Gary Wenzel planned to hike to Baldy Lake, hook a couple of brook trout and take them back to his cabin in Granite to fry up, a tasty finale to the first day of fall.

He ended up with a new left hip.

And a newfound appreciation for the satellite emergency beacon he had owned for about 20 years but had never used and sometimes left in his pickup truck.

Wenzel, 67, who lives in Reedsport on the southern Oregon coast, is still recovering from his ordeal at the alpine lake, at the northern foot of Mount Ireland, on the afternoon and evening of Sept. 22.

“I’m doing very well,” Wenzel said in a phone interview a month later, on Oct. 23. “It’s coming along. There’s still an occasional twinge, and I don’t have complete mobility.”

But Wenzel, who retired about five years ago from an electric company, is feeling healthy enough to drive across the state next week to his cabin for an elk-hunting trip.

“I come back whenever I can,” said Wenzel, who has lived in Reedsport since 1979 and owned the cabin in Granite for about 25 years. “I love the country back there, the mountains.”

The lakes, too — and especially Baldy, the one nearest Granite.

A mountain road leads to a trailhead just a mile or so from the lake.

Wenzel has hiked the route many times.

And until Sept. 22, nothing especially memorable happened.

“It’s nothing strenuous,” he said. “Unless you have a broken hip.”

The fall

Wenzel had been staying at his cabin for several days.

He planned to drive home the next day, Sept. 23.

But first he had that hankering for fresh trout.

Wenzel, who was alone, drove to the trailhead on the afternoon of Sept. 22. There were no vehicles, and he didn’t see any other hikers or anglers.

He arrived at the northwest corner of the lake around 4 p.m.

Wenzel said he got a strike on his first cast.

“I have a super secret lure,” he said with a chuckle.

On the second cast he set the hook and brought to shore a nice brookie.

“Pan-sized, maybe 10 inches,” he said.

Wenzel slipped the stringer through the trout’s gills and went to retrieve his pole. One more fish would be enough.

Then he tripped.

Baldy Lake is a bouldery place.

The basin in which it sits is littered with granitic rocks that have tumbled off the steep north face of Mount Ireland.

Wenzel’s left hip landed on a rock.

As he lay there he knew this was no ordinary fall, leaving a scrape and a bruise.

“I couldn’t put any weight on it,” he said. “The leg was pretty much useless. I knew when I stood up that something was broken.”

Wenzel didn’t immediately think of the emergency beacon in his pack.

That the device was even there was, he said, something of an anomaly.

His nephew, Tim, and Tim’s girlfriend, had visited him at the cabin earlier in the week.

The trio had hiked to Killamacue Lake, in the Elkhorn Mountains northwest of Baker City, and Wenzel had for some reason thought to put the beacon in his pack.

“Fortunately, it was still there,” he said.

Wenzel, who was alone at the lake, didn’t want to use the device unless it was absolutely necessary.

The instructions, he said, note that it should be used only in “dire circumstances.”

Wenzel thought maybe he could hop back to his truck.

But after crawling 50 or 60 feet to the trail, where he gathered a skimpy pile of firewood, he realized that was impossible.

The wait and the rescue

Around 6:30 p.m., as dusk was falling along with the temperature, Wenzel, who was wearing a T-shirt and shorts, decided the situation was dire enough.

His beacon is relatively simple compared to newer devices.

Wenzel said he registered the beacon with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a federal agency, and set it up so that if he activated it, the agency would call his wife, Lisa, and his older brother, Bob, who lives near Mt. Vernon.

But unlike newer models, Wenzel’s doesn’t allow him to send a text message or otherwise explain what had happened to him.

After activating the beacon he waited.

With his limited supply of firewood, and his even more limited mobility, he waited until after dark to ignite the blaze.

Around 9:30 p.m., Wenzel heard the distinctive sound of a helicopter.

The chopper, though, was hovering off to the west, near the trailhead where his pickup was parked.

Not long after, though, a search and rescue member found Wenzel.

Wenzel found out later that members of the search and rescue teams from both Grant and Baker counties — the lake is near the county border — participated.

He said he will always be grateful to them, along with the Life Flight helicopter crew and people from Granite who also were involved.

Grant County Sheriff Todd McKinley said in an interview a few days after the incident that due to the terrain, it wasn’t feasible to try to carry Wenzel to the trailhead.

The helicopter was the best option.

The aircraft landed a couple hundred yards from Wenzel, and by 1 a.m. or so he was flying north to a hospital in Walla Walla.

The surgery

Wenzel said he arrived at the hospital before dawn on Sept. 23.

By 5 p.m. that day he was in surgery.

Wenzel said a surgeon told him that when he fell the impact with the boulder dislodged the hip joint from the femur. The surgeon suggested a hip replacement.

Less than a day later, on Sept. 24, Wenzel’s brother, Bob, drove him to his cabin in Granite. Wenzel gathered his belongings and was able to get into his pickup and drive home to Reedsport.

Wenzel said he was amazed that he was able to drive himself so soon after the injury and surgery.

The phone calls

Wenzel didn’t learn until later the curious coincidences that transpired during the few hours between when he activated his beacon and when the first rescuer found him lying beside his modest fire.

He said both his wife and his brother had phone calls from NOAA.

But neither knew the nature of the emergency.

Wenzel said his sister-in-law, after learning about the situation, called her son, Tim — the nephew who had been visiting Wenzel at his cabin earlier in the week.

Tim and his girlfriend were driving home to Portland on the evening of Sept. 22.

They were in Fossil when the call came in.

Tim was cradling his cellphone to his ear when he drove past a police car.

The officer, seeing a driver using his phone, pulled Tim over.

Wenzel said his nephew explained the situation. The officer was initially skeptical, remarking that it was at least “a good story.”

But the officer called his dispatch office and verified that there had been a notification from an emergency beacon.

The officer was also a member of a search and rescue team, and he knew it was vital to know where the beacon was when it was activated.

Tim called his dad — Wenzel’s brother, Bob — who called the federal agency with which the beacon was registered. Bob got the coordinates and relayed them to the police officer, who forwarded the information to Grant and Baker counties.

The rescue effort was soon underway.

Returning to Granite

Wenzel said he’s eager to come back to his cabin for the first time since the accident.

He said he’s spent more time there since he retired around Halloween in 2019.

Wenzel said he makes the long drive across Oregon for hunting, fishing and just enjoying the solitude in the old gold-mining town, which has a population of about 30.

“There’s always a project going” at the cabin, he said.

After the rescue, McKinley wrote in a press release that Wenzel’s decision to pack the beacon “made all the difference between life and death. Had it not been for Gary’s satellite beacon activation, the outcome would have been dire.”