From Alexis Kregier via FB: On March 6th our group had a 3 boats flip and 1 person went missing which is a presumed fatality at this point since he has not been found. Water level was 2600 cfs, low water. It happened at a rock they were calling Boyscout Wall. It's after Rat Trap and before Canyon Creek. The river takes a sharp left here. One boat got hung up on the rock and every boat after hit it and flipped. Two guys were able to get out of the water but man, Kent Brocklehurst, wasn't able to, the last he was seen was grabbing onto the side of his boat going downstream but by the time the boat made it around the corner he wasn't there.
From James Xu - The accident happened between mile 16 & 17 below Granite Rapid at Ash Creek at 12 noon. The Wall had no pillow; very sticky! All 5 boats flipped. When we came upon the group they were missing 2 rafts and one person. They had stopped, and were looking for help. They had no satelite communicator. We searched downstream. Aat mile 19 found a flipped raft hung up near an island. Seatch and secured the raft. Searched side channels. I activated a SOS on inreach 12.40.
Missing person: Kent Broccohurst, age 64, last seen alive and swimming upstream from Canyon Creek Rapid at 4 pm.
A ranger trip found the party soon thereafter. The second raft found at mile 21. Lots of gear in the water, but no person was found. There have been extensive helicopter searches without success.
Apache Rangers said there was a raft flip; the man could not get back into the raft and his pfd slipped off.
Man's body recovered from Salt River
after going missing a month ago
by Alex Bechman, Payson Roundup
A month after he was last seen clinging to his overturned boat, a Show Low man’s body has been recovered from the upper Salt River, according to the Gila County Sheriff’s Office. Kent Brocklehurst, 64, was thrown into the river on day two of a five-day rafting trip.
On March 6, Brocklehurst set out with six friends and six boats. The group had the permits and had years of experience, said GCSO Sgt. Cole LaBonte, who handles search and rescue missions for the GCSO. “There were a couple older guys that have been rafting 25 plus years, a few younger guys that have about 10 years under their belt and one female,” he said. Some of the group had rafted the river before, as well as other rivers.
The group started at camp 1 near Highway 60 and the Salt River Canyon bridge and planned to finish as the Highway 288 Salt River takeout. On day two, at about 4 p.m., two boats carrying three people made it past an area known as Boy Scout Wall. The other three oar boats in the group flipped, sending four people in the sub-40-degree water. Two men made it to the river’s edge while another man went through the next set of rapids; all had lost their boats. Brocklehurst was last seen holding onto his boat.
“The men were separated from their gear and spent the night without any equipment,” LaBonte said. “When everyone was able to regroup the next morning, Kent could not be located. Using a satellite phone, a member of the group called for help.”
The White Mountain Apache Tribe Game and Fish Rangers, who patrol the upper Salt River, began searching from an oar boat and by land. They requested Gila County Search and Rescue late in the evening on March 7, GCSO Search and Rescue, Tonto Rim Search and Rescue, and the Arizona Department of Public Safety Air Rescue helicopter responded the following morning. However, due to the conditions of the land and water, the search tactics were limited, he said. The river has several class 3 and class 4 rapids and LaBonte estimates the river was flowing at around 2,000 cubic feet per second when the accident happened. The norm is between 1,500 and 4,000 cfs.
With search options limited, the Forest Service offered to take two human remains detection dogs from TRSAR, along with their handlers, on a three-day trip down the river to find Brocklehurst’s body. Handlers Alicia Keller with Leia and Margaret Johnson with Lucy set off on rafts, which Forest Service personnel captained. For three days they looked. “They found a strong point of interest where the rafts overturned, but the water was too high to search,” according to TRSAR Commander Bill Pitterle.
The call On April 7, the White Mountain Game Rangers received a satellite phone message indicating a group had located human remains on the Upper Salt River. The group suspected the body belonged to the missing rafter from the previous month. DPS Air Rescue from Tucson flew to Payson to pick LaBonte up to fly him to an area known as Gleeson Flats to recover the remains. “We landed and recovered the remains, which were later transported to the Pinal County Medical Examiner’s office.”
On Monday, April 10, the medical examiner confirmed the remains were that of Brocklehurst. LaBonte said the group was wearing personal floatation devices (PFDs), but not helmets. He said Brocklehurst may have been wearing a PFD, but he was “known to not tighten the vest; we believe it may have come off him when he went in the water.”
“That’s considered a pretty intense trip, usually people that aren’t professional river guides that want to do that river hire professionals to be on the trip with them,” he added.
Just this season, at least one other person has died on the Salt River and several others have had to be rescued. An 81-year-old man died after falling out of his kayak in mid-March. On the same day, a family kayaking the river had to be rescued after their kayak capsized.
