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THE BOOK CLIFFS, Uintah County — A search Tuesday resulted in the location of two Duchesne County men who hadn't been heard from since Monday morning.
Joey Draper, 22, and Kyle Wilkerson, 21, were hunting for shed antlers Monday in the Seep Ridge Road/Great Divide area of the Book Cliffs about 40 miles south of Vernal, according to Undersheriff John Laursen.
Just before 1 p.m. Tuesday, the men were located and expected to be reunited with their families. They were uninjured, but cold.
The county's search and rescue team was activated about 4:45 a.m. Tuesday after family members called the sheriff's office Monday night saying the men hadn't returned home from their day trip. They had last heard from them around 9 a.m.
According to Wilkerson, the weather when they started out was perfect for looking for deer and elk antlers.
"It was nice, I mean, we had t-shirts on, pretty much. We shedded all of our clothes and dumped our bags," Wilkerson said.
By late afternoon, they were in a small draw and found themselves in a sudden snowstorm.
"It just turned us completely around. We just couldn't navigate where we were at or anything," Draper said.
In the whiteout, the friends couldn't find their jackets or their backpacks, which held food and other supplies.
"We stayed pretty positive and we kept calm," Draper said. "We didn't freak or stress out. We both agreed on the same decision, once we made one, and we just teamworked right through it."
They decided to find one of the roads that criss-cross the Book Cliffs and follow it. As night fell and the temperatures dropped, they knew they needed shelter.
"It was pretty cold. Tell you what, that dog, having the dog with us, it helped a lot," Wilkerson said. "Just crawled up under a cliff and stayed close, stayed warm."
The men woke up Tuesday to snow on the ground and more falling from the sky, but they kept walking the road until they were found miles from where their ordeal began.
"It's something else when you're out there by yourself, you know, nothing around and you don't know what to do," Wilkerson said.
They planned to go back Wednesday to find their lost backpacks and antler sheds.
