Speaker 1: Hello, friends, Welcome to our latest video. This episode, we're
Speaker 1: going to be discussing Rocky Mountain disappearance and tragedies now.
Speaker 1: The Rocky Mountains, also known simply as the Rockies, are
Speaker 1: major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America.
Speaker 1: The Rocky Mountains formed eighty million to fifty five million
Speaker 1: years ago during the laridom Hoorrogyny, from which a number
Speaker 1: of plates began sliding underneath the North American plate. The
Speaker 1: angle of subduction was shallow, resulting in a broad built
Speaker 1: of mountains running down in western North America. Of the
Speaker 1: one hundred highest peaks in the Rocky Mountains, seventy eight,
Speaker 1: including the thirty highest, are located in Colorado, ten in Wyoming,
Speaker 1: six in New Mexico, heirey in Montana, and one in Utah.
Speaker 1: Public parks and forest lands protect much of the mountain
Speaker 1: range and their very popular tourist destinations, especially for hiking, camping, mountaineering, fishing, hunting,
Speaker 1: mountain biking, snowmobiling, skiing, and snowboarding. Being in the Rocky
Speaker 1: Mountains have been said to literally make people feel like
Speaker 1: they're on top of the world, or, as John Denver sang,
Speaker 1: Rocky Mountain high today. Though the breathtaking views and scenic
Speaker 1: landscapes of this gorgeous mountain range aren't the reason we're
Speaker 1: bringing you this video. There is something else, entirely and
Speaker 1: something entirely sinister in what we will be discussing with
Speaker 1: you today. Bizarre and tragic deaths and disappearances in the
Speaker 1: Rockies are far too common, and because most national parks
Speaker 1: don't keep very good records of their missing and deceased,
Speaker 1: if they keep any at all, we think it necessary
Speaker 1: to review this information and a few of the very
Speaker 1: many cases like this. Between nineteen fifteen, when Rocky Mountain
Speaker 1: became a National park and twenty fifteen, a total of
Speaker 1: three hundred and forty four park visitors have died as
Speaker 1: a result of accidents, car crashes, heart attacks, and various
Speaker 1: other reasons. Included in those statistics are sick the stunning
Speaker 1: fatalities associated with climbing Long's Peak in particular. Well, of course,
Speaker 1: we can't dig into every single one of these tragedies
Speaker 1: in this short video, Let's dig a little deeper into
Speaker 1: just a few of them. Here are the bizarre and
Speaker 1: strange deaths and disappearances in the Rocky mountains. The average
Speaker 1: age for those that have died on the mountain is
Speaker 1: thirty two point five. The oldest person to die was
Speaker 1: seventy five, when he slipped on ice along the narrow
Speaker 1: section of the Keyhole route. There are also two sixteen
Speaker 1: year olds that died on that peak, one in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty two and the other in nineteen eighty. A total
Speaker 1: of nine victims were teenagers, which represents fifteen percent of
Speaker 1: all deaths. This data was collected back in twenty thirteen,
Speaker 1: and as you can imagine, at least a few more
Speaker 1: deaths of teenagers have occurred at one point another from
Speaker 1: one thing or another since then. During the first decade
Speaker 1: of the twenty first century, eight fatalities have been recorded. However,
Speaker 1: the deadliest decade was the nineteen seventies, when the mountain
Speaker 1: claimed the lives of thirteen people. Mountaineering in particular can
Speaker 1: be one of the most dangerous outdoor activities one can
Speaker 1: take part in when out in the Rockies or on
Speaker 1: any mountain range for that matter. Despite these dangers, however,
Speaker 1: people have been climbing for thousands of years. It's the
Speaker 1: perfect thing to do if you have a great love
Speaker 1: of the outdoors. And a spirit of adventure to go
Speaker 1: along with it. Some have said that while out in
Speaker 1: mother Nature, as scenic as the views from so high
Speaker 1: above the rest of the world are, you start to
Speaker 1: realize how absolutely insignificant you are in the grand scheme
Speaker 1: of things. It's very humbling, I reiterate. However, it's also
Speaker 1: extremely dangerous, and one tiny mistake or misstep can cost
Speaker 1: you your veried life. Take the case of Matthew Burkelow, who,
Speaker 1: on June ninth, twenty fourteen, at around two o'clock in
Speaker 1: the morning, got into his Honda Fit and drove an
Speaker 1: hour from his home to the Long's Peak trailhead. The
Speaker 1: twenty five year old hiker plan and on summitting the
Speaker 1: Front Range's most prominent fourteen thousand foot mountain and returning
Speaker 1: to Fort Collins in time for his afternoon shift at
Speaker 1: a King Supers Pharmacy, where he was a certified pharmacy technician.
Speaker 1: He had his whole life mapped out. He would study
Speaker 1: physics at CSU and then attend pharmaceutical school. He made
Speaker 1: the summit, but he unfortunately did not make it off
Speaker 1: the mountain alive. Matthew Burkelow became the fifty ninth fatality
Speaker 1: on Long's Peak, one of, if not the most deadly
Speaker 1: peaks in Colorado. Matthew was born and raised in Georgia, but,
Speaker 1: according to his load ones, Colorado simply stole his heart.
Speaker 1: He didn't have a cell phone, as he believed he
Speaker 1: had no use for one. He didn't have credit cards either.
Speaker 1: He was building websites at the age of eight, however,
Speaker 1: and his family insisted he was a stringent planner in
Speaker 1: everything he did, so what happened on the mountain. Matthew
Speaker 1: was an experienced hiker who had recently started ice climbing
Speaker 1: and had completed the Appalachian Trail two years before his
Speaker 1: fatal journey. His family reported that he was a meticulous
Speaker 1: planner who treated the mountains with tremendous respect. For months,
Speaker 1: Matthew had planned the twenty one hundred and sixty mile
Speaker 1: Apple Outs and Trail trek from Georgia to Maine. How
Speaker 1: much food he needed, where he could restock supplies, how
Speaker 1: many miles a day he could manage. Where he'd meet
Speaker 1: his wife, Hayley, who would drive from Tennessee on the
Speaker 1: weekends with fresh supplies, and they'd spend Saturday nights together.
Speaker 1: His father said of his son that anything Matthew did,
Speaker 1: he excelled at and if he couldn't be the best
Speaker 1: at it, then it wasn't for him. Back to that
Speaker 1: fateful day in June twenty fourteen, Matthew's extensive planning and
Speaker 1: collection of the newest and best outdoor gear earned him
Speaker 1: the trail name Fancy. He climbed the fourteen two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty nine foot tall Longs Peak alone in winter
Speaker 1: conditions that would caution hikers to include crampons, a helmet,
Speaker 1: and an ice axe. He had indeed packed all those
Speaker 1: things except for the helmet. After recovering Matthew's body, Rocky
Speaker 1: Mountain National Park Search and Rescue rangers investigated the fatal accident.
Speaker 1: Piecing together what clues they had at their disposal, they
Speaker 1: found photos of Matthew smiling on the summit. After two
Speaker 1: previous unsuccessful attempts, it reached Rocky Mountain National Park's highest
Speaker 1: point and the fourteenth most difficult fourteener, which are peaks
Speaker 1: fourteen thousand feet or higher higher in the lingo of
Speaker 1: the climbers, among the fifty four in Colorado, as rated
Speaker 1: by fourteeners dot com. Despite the calendar showing the month
Speaker 1: of June, Long's peak still exhibited winter conditions. On the
Speaker 1: evening of June eighth, just hours before Matthew let Fort
Speaker 1: Collins for the trailhead Rocky Mountain National Park closed the
Speaker 1: high elevation trail Ridge Road being covered in a new
Speaker 1: sheet of ice. About a foot of snow covered the trough,
Speaker 1: the narrows, and the ledges section of the Keyhole route,
Speaker 1: and the homestreadch, a steep slab of granite near the summit,
Speaker 1: had many sections slick with ice. Matthew fell from the
Speaker 1: ledges section of the mountain, a series of narrow ledges
Speaker 1: with a drop off of two thousand feet or more. Sadly,
Speaker 1: Matthew wasn't this particular spot's first victim either. It already
Speaker 1: traversed the steep home stretch and the snowy narrows, and
Speaker 1: had nearly reached the Keyhole, the final hurdle before the
Speaker 1: simple scramble down the boulder field. It should have been
Speaker 1: easy going from there back to his vehicle, but Matthew fell,
Speaker 1: perhaps on a slick section of snow or ice, or
Speaker 1: maybe because of tired legs or a brief second of inattention.
Speaker 1: He fell approximately six hundred feet and his body was
Speaker 1: found in a rocky outcropping below the mark section of
Speaker 1: the trough. Chances of surviving a fall of that magnitude
Speaker 1: are extremely slim, said Rocky Mountain National Park Easterristrict Ranger
Speaker 1: Mark Pete. Matthew's body was flown to the helipad at
Speaker 1: Upper Beaver Meadows in Rocky Mountain National Park and transferred
Speaker 1: to the Boulder County Corner's Office. Looking back, perhaps the
Speaker 1: most famous person to perish on the mountain was Agnes Vale.
Speaker 1: On January twenty fifth, nineteen twenty five, she became the
Speaker 1: first woman to climb Long's Peak in the winter. While
Speaker 1: making her descend along the Keyhole route, Vale slipped and
Speaker 1: fell about one hundred and fifty feet. Exhausted and running
Speaker 1: out of steam, Agnes assisted. She needed a short nap,
Speaker 1: but froze to death before her hiking partner could bring
Speaker 1: help back. Today, just below the Keyhole is the Agnes
Speaker 1: Vale Shelter, built as a memorial to miss Veil. The
Speaker 1: shelter also serves as a refuge for hikers and climbers
Speaker 1: in need. Another notable death occurred way back in eighteen
Speaker 1: eighty nine, prior to the park even being established, a
Speaker 1: man named Frank Striker was descending down the home stretch
Speaker 1: on the Keyhole route when a loaded pistol fell out
Speaker 1: of his pocket and discharged into his neck. Some say
Speaker 1: this was carment work, as the two t eight year
Speaker 1: old was taking pleasure and launching large bowlders down the
Speaker 1: mountain while climbing up himself. The newspaper account at the
Speaker 1: time said he announced his intentions of sending off a
Speaker 1: particularly huge stone just before the accident occurred. He continued
Speaker 1: to cling to life for ten more hours while his
Speaker 1: companions attempted to transport him down the mountain on a
Speaker 1: makeshift litter. He died of his injuries shortly thereafter. Now
Speaker 1: there is so much more statistically that we could look
Speaker 1: at to try and make sense of these senseless tragedies.
Speaker 1: Even the well prepared and most obsessive compulsive have accidents.
Speaker 1: Nobody goes mountain climbing or high king expecting to never
Speaker 1: make it back home to their loved ones alive. Let's
Speaker 1: discuss some other tragedies, ones that didn't have to do
Speaker 1: with climbing. There are literally thousands of ways to die
Speaker 1: on the mountain. No matter what you're doing. Ammittedly, however,
Speaker 1: being in nature and being careless is almost always a
Speaker 1: recipe for disaster. Being unprepared also a surefire way to
Speaker 1: get yourself in trouble out there in the woods. What
Speaker 1: about the unexplained? This video wouldn't be a complete video
Speaker 1: if we didn't mention at least one of the more
Speaker 1: strange and bizarre, unexplained deaths that happened in the Rockies.
Speaker 1: Take the mysterious disappearance of Keith Reinhardt. Keith was a
Speaker 1: sports reporter at the Daily Herald in Chicago in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty eight when he announced he'd be taking the next
Speaker 1: ninety days off to fulfill his lifelong dream to spend
Speaker 1: some time living in the Rocky Mountains. In a letter
Speaker 1: he wrote to a friend, Keith stated, I love these
Speaker 1: mountains and want to live in them before I die.
Speaker 1: So he took off for Silver Plume, Colorado, a small
Speaker 1: mining town of two hundred that sits inside their Appahole
Speaker 1: National Forest at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Ironically,
Speaker 1: and more than just a little eerily, Keith had another
Speaker 1: reason for wanting to visit this particular tiny little mining town.
Speaker 1: In addition, to fulfilling his one dream, he was also
Speaker 1: hoping to achieve another. This was to novel about the
Speaker 1: disappearance of Tom Young. Tom was another man who just
Speaker 1: happened to have disappeared from that same exact mining town.
Speaker 1: But in September of nineteen eighty seven, he immediately opened
Speaker 1: an antique store in the building which used to house
Speaker 1: Tom Young's bookstore. He wanted to get a feel for
Speaker 1: Tom's life so he could more easily and authentically write
Speaker 1: about him. Late one afternoon, severely hungover from a previous
Speaker 1: night of heavy drinking and having fun, Keith Reinhardt went
Speaker 1: to hike Pendleton Mountain and never returned. More than one
Speaker 1: hundred people logged over ten thousand hours searching and never
Speaker 1: found a clue as to what had happened to him.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the answer is there is no answer, Ryan Hart's widow,
Speaker 1: Caroline O'Donnell told The Daily Herald in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1: Sometimes there really isn't, not that any answer could ever
Speaker 1: be satisfactory enough, surely for the deceased person's loved ones
Speaker 1: to have to reconcile yourself to the fact that someone
Speaker 1: so important to you and that you love so much
Speaker 1: is gone and never to return again must be hard enough.
Speaker 1: But to have to make sense out of the fact
Speaker 1: that somewhere so incredibly beautiful, scenic and mostly peaceful and
Speaker 1: serene is the cause of that person's demise. It bothers
Speaker 1: the mind and has to be quite unbearable. So in closing,
Speaker 1: make sure went out in the woods, even if you're
Speaker 1: just camping, or if you are hiking, climbing, et cetera,
Speaker 1: whether in the national parks or even in your own backyard,
Speaker 1: that you're well prepared and careful. If you absolutely must
Speaker 1: go alone, always be sure to tell at least one
Speaker 1: other person where you're going and when you expect to
Speaker 1: be back. A lot of people even go so far
Speaker 1: as to give a time that, if they haven't yet returned,
Speaker 1: that the authorities are to be called. You can find
Speaker 1: so many safety tips online these days, so please do
Speaker 1: your own research before going out into the wilderness. There
Speaker 1: you have it, folks, just a few of the strange
Speaker 1: deaths in the Rocky Mountains. I look forward to your comments,
Speaker 1: but please keep it friendly and respectful. In the meanwhile,
Speaker 1: be good to yourselves and each other, and I'll see
Speaker 1: you just a little farther on down the trail. I'm
Speaker 1: Steve Stockton and i'll talk to you next time.