Missouri Deputy AG Found Alive After Six Days on Gannett Peak

Shaun Mackelprang, a 55-year-old Missouri deputy attorney general, was found alive Wednesday morning near Scott Lake in the Wind River Range, six days after he set out alone to climb Wyoming's tallest mountain and never came back.

He was weak but alert when rescuers reached him. Dehydrated. Disoriented enough that he had drifted away from where he made camp. Crews got to him around 9:45 a.m. Mountain time, prepared him for a helicopter lift out of the backcountry, and took him to a hospital.

Mackelprang left the Green River Lakes Trailhead on August 20 planning to reach Gannett Peak, a 13,804-foot summit that sits on the Continental Divide in one of the most remote parts of Wyoming. He went by himself. He told his family he expected to reach the top Friday, August 21, and hoped to be back down by Saturday.

He Signed the Register at the Top

The detail that turned the search around was a signature. His brother Romel said a hiker who summited Gannett Peak after Mackelprang photographed the register at the top, and the name was on it. That told rescuers he had actually reached the summit. Whatever went wrong happened on the way down.

Romel said that single fact reshaped the whole operation. Searchers already knew where his tent had been pitched. Once they also knew he had stood on the summit, they could concentrate on the ground between those two points instead of guessing across miles of granite. "So that really limited the scope of the search," Romel told Cowboy State Daily.

The Rental Car Was the First Clue

One of the clearest signs Mackelprang had not simply driven home was his vehicle. His rental car was still parked at the Green River Lakes Trailhead. A car left at the trailhead means the hiker is somewhere on foot past it.

Tip Top Search and Rescue coordinator Kenna Tanner said early on that searchers were "trying to track down his route and people that have seen him." His planned line to the summit ran through Tourist Creek, a rugged stretch below the peak. A hiker who crossed paths with him along the way could hand crews one more fixed point beyond the trailhead.

The Family Waited Days Before Sounding the Alarm

When Saturday came and went with no word, nobody in the family panicked. The weather in the mountains was rough, with thunderstorms rolling through, and Gannett is a hard climb even for people who know it well. A day's delay did not seem strange.

"We didn't really get real concerned until Sunday," Romel said. His sister Sheila made the family's first calls that day and got officials in Wyoming on the phone. By Tuesday, they knew something had gone wrong. That was the same day the Sublette County Sheriff's Office listed him as a missing person and the ground-and-air search kicked into gear.

Three Agencies, a Drone Team, and a Helicopter

The search leaned on three groups working together: ground teams on foot, the Sublette County Sheriff's Office Drone Team, and Tip Top Search and Rescue's helicopter. Crews searched Tuesday until worsening winds shut them down, Romel said. They were back out early Wednesday.

The sheriff's office credited the outcome to "the tremendous effort and coordination" of the Tip Top volunteers, its own personnel, and the drone team. Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway wrote that her office was "thrilled to hear" Mackelprang had been located, thanking the sheriff's office, the drone team, the Tip Top volunteers and helicopter crews, and Wyoming state leaders.

Twenty-Eight Years in the Criminal Division

Mackelprang is a deputy attorney general in the Missouri Attorney General's Office Criminal Division. He has worked there for 28 years, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Romel, 70, of Salt Lake City, is the oldest of four siblings. Shaun is the youngest. Sheila was waiting near the helicopter landing area when the search wrapped up, and the office his brother has spent nearly three decades in was tracking the situation the whole time. The Missouri AG's office said Tuesday it was "in close contact with the officials conducting the search and rescue operation."

Chasing the Highest Point in All 50 States

This climb was part of a bigger goal. Romel said his brother has been working his way through the highest points in all 50 states, and Gannett Peak is Wyoming's. His public social media backs that up, showing a steady run of state high points over the years.

In 2023 he posted from Taum Sauk Mountain, Missouri's highest point. He also logged Hoye-Crest on Backbone Mountain, Maryland's 3,360-foot top, along with Woodall Mountain, the highest point in Mississippi. He shared a photo talking about the trail toward California's Mount Whitney. Wyoming's high point is a different animal entirely. Gannett sits deep in the northern Wind River Range, far from any quick road out, and getting to it means a long approach before the real climbing even starts.

Found Wandering at the Wrong Lake

When crews finally reached him, Mackelprang was not at his camp. He was near a different lake, away from the one where his tent had been located. Romel figured his brother mistook one body of water for another. "They found him wandering at a lake that probably looks similar to the one that his tent was pitched at," he said. "We don't know."

The sheriff's office later shared photos of rescuers with Mackelprang aboard the helicopter.

A Garmin GPS for Christmas

The family was overwhelmed with gratitude for the people who brought him out. Romel also had a plan for making sure this does not happen twice. "His Christmas gift already this year is going to be a Garmin GPS," he said.

Authorities have not said whether Mackelprang was carrying a satellite communicator or personal locator beacon when he set out, the kind of device that can flag a rescue crew straight to a hiker's location.

Romel had one more thing to say about his brother's solo trips into big mountains. "I'm going to tell him you can't hike these damn things anymore alone," he said. His brother made it to the top of Wyoming's tallest peak and came home. The next one, if there is a next one, will not be a solo run.