The flash flood hit Bright Angel Canyon and the Phantom Ranch area at about 2:30 p.m. Saturday.
The damage was extraordinary.
Nearly every footbridge spanning Bright Angel Creek was destroyed, eliminating pedestrian crossings. Floodwater swept metal structures and other debris downstream, and the National Park Service closed Phantom Ranch, Bright Angel Campground, the North Kaibab Trail, and the Black and Silver bridges.
The flood also severely damaged the Transcanyon Waterline, the critical pipeline that carries water through the canyon.
The National Park Service initially asked the public for help accounting for approximately 15 people who might have been missing after the flood.
Officials used camping permits and other information to determine who was supposed to be in the remote corridor, while acknowledging that people without overnight permits could also have been there.
By Monday evening, that number had been whittled down to one confirmed missing hiker.
Smith.
The Park Service confirmed Tuesday that Giusti and Rosenkranz had been recovered dead.
As of Wednesday morning, there had been no announcement that Smith had been found.
Search crews also have to contend with a landscape fundamentally altered by the flood. The National Park Service says the Bright Angel Creek watershed was affected by the Dragon Bravo Fire, leaving burned terrain particularly vulnerable to rapid runoff and debris flows carrying water, ash, mud, rocks and trees.
Searching For Tim
Grand Canyon National Park is coordinating the continuing operation with the National Park Service Investigative Services Branch, Coconino County Search and Rescue, and U.S. Border Patrol Search, Trauma and Rescue.
The Park Service said Tuesday teams were continuing both to search for the missing member of the three-man hiking party and to account for anyone else who might have been in the flood zone.
In the family's Tuesday video, Carrie Smith asked people watching to continue praying as rescuers searched for her husband.
The National Park Service is also asking anyone who was in the area Saturday — or who knows someone who was — to help investigators reconstruct who was in the canyon and where.
Investigators are particularly interested in people who were hiking or backpacking along the Bright Angel Creek corridor, traveling the North Kaibab Trail between the trailhead and Phantom Ranch, staying at Bright Angel Campground or traveling through the narrow section of canyon known as “the Box.”
People with information are asked to provide a name, approximate location, travel plans, group size and, when possible, descriptions of clothing or backpacks.
Tips can be made anonymously to the National Park Service Investigative Services Branch at 888-653-0009.
This is a developing story and will be updated as we receive information.
Kolby Fedore can be reached at kolby@cowboystatedaily.com.
