Missing 3-year-old boy found alive in the Uintas

Searchers in Summit County located a 3-year-old boy who disappeared in the Uinta Mountains for most of one day.

Dispatchers said the boy, Benjamin Myrup, was alive and in good condition.

Benjamin wandered off about 8:45 a.m. while playing a game with four other young children at a campsite at Haystack Lake, about 24 miles east of Kamas and off of State Road 150.

A sheriff's office command post was established at nearby Washington Lake. Sheriff's search teams, comprising about 100 people, were on the ground and in the air.

"We're using every possible resource we have to do the search," said Sheriff Dave Edmunds said in the early afternoon. Dogs, riders on horseback and ATVs, as well as a helicopter and an airplane were deployed. A diving team was on its way to the scene too, said Lt. Dave Booth.

The Bardsley Foundation, a Utah charity which helps find missing people, organized volunteers on foot, horses and ATVs to meet at the Crystal Lake trailhead, near Trial Lake. The foundation was set up after the unsuccessful search for 12-year-old Boy Scout Garrett Bardsley, who disappeared from Cuberant Lake further up the road in August 2004.

Searchers were anxious because temperatures could dip into the low 30s overnight. Also, there have been reports of bears in the area.

photo & story sltrib.com, 9/11/07