Hundreds Gather To Pray For Wyoming Hiker Missing For 11 Days In Grand Canyon

Eleven days after a wall of floodwater tore through the Grand Canyon, and on a day Timothy Smith when was supposed to be celebrating his birthday with family, the Wyoming hiker remained missing Wednesday, with search crews still combing the canyon and the Colorado River for any sign of him.

The National Park Service said Smith remains the only person missing and unaccounted for from the Aug. 29 flash flood in Bright Angel Canyon and the Phantom Ranch area.

Wednesday brought an especially painful milestone for Smith's family. 

“Tomorrow, we should see Tim walk through the door after being gone for the 3 weeks we had planned, and we should be celebrating Tim's birthday,” his wife, Carrie, wrote Tuesday night on her personal Facebook page.

More than 1,000 miles away from the canyon, the Texas church Smith and his family once called home gathered Sunday to pray for him.

Lakeside Baptist Church in Granbury held a special prayer time for Smith and the families of his two friends, John Giusti and Brent Rosenkranz, who were killed in the flood.

Senior Pastor Mark Forrest told Cowboy State Daily on Wednesday that he knew Smith personally from the years the family lived in Granbury.

“Just a real solid family man, and somebody who really served well in our church,” Forrest said.

Search teams are concentrating on the delta area near Phantom Ranch, while river patrol crews are searching downstream along the Colorado River and adjacent areas where debris might have been carried.

“The National Park Service and its partners remain committed to the search,” the agency said, even as crews simultaneously undertake a massive recovery effort to repair infrastructure torn apart by the flood.

That includes removing debris, stabilizing damaged areas and trying to restore a reliable water supply to the South Rim.

For Smith’s family, however, another day of searching means another day of waiting.

Praying For Tim

Texas reporting has described Smith as something of a “baby whisperer” at the church. Forrest said he wasn't familiar with the nickname, but noted that Smith and his wife volunteered in Lakeside's children’s and preschool ministry. 

“So maybe that's where it came from,” Forrest said.

Forrest said the service confronted one of the questions that inevitably follows a tragedy like this: Why?

He said his congregation's faith doesn't promise that terrible things won't happen. Rather, he said, it is what carries people through them when they do.

“Our faith is what gets us through the difficult times because we believe that God will work to redeem all things, whether here on this earth or in heaven,” Forrest said.

In Thayne, where Smith and his family now live, Emmanuel Bible Church also gathered to pray for him in the days immediately after the flood.

Pastor Tim Moyer previously told Cowboy State Daily that Smith's family was leaning heavily on its faith and community as the search unfolded.

‘Daddy Isn't Home’

Carrie Smith has been offering glimpses into what the waiting has been like through public posts on her personal Facebook page.

“The search and rescue teams are working long, hard, hot days to look for him,” she wrote Tuesday. “I cannot thank them enough for all they are doing each day.”

She said the searchers' “efforts and compassion for our family” have meant a great deal as days without answers have accumulated.

“These last nine days have been the hardest days that my family has endured,” she wrote.

Carrie described hearing essentially the same message “day after day, no news today.”

Still, she said the family hasn't surrendered its hope. She asked people to pray for the searchers, other workers in the canyon who are keeping an eye out for Tim, the families of Giusti and Rosenkranz, and “our family as we continue to wait and hope.”

Faith, she wrote, has given them strength through the uncertainty.

“You can ask any of my kids and they will tell you God is furthering His kingdom and He isn't done using our family yet,” she wrote, adding a heartbreaking explanation in parentheses: “because Daddy isn't home.”

A Canyon Torn Apart

Smith, 53, was hiking through the Grand Canyon with longtime friends Giusti and Rosenkranz when intense rainfall triggered the Aug. 29 flash flood.

The three men had ties to Granbury, Texas, and had traveled into the canyon together.

Giusti and Rosenkranz were killed. Smith has not been found.

The National Park Service says about 40% of the old Transcanyon Waterline between the Phantom Ranch area and North Rim was damaged. The flood also heavily damaged the Bright Angel Creek and Roaring Springs intake areas and destroyed the water intake at Bright Angel Creek.

Crews are now building a temporary intake while simultaneously clearing debris, repairing infrastructure, and continuing the search.

The temporary system is designed to pump about 500 gallons per minute, but the park expects restoring water service to take weeks.

Electrical service needed for that work has been restored, and crews are already preparing the site for construction.

The South Rim, meanwhile, remains dependent on stored water, prompting extraordinary conservation measures. The park says those measures are saving about 137,000 gallons of potable water each day.

Potable-water tanks, bottled water, handwashing stations, portable showers, laundry facilities, and portable toilets are being deployed around the community.

Grand Canyon National Park remains open on both rims, although closures and modified operations remain in effect in portions of the inner canyon.

Amid all of that rebuilding Wednesday, crews continued looking for Timothy Smith on his birthday. 

Kolby Fedore can be reached at kolby@cowboystatedaily.com.