Lost teens ‘used their training’

Two 14-year-old bowhunters were found safe Monday morning after spending the night in the woods east of Coeur d’Alene.

Jeremy Rohrbach and Logan Young said they remembered everything they’d learned in hunter education classes and stayed calm.

“They used their training,” said Damian Rohrbach – cousin to Jeremy and stepdad to Logan. “They did what they were supposed to do, and they didn’t lose their mind.”

It was the Hayden teens’ first hunting trip. When they set out from their camp near the Wolf Lodge saddle Sunday afternoon, they wanted to follow a game trail.

Damian Rohrbach wanted to hunt a drainage, so they split up with plans to meet a few hours later.

The boys were supposed to follow the trail and then hook to meet up with Damian Rohrbach. Instead, they went a mile and a half up the wrong canyon, Damian Rohrbach said.

When they didn’t show, Damian Rohrbach yelled and whistled. When he didn’t hear anything, he went back to camp and called for help.

Searchers began scouring the woods about 9:30 p.m. Sunday.

Meanwhile, the boys set up camp on the side of a dirt road. They built a fire and huddled under an emergency blanket they’d packed with them. The low temperature was about 40.

They also had water and a safety whistle.

“A lot of scenarios run through your head,” Damian Rohrbach said. “Were they hurt? Did they split up? Did they do like I told them?

“When it counted, they did.”

The call of a cow elk in the darkness “freaked” the boys out, Jeremy Rohrbach said. Otherwise, the night in the woods was uneventful.

Jeremy said being lost was a bit exciting – in a good and bad way.

“We were thinking, what’s going to happen tomorrow when we wake up?” he said. “Is there someone out looking for us?”

When daylight broke, the boys continued following the road. About 9:15 a.m., they spotted a helicopter overhead and waved.

Search-and-rescue crews arrived and brought the boys to the base camp, where their crying mothers and reporters were waiting.

“I didn’t even know lots of people were looking for us,” a tired-looking Logan said as he sipped a Mountain Dew.

Damian Rohrbach said the teens were more upset about their hunting trip being cut short than they were about spending a night in the woods.

“That’s a rip-off,” they told him.