Stumped
Fenn himself has heard from a lovable cross-section of bumblers. One college kid trekked to a river location, remembering rope, gloves, wetsuit, booties, mask and fins—everything but an air tank. Another hopeful traveled to a lake in winter, stepped out of a subcompact rental car and plunged into “a dark blackened landslide of ice and snow.” One of his favorite notes from a searcher is also the simplest. “Stumped,” it reads. “Defeated.”