BEND — A 20-year-old Wyoming man is safe after becoming lost in the Badlands east of Bend and spending the night in freezing conditions.

Joseph Hawkins was found at approximately 9:40 a.m. Thursday after making his way back to the Badlands Rock Trailhead.

Hawkins, who was in town for the holidays visiting his parents, left for a hike mid-afternoon Wednesday. He was wearing blue jeans, a gray hooded sweatshirt and a baseball hat.

He called his mother at 6 p.m. to say he was lost and his phone battery was nearly depleted.

Search and Rescue located Hawkins’ vehicle in the Badlands Rock Trailhead parking lot. Multiple agencies used ground teams, search dogs, trackers and drones to look for him. An AirLink helicopter searched the 150-square-mile wilderness hours into the night.

“Even though it’s dark, the person could hold up a light and they could see it,” said Sgt. Nathan Garibay, assistant search and rescue coordinator for the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office.

Search operations wound down around 3 a.m. and missing person notices were issued. Temperatures that night dipped to 30 degrees.

At around 9:40 the next morning, Hawkins was spotted by searchers near the trailhead “cold but otherwise unharmed.”

Hawkins told authorities that after his phone died, he’d found a place to sleep and awoken at sunrise. He didn’t want to talk to reporters and has yet to be formally debriefed by SAR, Garibay said.

“He really just wanted to get back home and chill out,” Garibay said.