For nearly three weeks, Carrie Smith and her children waited for Timothy Allen Smith to come home from the Grand Canyon.
They waited as searchers picked through an enormous debris field caused by a flood that ripped through the canyon, as dog teams descended into the canyon and river patrols worked their way down the Colorado, and this week, they waited again after human remains were found near Crystal Rapid.
Thursday morning, the Star Valley Ranch family finally got an answer.
“My family has done a lot of waiting over the last three weeks ... waiting and hoping Tim (Daddy) would come home, waiting and wondering if the remains found were Tim (Daddy),” Carrie Smith wrote on Facebook.
“We no longer have to wait," she added.
Smith, 53, a pilot who had recently moved to Star Valley, was identified by his family as the final victim of the catastrophic Aug. 29 flash flood that tore through Bright Angel Canyon and the Phantom Ranch area of Grand Canyon National Park.
His remains were recovered Monday near Crystal Rapid on the Colorado River, roughly 10 miles downstream from Phantom Ranch.
“Tim was found two days ago by the Rangers at Grand Canyon National Park,” Carrie wrote Thursday. “Not in the way we had hoped, but we know that he was doing something he loved with John and Brent.”
Smith went into the canyon with longtime friends John Giusti, 46, and Brent Rosenkranz, 42, both of Granbury, Texas, for a multi-day hiking, fishing and camping trip.
All three men died in the flood.
“Thank you for all the prayers over the last couple of weeks,” Carrie wrote. “Please do not stop praying for my family, we have lived through an enormous tragedy and will need your prayers for months/years to come.”
Three Friends
Tim Smith grew up in Granbury and lived there before moving with Carrie to Star Valley Ranch, about 40 miles southwest of Jackson.
The three men were more than hiking companions.
Carrie said Thursday their Christian faith was central to their lives, and that the families have continued seeing evidence of the relationships the three men built long after the flood took them.
“We know that these three men loved the Lord and were a shining light for Him,” she wrote. “The impact their lives had on others is still being shown to our families daily.”
Hundreds of people gathered Sept. 6 at Lakeside Baptist Church in Granbury for a prayer service for the three men and their families.
Tim and Carrie volunteered in the church's children and preschool ministry.
Pastor Tim Moyer of Thayne described Smith to Cowboy State Daily during the search as a man grounded in his faith and family.
In the meantime, a painful milestone arrived.
Smith was supposed to be home by Sept. 9, his birthday.
Instead, his family marked the day without him while rescuers continued searching one of the most rugged places in the country.
A Canyon Torn Apart
The disaster that took Smith was not an ordinary high-water event.
The flood ripped through Bright Angel Canyon beginning around 2:30 p.m., turning Bright Angel Creek into a destructive torrent and tearing apart infrastructure that had stood for decades.
Nearly every footbridge spanning Bright Angel Creek was destroyed. Sections of the North Kaibab Trail were completely washed away. Phantom Ranch, Bright Angel Campground and the North Kaibab Trail were closed, along with the Black and Silver bridges across the Colorado River.
Metal structures and other debris were swept into the Colorado, forcing the Park Service to temporarily close the river to traffic.
The flood also crippled the water system that supplies the South Rim.
About 40% of the legacy Transcanyon Waterline between the Phantom Ranch area and the North Rim was damaged, while the Bright Angel Creek and Roaring Springs intake areas sustained significant destruction, park officials said.
The damage was so extensive that the park halted overnight lodging, including at major South Rim hotels, to conserve its remaining water.
More than 80 people had to be rescued.
Arizona Department of Public Safety helicopter crews alone made 13 flights into the canyon Aug. 29 and 30, carrying 61 stranded hikers to safety. National Park Service crews also used short-haul helicopter operations to pluck hikers from areas cut off by the flood.
At first, officials weren't even sure how many people might be missing.
Searchers used backcountry permits, vehicle license plates and other information to determine who had entered the canyon and who had made it out.
Eventually, the list narrowed to three.
Then two.
Finally, only Smith remained.
‘Entire Bridges’
Brian Bloom, who led the incident management team, described crews moving through muddy and unstable ground after the established trail system had been ripped apart.
Searchers weren't simply walking a damaged trail. In places, there wasn't one left.
They had to negotiate mud, unstable terrain, remnants of bridge foundations and what Bloom described as “entire bridges” displaced by the flood.
For people who know the Grand Canyon, the scale of the destruction was extraordinary.
Retired Grand Canyon National Park hydrologist Mark Nebel told RE:PUBLIC Lands Media the flood fundamentally altered portions of Bright Angel Creek, including changing its course in places.
That mattered not only for rebuilding the park, but for understanding what searchers were confronting on the ground.
The canyon had been rearranged.
Boulders, trees, bridge pieces, mud and wreckage were carried downstream and piled into debris fields. Areas familiar to longtime park employees no longer necessarily looked the same.
The flood came after the massive Dragon Bravo Fire burned portions of the North Rim in 2025.
Burn scars are especially vulnerable to flash flooding because fire strips vegetation that would otherwise slow and absorb runoff. The Park Service continues to warn that some North Rim watersheds can flood within minutes during heavy rain.
Searching The Wreckage
Against that backdrop, the hunt for Smith stretched into its second and then third week.
Ground crews concentrated on the delta near Phantom Ranch, while river patrols searched downstream along the Colorado and places where flood debris could have carried him.
“The National Park Service and its partners remain committed to the search,” the agency said Sept. 8.
Specialized dog teams eventually joined the effort.
Cochise County Search and Rescue handlers Sue Haveruk and Ursula Ritchie descended into the canyon with K-9s Whiskey and Alto, working massive debris piles in canyon-floor temperatures reported as high as 109 degrees.
Border Patrol Search, Trauma and Rescue, or BORSTAR, handlers and dogs also searched along the Colorado River.
Meanwhile, crews were trying to repair the devastated canyon around them.
Heavy equipment was brought in to move debris. Engineers began designing a temporary Bright Angel Creek water intake capable of pumping about 500 gallons per minute. Crews restored electrical service needed for the temporary system and began clearing the site.
The Park Service estimated that restoring a reliable water supply would take weeks, rather than months.
Meanwhile, Smith was still missing.
Waiting Over
On Monday, Grand Canyon rangers responded to a report of human remains near Crystal Rapid on the Colorado River.
The remains were recovered and transferred to the Coconino County Medical Examiner's Office.
Giusti's body also was recovered near Crystal Rapid in the days after the flood.
On Tuesday morning, Carrie acknowledged that remains had been found but did not say they were her husband's.
“We are aware that the Grand Canyon found remains yesterday,” she wrote. “We ask that you continue to pray alongside us!”
On Thursday morning, Carrie said that wait was over.
The National Park Service and Department of the Interior had not publicly identified the remains as Smith as of Thursday morning. Carrie Smith's announcement provided the first public confirmation that her husband had been found.
His identification brings the death toll from the flood to three.
Another Flood
Even as Smith's family learned what had happened to him, the canyon remained dangerous.
Another flash flood tore through Bright Angel Creek and reached the Colorado River on Wednesday, less than three weeks after the flood that killed Smith, Giusti and Rosenkranz.
This time, there were no reported injuries.
Park officials had minimized the number of personnel in the canyon ahead of the storm, and flash-flood warnings gave crews time to move to safety.
Damage assessments began afterward.
Phantom Ranch, Bright Angel Campground and the North Kaibab Trail remain closed. There is no estimated reopening date.
For the Smith family, however, one uncertainty is finally gone.
Carrie wrote that the faith that carried the family through nearly three weeks of searching and waiting will now have to carry them through what comes next.
“We know God is an AWESOME GOD and He will walk us through this season of life,” she wrote.
She ended her announcement with Psalm 73:26:
“My flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.”
Kolby Fedore can be reached at kolby@cowboystatedaily.com.
