camp site

Camp site in the Manistee National Forest near where a 27-year-old Dearborn man went missing Saturday.

(Lynn Moore | MLive)

MASON COUNTY, MI - Their lagging friend never made it to their wilderness campsite and the three friends were about to head back to Ann Arbor without him when they happened upon a sheriff's deputy who initiated a search Sunday afternoon.

The three were headed back to the University of Michigan campus while a massive search effort was launched for their backpacking friend lost in the Manistee National Forest near Nordhouse Dunes, said Mason County Sheriff Kim C. Cole.

"They were going to leave him in the woods apparently to find his own way," Cole said.

About three hours later, searchers and hikers located the lost backpacker near Lake Michigan, Cole said. He had been missing for 23 hours.

The episode began around 6 p.m. Saturday when the four companions headed into the woods for an overnight backpacking trip, the sheriff said. They hiked northwest into the forest near where Nurnberg Road dead-ends at Lake Michigan, he said.

But one of them, weighed down with what the rest thought was too much equipment, lagged behind, Cole said. The rest forged ahead and set up camp, but their friend never showed up, he said.

"It didn't sound like they went looking for him," Cole said, though they tried calling his cell phone and got no answer.

It wasn't until 2 p.m. the next day, that a female member of the group approached a Mason County Sheriff's deputy who was working the scene of a traffic crash. It was a coincidence that the deputy was there since it's a remote area where nothing much happens, the sheriff said.

In that crash, at Nurnberg and Quarterline roads, a suspected drunk driver hit two motorcyclists, slightly injuring one of them, Cole said.

The woman told the deputy her group was heading back to Ann Arbor and thought someone should know their friend was missing, Cole said. The missing man, a 27-year-old from Dearborn, did have his own vehicle, Cole said.

As the trio left, a large contingency of public safety personnel set up a command center at a Lake Michigan day use area near where the man went missing, Cole said. Among the agencies responding were the Mason County Sheriff's Office, Mason County Search & Rescue Team, Mason County Emergency Management, the fire departments from Riverton, Hamlin, Grant and Free Soil and Life EMS.

Hikers parking at the day use area were advised to be on the lookout for the missing man, Cole said. Around 5 p.m., hikers found him about the same time members of an approximately 20-member search team did, he said. The man was hiking along the trail but had no idea where he was, Cole said.

He reported he had spent the night near Lake Michigan, drinking water from the lake since he had none with him. All he had to eat was a granola bar, Cole said. It turned out he was about a half mile from where his friends had camped, Cole said.

"Nobody called to report him missing," Cole said. "That's the scary thing in the whole deal. There were a lot of possibilities for serious things to go wrong."