On Nov. 15, 1958, six Boy Scouts began their hike up Mount Wrightson, then called Mt. Baldy, in the Santa Rita Mountains, totally unaware that three of them would not be coming back alive.
An unexpected snowstorm swept through the range, dumping six inches overnight.
Three of the Scouts, 16-year-old Louis Burgess, 11-year-old Ronny Sepulveda and 12-year-old Ralph Coltrin Jr., decided to turn back.
The other three, 12-year-old David Greenberg, 16-year-old Mike Early and 13-year-old Michael J. La Noue, kept going. Their bodies were retrieved on the mountain 19 days later.
65 years later and friends and family of the Scouts who went up still remember the tragedy.
Cathy Hufault, sister of survivor Ralph Coltrin, said if there was one positive thing to come from such a terrible event, it was the creation of the Southern Arizona Rescue Association, which formed later that year.
"They saved so many lives in the years since," Hufault said.
