Dead Man's Gulch

Sometime in 1970, probably in the spring, I went with my father, Carl Cole, who was our scoutmaster, and a group of scouts between ages 12 and 16 to Salt River Canyon. We went down river from the bridge about 2 miles and made camp. The next morning, our patrol decided to climb the edge of the canyon while the rest went down to a zip line or cable car. Four of us climbed nearly to the top of the canyon wall, but it seemed the walls rose endlessly above us. The four involved were Dahl Willis, who was the patrol leader, Bardell Perkins, Ron Knight, and me. After reaching our highest point, we chose to come down through a canyon to the south and headed into a dry ravine. We were in a bit of a hurry, so we jogged, staying in the bottom of the wash, which meant fewer cactus and quicker travel. We played a type of follow-the-leader by staying close together in the same track in front as we jumped off small ledges and twisted down the sandy gulch. We were stopped by a 30-foot drop-off, about 40 feet wide and nearly straight down. We went carefully around one steep side and re-entered the wash. There was a spring there and we got a drink of the cool fresh, then continued at a trot. In front of us we saw a large juniper tree on the right and another two-foot drop to the left of it, with a wide strip of soft sand in the bottom of the ravine. I was leading when I stopped instantly because I saw a dead man sprawled on his back in front of us. Mostly I saw his brilliant white teeth, open enough to swallow me. Ron ran into me. Dahl and Bardell swerved to the side to avoid running into us and hit their brakes too. We only stood for a second, so terrified with the horror before us that we scrambled up the side of the wash through the thick prickly pear and ran the mile back down to camp. We were absolutely scared to death! The other boys and leaders had just returned to camp. I won’t say they didn’t believe us, but they wanted proof before we went for help. We must have been acting pretty crazy; we felt it! We drove to the mouth of our ravine and they headed up. The body was only about 50 yards off the road. At first they went up without us and searched to the left side of the tree, while the body was kind of hidden on the right. Some of them walked right by the corpse, clear up to the cliff. Dahl told Dennis Hensley where to find the corpse and as he walked back down he found it. Dennis started shaking at the sight just as a small breeze came up and they both felt like throwing up. It was a ghastly sight! Our dead guy was about 50 yards below the cliff, in a wide sandy spot in the wash by the spreading juniper. He was laying on his back, arms spread out slightly, clenched full of sand. His face was darkened by time, and the flesh around his teeth had rotted away so we could see his mouth open wide and teeth gleaming in the sun. His hair remained intact, hanging straight behind him onto the sand. His forehead was caved in and one foot appeared twisted, as if broken, while the rest of his body lay straight. When we were downwind we could smell the rot of flesh; it was putrid. We did not smell him earlier because there was no breeze and it was cool enough that he had not started to smell, but he had been there long enough to have the decomposition process well advanced. We went back to the car and drove a little further down the road to a camp of rangers. We showed them the place and about three hours later, we saw an ambulance remove the body. The drivers were wearing oxygen masks. Later, according to a newspaper article I have never been able to locate again, the body belonged to a man named Gary Lee Hansen, apparently from Denver. He had a hotel key from Phoenix in his pocket. What really happened is still a mystery to us; the paper said he must have fallen from the cliff. Each of us think about our friend Gary Lee every time we drive through Salt River Canyon.