"I've worked for the Boy Scouts for 40 years and this is the first [time] we've had to notify the [Summit County] sheriff's office of a lost boy," said Craig Edwards, a field director of the 563-acre spread known as the East Fork of the Bear River Reservation.

Fire has been a problem. Last year state and federal authorities sued the Great Salt Lake Council and the Boy Scouts of America for $14 million because of a wildfire Scouts allegedly ignited in 2002 that burned 14,000 acres on the north slope of the Uinta Mountains.

But the dense stands of lodgepole pine that are susceptible to fire during dry spells cover a gently sloping landscape that lacks cliffs and ravines where a youngster might fall.

Although the trees are thick enough to disorient someone who wanders in, veteran Scout leaders who know the area were mystified Sunday that a boy could vanish there.

"I don't understand how you can get lost going from the climbing wall," said Varsity Scout leader Dan Horne, of Sandy, referring to the last place Brennan was seen before he was supposed to walk back along a road to a group of tents for dinner. "Even if he was left alone for a minute, it's a road. And there are events happening and people all along the road."

Carlos Madsen, another Varsity Scout leader from Sandy, said, "It's not anything like hiking the High Uintas. You're within earshot of three different summer camps plus Rendezvous Meadows," a gathering spot for many Scout activities.

Hawkins is a Boy Scout, but was not camping with his troop Friday, his mother, Jody Hawkins said. He was a guest of another boy, whose father was a volunteer leader for an annual event at the reservation.

The greatest safety threat this year would be from the spring runoff. The East Fork of the Bear River is generally only a few feet across and shallow in this area, roughly 8,500 feet above sea level.

But because of an abundance of high-elevation snow this winter, Horne estimated the stream was 20 to 25 feet across and running swiftly when he was at the camp late last week.

Still, the route Brennan would have taken from the climbing wall to his tent site should have led the boy away from water, not toward it, the Scout leaders said.

"It was pretty obvious it was dangerous," Horne said. "There was no reason for him to be there."

The Boy Scout reservation is on a parcel of state land within Wasatch-Cache National Forest. In 1968, the agency now known as the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration gave the Boy Scouts a 99-year lease to the land, for an annual fee of $339.

There are three main camping areas inside the reservation - Frontier, Tomahawk and Baden-Powell (originally Evergreen, but renamed after the founder of the Boy Scouts) - plus the climbing wall, the Travis Training Area and Rendezvous Meadow.

Scout troops of many ages use the area for a wide range of activities: climbing, hiking, fishing, shooting guns or arrows, practicing Dutch oven cooking, taking a land navigation course and participating in overnight survival camps.

mikeg@sltrib.com

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Tribune staff writer Jason Bergreen contributed to this story.