Betsy Shepard

I just, I said, okay, Debbie, we're sending people up there, you know, keep you posted.

Patrol deputies hightail it to the punch bowl, where they find Ajay's truck, but no Ajay.

They think maybe he got injured, slipped and fell, or had a run-in with some wildlife.

So Burton dispatches search and rescue to the site, and he calls in their coordinator, Dave Sauer, to discuss Ajay's likely route.

And Dave comes in and we pull up a map of the area.

And I told him at that time, I said, you know, John's a runner.

And he goes, yeah.

And I said, no, he's a long distance runner.

He's an ultra marathoner.

He's like, what?

Ultramarathoners are running extremists who power through long distances.

In fact, Ajay was scheduled to compete in a 100-mile run the week after he went missing.

So responders have a hard time wrapping their heads around the scale of the search.

This is Randy Meggardly.

He was a patrol deputy for the Sheriff's Department and one of Ajay's running buddies.

He reiterates to the command post that Ajay was a beast.

You're running goat trails is basically what I categorize them as.

What do you mean by that?

Goat trails?

Well, they're just makeshift trails.