What was supposed to be a picture-perfect proposal on one of the Midwest’s most iconic ski attractions turned into near disaster when the engagement ring slipped out of the nervous proposer’s hands and tumbled down 118 feet to disappear in the snow, seemingly lost forever.
Trevor Van Camp had planned the perfect proposal with a surprise weekend getaway to Boyne Mountain Resort in Michigan for his girlfriend, Danielle Jenkins. The reason was simple: Danielle had been sending him countless TikToks of SkyBridge Michigan—the world’s longest timber-towered suspension bridge. “It was something she really, really wanted to do,” Trevor said in a Facebook video the resort shared online. “So I kind of made it a surprise for her.”
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After riding the chairlift to the top of the mountain, the couple stepped onto SkyBridge Michigan, the 1,200-foot-long suspension bridge stretched between two peaks and suspended 118 feet above the Boyne Valley. They started walking across the bridge, when Trevor stopped and asked Danielle if she’d like to take a photo. She agreed and he set up the camera for a selfie. But then, unexpectedly, Trevor dropped down to one knee and pulled out the box with the ring.
Danielle said yes, the moment was perfect, but then disaster struck. As Trevor reached for the ring with shaking hands, he briefly looked down and the ring slipped from his fingers, falling through the open metal grating of the bridge, and vanishing into the snow far below. “We panicked for a minute,” Trevor said. “Then we looked at each other and just said, ‘We need to find it.’”
For the next two and a half hours, the newly engaged couple searched the slope beneath the bridge, combing through snow in the dark with a metal detector. The metal detector had been provided by Pat Harper, Boyne Mountain’s night-shift snowmaking supervisor, who happened to have not one—but two—metal detectors in his car. But by around 10 p.m., Trevor and Danielle were exhausted and out of hope. They left the mountain assuming the ring was gone for good. But Pat wasn’t ready to quit, “I promised them I was going to find it,” Harper said in the Facebook video.
He returned to the slope alone and began methodically sweeping the area, focusing on footprints in the snow near hydrants below the bridge. After about 20 to 30 minutes, his detector picked up a signal. He dug—again—just like he had dozens of times already that night. At first, nothing but dirt—then he brushed away some snow with his hand and the edge of the ring appeared. “I kind of just sat there for a minute,” Harper said. “Like, there’s no way!”
The next day, as Trevor and Danielle were packing up to head home—already talking about buying a replacement ring—their phones rang. Boyne Mountain was calling. The ring had been found and Trevor finally got to place it on Danielle’s hand. “I give big props and kudos to Pat,” Danielle said. “He saved the day. It’s an experience we now have—a story to tell. It’s our engagement story.”
The couple says they plan to return to Boyne Mountain to finish what they started. “We’ll probably come back in the wintertime,” Danielle said, “to finish our journey across the bridge with the lights and enjoy the full experience we cut short.”
Thanks to one determined snowmaker, a metal detector—and a little mountain magic—this proposal turned from heartbreak to an iconic engagement story.
