S!@#, a
Stinson?!?
Notoriously poor high alt performance, maybe the pilot thought his son and his friends were a couple years younger (and a hundred pounds lighter) than they were?
I'm glad everyone is OK and all will be well, but ohbuy... don't want to jump on the bandwagon, glad your freind is OK, wonderful little plane he lost there.
As soon as I saw 4 people in the plane it was obvious what was going to happen... The takeoff roll takes forever, and it looks like the terrain may be slightly rising? In any case, overloaded plane for conditions (high density altitude) in mountain flying is a recipe for disaster.
Glad they lived. Lots of people making that exact same mistake don't survive.
I only saw three, but in one of these:

Full boat.