Speaker 1: Thousands of people have mysteriously vanished in America's wilderness. Join
Speaker 1: us as we dive into the deep end of the
Speaker 1: unexplainable world and try to piece together what happened. And
Speaker 1: you are listening to Locations Unknown.
Speaker 2: What's up, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of
Speaker 2: Locations Unknown.
Speaker 4: I'm your co host, Joe.
Speaker 2: You' roddling with me as always is a guy who
Speaker 2: never uses AI for anything at all, ever, Mike Vanderboguard.
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you, Joe, and thank you to all of
Speaker 3: our amazing listeners for tuning in.
Speaker 4: My voice is back. Can we get a little round
Speaker 4: of applause?
Speaker 5: Oh, let's see, I'm finding it. Nope, nope, there you go.
Speaker 3: Oh so it feels good to be back. So that
Speaker 3: was a rough stretch there.
Speaker 4: I actually didn't remember what you sounded like. Oh well,
Speaker 4: go back and listen to the last two episodes. I
Speaker 4: mean your normal voice. Oh yeah, I've been heard you
Speaker 4: talk normal.
Speaker 3: I spent so much time editing those two episodes, adding
Speaker 3: out all the coughs and the soroat clearing everyone listening.
Speaker 3: You can thank me because it was rough to listen
Speaker 3: to that.
Speaker 4: I didn't even want to be friends with you, anyone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was brutal, all right, everybody, let's gear up
Speaker 2: and get out to explore locations unknown. July twenty eighth,
Speaker 2: twenty eleven, experienced Australian hiker begins a ten days solo
Speaker 2: trek across Utah's remote you Into Highline trail. Along the way,
Speaker 2: he encounters dangerous snowfields, leaves the established route more than once,
Speaker 2: and is last seen by a boy scout group deep
Speaker 2: in the back country. Days later, he fails to appear
Speaker 2: at the Western trailhead. Search teams on foot, horseback and
Speaker 2: by helicopters scour vast stretches of rugged alpine terrain, but
Speaker 2: find no clear trace of where he went. Join us
Speaker 2: this week as we investigate the disappearance of Eric Robertson
Speaker 2: Robinson Robinson, I'm doing too much stuff. I'm trying to
Speaker 2: find buttons and do things right. When I told you
Speaker 2: I had it all figured out, he threw in all
Speaker 2: this extra theme music and stuff. So I figure I'm
Speaker 2: doing pretty good. Actually, yeah, given all that.
Speaker 4: So so.
Speaker 2: The name of the location is the Uinta Highland Trail
Speaker 2: in the Uintu's Wilderness in U Into Mountains in Utah.
Speaker 2: It's a lot of you into Utah. Some of the
Speaker 2: we don't have much information about the area. We'll go
Speaker 2: right into the climate. The area where Eric went missing
Speaker 2: is a high elevation continental mountain climate, which is short,
Speaker 2: cool summers, long, very snowy winters, and frequent fast moving
Speaker 2: storms even in midsummer. Eric's hike in disappearance was late
Speaker 2: July to early August. Fell in the core high country season,
Speaker 2: which generally runs from late June to mid September. In
Speaker 2: the Uinta's at elevation above about ten thousand feet. This
Speaker 2: is the Anderson Pass dead Horse Pass in Alsup Saddle.
Speaker 2: Daytime summer highs are commonly in sixties and seventies fahrenheit,
Speaker 2: seldom exceeding about eighties, so it's like great hiking weather. Yeah,
Speaker 2: nighttime lows and the summer typically dropped into the thirties,
Speaker 2: with freezing temperatures possible even in July and August. In
Speaker 2: a typical year, trails at lower elevation become usable by
Speaker 2: mid June, but the high country passes and basins where
Speaker 2: Eric was often doesn't melt out enough to hike until July.
Speaker 2: So something about the snow and precipitation. The Uinas receive
Speaker 2: about forty inches of precipitation per year, with most of
Speaker 2: that falling as snow. Winter snow accumulates deeply and often
Speaker 2: persists in a summer on shaded slopes and high passes.
Speaker 2: Snow can still occur at high elevations even in July.
Speaker 2: Observers had documented six inches of new snow on July
Speaker 2: twenty second near Mire Lake, about ten thousand fifty feet,
Speaker 2: illustrating how a passing summer storm can briefly turn conditions
Speaker 2: wintry in years with heavy snowfall and cool springs like
Speaker 2: the twenty ten to twenty eleven season. Describing the investigative work,
Speaker 2: campgrounds along Mirror Lake Highway sometimes don't fully open until
Speaker 2: late June and early July storms, wind and rapid weather changes.
Speaker 2: So summer and the UINTAS is characterized by regular afternoon
Speaker 2: thunderstorms and quick weather shifts.
Speaker 4: Did we ever have the unitas? Is that in another
Speaker 4: place or has it always been us?
Speaker 3: I think we may have done an episode years ago
Speaker 3: in this area and we just said it wrong the
Speaker 3: whole time.
Speaker 2: So I'm like, I'm like, there's something close to this.
Speaker 2: When I think that the United. We just said it
Speaker 2: expelling in this one, because I knew my urge was
Speaker 2: to say unitas.
Speaker 4: See you know, it's funny. I don't recall ever being corrected.
Speaker 4: I'm sure we were.
Speaker 2: I'm sure we just missed it. Yes, we'll actually cover
Speaker 2: that in the Patron episode. And we read when we
Speaker 2: read the comment comments thoughts that's fantastic.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 2: So moist air masses can produce short lived but intense
Speaker 2: thunderstorm cells, bringing heavy rain, hail, lightning, and sometimes snow
Speaker 2: at the highest elevations. Forecast data for the eastern Juenta's
Speaker 2: Mountains show that even on generally sunny days, afternoon chances
Speaker 2: of showers and thunderstorms are common, with gusty winds accompanying
Speaker 2: front passages. Winds at high elevations are typically in the
Speaker 2: ten to fifteen million hour range, but gusts can reach
Speaker 2: twenty to twenty five miles per hour or more in storms.
Speaker 2: So snowpack and timing during the twenty eleven conditions. When
Speaker 2: heavy winter snow is followed by cool spring, high country
Speaker 2: snowdrifts persist longer, meaning passes like Anderson Pass and Dead
Speaker 2: Horse can remain partly snowbound well until July and early
Speaker 2: August in twenty eleven. That meant portions of the Highline
Speaker 2: Trail Neil, Anderson, dead Horse and Rocky Sea Passes were
Speaker 2: still covered by high angle snowdrifts.
Speaker 4: When Eric traveled through a.
Speaker 2: Little more about the terrain, Eric disappeared in a very
Speaker 2: specific kind of high mountain train steep alpine passes, loose talus, cliffmans,
Speaker 2: and remote basin where there is no no maintained trail
Speaker 2: on the side he tried to descend. The key areas
Speaker 2: are Anderson Pass, Yellowstone Basin, dead Horse Lake Pass, and
Speaker 2: the unnamed saddle above Allsop Lake. That's what we referred
Speaker 2: to as the Allsop Saddle. The Uinta Mountains are an
Speaker 2: east west oriented range with many miles of subalpine and
Speaker 2: alpine terrain above the tree line. The high Line Trail
Speaker 2: runs along the southern crest, crossing multiple passes above eleven
Speaker 2: and twelve thousand feet. This environment combines very short summer
Speaker 2: season with lingering snow fields on north facing slopes, frequent lightning,
Speaker 2: and fast changing mountain weather. Broad open basins where trails
Speaker 2: are faint and easily obscured by livestock or snow. Long
Speaker 2: distances between trailheads, making rescue difficult. So a little bit
Speaker 2: about the Anderson Pass. It's the highest point in the
Speaker 2: high line and sits near King's Peak on a rocky
Speaker 2: headwall where the official trail traverses steep slopes below cliffs.
Speaker 2: The pass itself is almost entirely rock, no smooth dirt path.
Speaker 2: In twenty eleven, steep, high angled snow covered parts of
Speaker 2: the traverse created a situation where slipping couldsen a hiker
Speaker 2: down into cliff bands and loose talus. Experienced mountaineers who
Speaker 2: cross about a week after Eric reported higel snow and
Speaker 2: chose to go above it on a knife edge ridge
Speaker 2: rather than traverse across it, emphasizing how risky it was.
Speaker 4: It's a little foreshadowing.
Speaker 2: Yes, Eric, lacking technical snow gear, bailed below the snowfield,
Speaker 2: scrambling down through those cliff bands and loose rock. Once
Speaker 2: below the pass, he entered Yellowstone Basin, a broad drainage,
Speaker 2: so he didn't try going through it, which is a
Speaker 2: smart move.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The trail runs perpendicular to the Highline trail leading down
Speaker 2: canyon instead of along the crest. Livestock and grazing use
Speaker 2: have created multiple faint paths and signboards that can be
Speaker 2: hard to read or follow. The Yellowstone Creek and Junction
Speaker 2: sign indicate you're leaving the Highline corridor, but a hiker
Speaker 2: must be paying close attention to interpret them. The dead
Speaker 2: Horse Lake and dead Horse Pass so dead Horse Lake
Speaker 2: is an alpine basin in the West Fork Black Black's
Speaker 2: Fork drainage. The lake sits in a rocky bowl beneath
Speaker 2: dead Horse Pass, which is widely regarded as the most
Speaker 2: difficult pass on the entire high Line. The pass is
Speaker 2: a steep north facing slope with loose talus and narrow
Speaker 2: trail and heavy snow years snowdrifts can cover the trail
Speaker 2: well into August. I'm getting it's really snowy here, snowy
Speaker 2: and rocky and just slippery. The talas rocks are slippery enough.
Speaker 4: When you're just on them, let alone when they're wet
Speaker 4: or snowy. Yes.
Speaker 2: The trail switchbacks up a tallis slope, then crosses a
Speaker 2: high angle snow slope above cliffs, a location where a
Speaker 2: slip could Sunday hiker overexposed drop offs the unnamed saddle
Speaker 2: above Alsop Lake instead of climbing down climbing dead Horse Pass,
Speaker 2: eric turned west towards an unnamed saddle between dead Horse
Speaker 2: Lake Basin and Allsop Lake Basin in the East Fork
Speaker 2: Bear River. So for anyone who doesn't know what a
Speaker 2: saddle is, it's if you can imagine like a saddle
Speaker 2: on a horse, it kind of dips down where you
Speaker 2: sit on it. Pretend there's two mountains, and the in
Speaker 2: between those two mountains is the quote unquote saddle.
Speaker 4: It's like a little baby valley exactly.
Speaker 2: It doesn't go all the way down, but it like
Speaker 2: connects two ridges, two peaks.
Speaker 4: Whatever it would be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's easier to you take the saddle and
Speaker 2: don't go all the way down and go back up.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 2: Usually a faint unofficial trail climbs from the vicinity of
Speaker 2: dead Horse Lake up to the saddle. This path is
Speaker 2: not is not a maintained high line route. It exists
Speaker 2: mainly as a social trail used by few adventurous parties.
Speaker 2: From the saddle, a hiker can see Allsop Lake below,
Speaker 2: giving the impression of a potential shortcut to the East
Speaker 2: Fork trail system. On the Allsop side, which is the
Speaker 2: west side, the train drops away from the saddle in
Speaker 2: two stack cliff bands down into a steep boulder field.
Speaker 2: Investigators described two sets of cliffs, an upper band roughly
Speaker 2: forty or fifty feet tall, and a lower band another
Speaker 2: sixty or seventy feet, with a combined slope averaging about
Speaker 2: a fifty two percent grade below the cliffs. The slope
Speaker 2: is a field of broken rock, large boulders coarse talus,
Speaker 2: where movement is unstable and footing is poor. There is
Speaker 2: no maintained trail descending the allsop side. Only risky options
Speaker 2: exist a steep gully or traversing above cliffs to reach
Speaker 2: screen slope. That's the one thing I've run into a
Speaker 2: couple times. You look down at lakes from like mountains, Yeah,
Speaker 2: a lot of times it looks like it's just a hill,
Speaker 2: and then when you actually look at terrain maps there
Speaker 2: can be like huge drop offs but you can't see them.
Speaker 2: So you can end up getting in really bad spots
Speaker 2: by thinking like, oh, I can just go down that way,
Speaker 2: and then you all of a sudden can't get back up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's advisable to really stay on trail as best
Speaker 3: as possible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So overall hazards in the area if you haven't
Speaker 2: already figured that one out. Elevation and exposure are a
Speaker 2: huge high exposed alpine terrain with steep slopes and cliff
Speaker 2: bands where small navigation footing airs quickly become life threatening.
Speaker 2: The no maintained descent routes, so from all Stop Saddle
Speaker 2: there's no official trail down to Allsop Lake, only steep
Speaker 2: gullies or traverses above cliffs on loose rock routes that
Speaker 2: demand strong route finding judgment and comfort with risk rock
Speaker 2: fall and snow effects over five years, Rocks break off
Speaker 2: cliffs and roll down down slope. Snow and avalanches can
Speaker 2: move bones and gears, scattering remains and adding to the
Speaker 2: difficulty of interpreting the exact fall line. Isolation, Allsop Blake
Speaker 2: is lightly visited compared to other u into spasins weather
Speaker 2: and visibility alpine weather, cloud build up storms, low visibility
Speaker 2: compounds the risk of trying to pick a descent line
Speaker 2: in unstable talis and cliff terrain. So, Mike, why don't
Speaker 2: you tell us a little bit about Eric Robinson?
Speaker 3: Sure, and before we get go in, I will just
Speaker 3: note to all of those listening you may from time
Speaker 3: to time hear some weird sounds in the background. So
Speaker 3: our new studio is on a third floor overlooking a
Speaker 3: very busy intersection, and being Milwaukee, there's lots of motorcycles
Speaker 3: out right.
Speaker 4: Now and just weird sounds.
Speaker 3: And they love blaring music. So I was listening to
Speaker 3: one of our older episodes and I heard ambulance sirens.
Speaker 3: There's also a huge hospital right near us. You might
Speaker 3: hear some sounds, but that's just the all the excitement
Speaker 3: going on outside the studio.
Speaker 4: Everyone's excited that it's warm out. Yeah, it doesn't do this,
Speaker 4: and so they decide to ride their Harley's around.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's the South Park episode.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, that's like the best.
Speaker 3: You mayo we're talking about. Yes, so all right, back
Speaker 3: to the episode.
Speaker 4: Yes, all right.
Speaker 3: The name of the character in this case is Eric Robinson.
Speaker 3: Date of birth March nineteenth, nineteen forty seven. He went missing,
Speaker 3: so he's reported overdue on August seventh of twenty eleven,
Speaker 3: after failing to arrive at the Highline trailhead at the
Speaker 3: end of a planned ten day hike in the area.
Speaker 4: He was male, age sixty three. Body description.
Speaker 3: He was described by his wife and search officials as
Speaker 3: about five foot seven to five foot eight.
Speaker 4: He was He had a slender build, fit build.
Speaker 3: He's bald headed with some gray hair around the sides
Speaker 3: of his head. He as an avid, capable hiker who
Speaker 3: had thoroughly walked nearly every trail in his homeland of
Speaker 3: Australia and in multiple overseas mountainous regions.
Speaker 4: He had blue eyes.
Speaker 3: He was characterized as very social, friendly and outgoing, with
Speaker 3: a delightful Australian and Scottish accent, and he was known
Speaker 3: to strike up conversations with anyone he came across in
Speaker 3: the woods. So he sounds like a pretty cool guy
Speaker 3: to come across. If you're hiking and Australian Scottish accent,
Speaker 3: that's gotta be awesome. That's got to be a very
Speaker 3: interesting mix of very interesting dialects. Absolutely so clothing and
Speaker 3: Garia's last scene and so. During the twenty eleven search,
Speaker 3: his wife and officials described him as typically wearing a
Speaker 3: flea shirt and shorts while hiking, and he'd be equipped
Speaker 3: for any type of weather he might encounter. He was
Speaker 3: believed to be carrying a red backpack full of supplies,
Speaker 3: an emergency locator beacon, and a bear resistant food canister
Speaker 3: on which he had placed an Australian flagsticker so people
Speaker 3: would know it if they found it. Personality, Like I
Speaker 3: said before, he was very keen on hiking and absolutely
Speaker 3: passionate about the mountains. We had a long history of
Speaker 3: exploring the wild trails in Australia, New Zealands, Scotland and
Speaker 3: parts of California and Utah, and he was seen as
Speaker 3: meticulous and very safety oriented. Like I said, he added
Speaker 3: the flagsticker to his canister. He carried an emergency beacon,
Speaker 3: which not a lot of people we cover on these
Speaker 3: cases have that. But he also embraced the solitude of
Speaker 3: long solo treks. Friends and family noted very social friendly
Speaker 3: and liked to talk with other hikers, but also like
Speaker 3: the fact that he was going out on his own
Speaker 3: for a stretch of time, especially in a place like
Speaker 3: this that after the location profile, sounds one of the
Speaker 3: more remote places you could probably go in the lower
Speaker 3: forty eight.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I say that about other.
Speaker 2: Places, but I mean this, this is in the top five.
Speaker 2: I would say, I'm sharing the screen right now. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and when I zoom out here, this is all stop lake.
Speaker 2: I mean it's far away from any type of major road. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's it's in the middle of kind of knowing. And
Speaker 2: the closest city is Salt Lake.
Speaker 4: Salt Lake City to the west, so.
Speaker 3: Not that far from Salt Lake. But once you get
Speaker 3: away from the city, you're just out in the middle
Speaker 3: of nowhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not like you get little towns like from
Speaker 2: the dot of Salt Lake City as a crow flies, Yeah,
Speaker 2: seventy miles, sixty miles.
Speaker 4: And yeah it you know, just based on your description.
Speaker 2: It like fifty miles. I was a little feather but
Speaker 2: that's all Stop Lake. So he had to get there,
Speaker 2: so he was hiking all in this and this is
Speaker 2: pretty gnarly.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Try, that's really cool. It is cool.
Speaker 2: You could go along this entire line. I'm sure this
Speaker 2: is the highline trail on this entire thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So here's the saddle that they're talking about. For those
Speaker 2: looking see how it looks like a nice little horse saddle. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and he said you could see all Stop Lake from there.
Speaker 2: I'll see if we got any images for many people. Oh,
Speaker 2: there's a couple over here, not exactly where they.
Speaker 4: Are, Yeah, I'll see what they look like.
Speaker 2: Courtesy of Brendan Nicholson, September. Thank you Brendan twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: Yellos snow it is yeah, this is this is. It
Speaker 2: could be end of September or lyat September, don't know,
Speaker 2: but either way it it looks cold.
Speaker 3: It gives me that feeling I had kind of like
Speaker 3: you're on Mars when we were hiking in Hawaii.
Speaker 2: This is one of those wild too, Like if you're
Speaker 2: anywhere in this, yeah, there's no cover. No, you're not
Speaker 2: getting lost in the woods for sure. I mean, even
Speaker 2: if you're down there, it's pretty sparse.
Speaker 3: Your best cover is if you go back over looking
Speaker 3: towards the lake. You've got some trees you could try
Speaker 3: to hunker down in.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I'm guessing these are those cliffs lock it.
Speaker 2: This is where it's like, oh, you could just do
Speaker 2: quick down there, and that's where you get That's exactly
Speaker 2: where you get like, oh, it looks like you could
Speaker 2: go down this way, yeah, and written reality, that's like
Speaker 2: eight hundred feet down. Yeah, it looks like like, oh,
Speaker 2: just get my sled out.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's I mean, that's why I really hope people
Speaker 3: get out and hike at you know, hike locations we've
Speaker 3: talked about because we show a lot of pictures.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was Dead Horse Pass. They talked about that.
Speaker 2: That's where we just took that pic from. So you
Speaker 2: look at when you look up, that's that cliff edge
Speaker 2: right there. Yeah, it looked like it went straight down. Nope,
Speaker 2: you're gonna fall off that one and ye not make it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because pictures are really deceiving there, they do not
Speaker 3: show the true verticality.
Speaker 2: Yes, if this looks like you could walk up it,
Speaker 2: I guarantee you'd be climbing on your hands and your face.
Speaker 4: That would be like the escalator joke.
Speaker 3: You would just be moving and not going anywhere because
Speaker 3: as you're going up, you're pulling rock down and the
Speaker 3: talus and the screen all that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it it is beautiful. It looks really cool.
Speaker 4: Okay, awesome, I gotta get out more.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is eleven thousand feet from this shot.
Speaker 2: Yeah from oh John lizzen By, Thank you, Jan, thank you,
Speaker 2: beautiful shot.
Speaker 4: Cool. All right, you can keep going, I'll keep on
Speaker 4: all right.
Speaker 3: So medical issues nothing major was identified during the search,
Speaker 3: So throughout the entire search, you was Pertay portrayed as healthy, active,
Speaker 3: and fit for his age. No mention of chronic illnesses,
Speaker 3: ability limitations, or any acute medical problems that might have
Speaker 3: contributed directly to his disappearance, just the basic risks that
Speaker 3: someone his age could have in that high altitude environment.
Speaker 4: Occupation and a hobby.
Speaker 3: Robinson lived near Melbourne and was retired at the time
Speaker 3: of his twenty eleven truk. He had previously worked as
Speaker 3: a mechanical engineer and took part in off roading and
Speaker 3: bushwalking with colleagues. Hiking and trekking were his dominant hobbies,
Speaker 3: and he structured major portions of his life and travel
Speaker 3: around multi week backpacking trips. And that sounds like an
Speaker 3: amazing retirement. Yeah, I hope someday to be able to
Speaker 3: do that myself, if we ever get to retire.
Speaker 4: So experience in the wilderness.
Speaker 3: He obviously had extensive experience, having thoroughly hiked nearly every
Speaker 3: trail in his homeland and also routes in like I said,
Speaker 3: New Zealand, Scotland, the high sierras of California, and other
Speaker 3: mountainous environments over the decades. He learned to plan carefully,
Speaker 3: carry adequate food and gear, and manage himself in remote areas,
Speaker 3: which was why this disappearance was seen as especially perplexing
Speaker 3: and concerning, just because of his experience level, how much
Speaker 3: hiking he had done, the gear that he had so
Speaker 3: very interesting experience at this location. So Robinson had prior
Speaker 3: experience hiking in parts of Utah, including segments of this
Speaker 3: Winta region. Twenty eleven was his first document attempt at
Speaker 3: a full solo traverse of the high Line trail, and
Speaker 3: he researched the high Line in advance and chose it
Speaker 3: as a major objective for his North American trip. But
Speaker 3: the specific combination of unusually heavy lingering snow, complex terrain
Speaker 3: that he had to go through, and the kind of
Speaker 3: fragmentation of the area with jurisdictional fragmentation made this route
Speaker 3: much more to allenging than many that he had previously done.
Speaker 3: So really a tough, a tough hike by any stretch.
Speaker 4: I'm just looking something up quick.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm trying to find if there's any reports from
Speaker 2: twenty eleven's too little, too far back.
Speaker 4: For all trails.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so see where it was that well, if anyone's
Speaker 2: still watching the screen, you can see this is an
Speaker 2: example of some of the markers.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and this is a good karen.
Speaker 2: These If you see these on mountains and there's no
Speaker 2: markers like big power rocks, add one. It's a nice
Speaker 2: little habit, just throwing on there.
Speaker 4: But don't break them down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't break these ones down, because these are sometimes
Speaker 2: what's going to save people who are going on mountainous
Speaker 2: trails because it's the only marker. You know, if this
Speaker 2: is snowy, you don't see this little footpath here.
Speaker 3: I've read stories of people that don't know what those
Speaker 3: are that are maybe a little green to hiking, and
Speaker 3: they they think them over and they think they're helping. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they yeah, leave those there. They help mark the trails
Speaker 3: and tell you where you're going. Yeah, But also you
Speaker 3: gotta really keep when you're on a trail that has
Speaker 3: just those I've we've been hiking in the past and
Speaker 3: trails like that where sometimes a stack of rocks looks
Speaker 3: like a Karen and it's not.
Speaker 4: It's just a natural pile of rocks.
Speaker 3: So you really got to be careful that you're you're
Speaker 3: following the the correct trail. And that's why you always
Speaker 3: want to really study the maps of the area and
Speaker 3: kind of get good at reading topographic maps. A little bit,
Speaker 3: because that can really help you if you're in a
Speaker 3: mountainous region to you know what's your surrounding look like,
Speaker 3: and then look at your map and carry a GPS
Speaker 3: and load the map into that can.
Speaker 4: Also that'll be the biggest thing. That's the cheat code.
Speaker 3: But you don't want to have just that. You need
Speaker 3: to be able to rely on kind of more of
Speaker 3: the old school methods of wayfinding. If your GPS can
Speaker 3: break or break. Our first hiking trip in Canyon Lens,
Speaker 3: I dropped my GPS on the trail in the sand,
Speaker 3: thought I lost it, and then on the hike out
Speaker 3: I found it again.
Speaker 4: So are you serious? Oh yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 3: And it was yellow so it blended in with like
Speaker 3: the reddish orange sand.
Speaker 4: That's really lucky. He still works. Is that how you
Speaker 4: got out?
Speaker 3: No, actually didn't even use it. It didn't we didn't
Speaker 3: get the signal didn't work right down in the canyons.
Speaker 3: Oh so it was kind of useless. Like in the
Speaker 3: canyons on a high alpine environment, much more useful. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: so why don't get right in the timeline here. He
Speaker 3: planned to fly from Melbourne to the US in late
Speaker 3: July His main objective in Utah was a solo trek
Speaker 3: of the Uinta Highland high Line Trail, starting from the
Speaker 3: Cheppida Lake area and finishing at the high Line trailhead
Speaker 3: off Mirror Lake Highway. He intended to hike approximately sixty
Speaker 3: miles in ten days. Pretty aggressive for this kind of terrain.
Speaker 3: So that's uh, I mean for someone who's fit has
Speaker 3: done this a lot. Not maybe as I think that's
Speaker 3: kind of aggressive for what was his route from He
Speaker 3: wanted to do sixty miles and ten days.
Speaker 4: Okay, Yeah, the whole trail is one hundred and three miles,
Speaker 4: so that's more than half of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it sounds like you went from from where
Speaker 3: to whar Chepida c ch e p e t A
Speaker 3: Lake to the high Line trailhead.
Speaker 4: Okay, I was going to see if they heap. I'm
Speaker 4: assuming that is one of the.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's one of these stops. Yeah, okay, cool, but
Speaker 2: I do the whole thing. It's not this whole thing
Speaker 2: in the preview, but it sounds like.
Speaker 3: The stretch he picked is probably one of the harder stretches. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So why don't we take a pause here and we'll
Speaker 3: describe kind of So we've got all trails up and
Speaker 3: doing the cool thing where it maps the trail as
Speaker 3: you're going and tells you the elevation gain.
Speaker 4: So we're a mile in five hundred feet.
Speaker 2: This is now doing the whole one hundred and three Okay,
Speaker 2: So I'm gonna hopefully I can see trepid of the
Speaker 2: lake somewhere.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because he might have done this in reverse too.
Speaker 2: So we're three miles in, you're going up eleven hundred
Speaker 2: feet at this point.
Speaker 4: At some point that's.
Speaker 2: East Peak Reserve, East Park Reservoir were passing.
Speaker 4: That looks beautiful. No, it does.
Speaker 2: I would totally do this hike, just probably not sixty
Speaker 2: miles of it in what.
Speaker 4: Nowadays ten on ten days. Okay, that's not too bad,
Speaker 4: I mean, it's it's still tough.
Speaker 2: We did We did forty miles in five days in Montana, right. Oh, no,
Speaker 2: we did a little shorter because we didn't have our
Speaker 2: pass plus.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was forty miles. We ended up doing like thirty,
Speaker 4: but we went like the wrong way up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that was not at all technical like this,
Speaker 2: that was not technical. That is, it had a path
Speaker 2: the whole way on an elevation game lot, but it
Speaker 2: was a path.
Speaker 4: The idea was it was.
Speaker 2: Still very difficult the amount of times, so this is
Speaker 2: significantly more work. Yeah, in a roughly the same amount
Speaker 2: of time at three times a distance.
Speaker 4: Yeah, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 3: Everything in Glacier is very well marked, not necessarily signage,
Speaker 3: but you know you're on the path because a lot
Speaker 3: of people.
Speaker 4: Hike that part. Yes, it's very popular.
Speaker 3: Yes, this sounds like, especially in some of the areas
Speaker 3: he got down into, there's a lot of false trails
Speaker 3: from cattle and all kinds of stuff going out.
Speaker 2: Well, and he couldn't use the trail, Yeah, like he
Speaker 2: had it. There's too much snow, so you to like
Speaker 2: make his own path. And I think that's now.
Speaker 3: I would argue that in that situation you probably should
Speaker 3: turn around and just call off the hike or I
Speaker 3: don't know if this kind of stuff was available back
Speaker 3: in twenty eleven, but I mean you could check trail
Speaker 3: reports and see if it's open.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sure in the area they had ranger
Speaker 2: stations and things and people you can go ask and
Speaker 2: just say, hey, I'm going to the park.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna do the highline trail. Should what should I avoid.
Speaker 2: You know, we always talk to the rangers when we're
Speaker 2: doing a long hike and still like, yeah, this is
Speaker 2: what we're doing.
Speaker 4: What should we know.
Speaker 3: I'm just saying like, if a good chunk of the
Speaker 3: high line, if a good chunk of the high line
Speaker 3: is closed off due to snow, I probably personally would
Speaker 3: turn around and just redone it later.
Speaker 4: Yeah, just come back. I'm not going on that.
Speaker 3: I'm not going off trail into some canyon and trying
Speaker 3: to pass it unless I'm like very proficient in winter
Speaker 3: technical hiking.
Speaker 2: I've done that twice in college. It's annoying. When I
Speaker 2: wanted to do the Knife s Edge in Colorado two times.
Speaker 2: One time there was an avalanche and just completely buried
Speaker 2: the trail in snow.
Speaker 3: I was like, well, this is where we stop. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean you could attempt to get through, but you
Speaker 3: kill yourself. I had I had the gear and the skill.
Speaker 3: I was with two people who didn't, so there's no way.
Speaker 3: And we ran into a dude who was also stopped
Speaker 3: at the avalanche and he saw me. He's like, hey,
Speaker 3: do you want to do it with me?
Speaker 2: I'm like, well, I can't leave these guys, and I
Speaker 2: don't know you, like like I don't know if you're proficient,
Speaker 2: So no, I don't want.
Speaker 1: To do that.
Speaker 4: Sounds like you're gonna end up on our show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, like he left the group and went with
Speaker 2: a stranger into the snow pack and seen, never to
Speaker 2: be seen again. So but like, yeah, it's annoying, but like,
Speaker 2: guess what, look at me. I'm still here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I mean that's another thing to think if
Speaker 3: anyone's ever hiking. It's not if if something's impassable and
Speaker 3: it's on your route and you don't feel comfortable for
Speaker 3: you know, going forward, nothing is worth trying to just
Speaker 3: get through your trip. We've called off trips because of weather,
Speaker 3: Like it sucks, especially when you plan for a whole year,
Speaker 3: take two weeks off and fly somewhere and then you
Speaker 3: can't finish your hike.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, like that really stainfort But I'm nineteen hours
Speaker 2: so I've not semented mountains so many times and I
Speaker 2: hate it, but like, but that's part of it. I
Speaker 2: go and I go sulk a little bit and get
Speaker 2: some Chinese food in Denver. In Denver and like be
Speaker 2: like ah, this is kind of nice. Yeah, So all right,
Speaker 2: Well we'll let this run in the background. I'll continue
Speaker 2: with the timeline. So, like I said, he intended to
Speaker 2: hike approximately sixty miles and ten days, and it ranged
Speaker 2: for a friend in you Taw to meet him at
Speaker 2: the western terminus on August seventh of twenty eleven. He
Speaker 2: initially expected to finish on August sixth, but August seventh
Speaker 2: was added because Julia, which was his friend, was unable
Speaker 2: to pick him up on the sixth, so the specific
Speaker 2: time to meet him was noon on the seventh, And
Speaker 2: this also helps to explain why there was no alarm
Speaker 2: raised earlier. And after the hike, he was scheduled to
Speaker 2: fly onto Vancouver in British Columbia for another leg of
Speaker 2: his extended hiking trips. So you know it's July twenty eighth,
Speaker 2: twenty eleven. This would be kind of his known departure
Speaker 2: and intended itinerary. So Eric set out on July twenty
Speaker 2: eighth of twenty eleven from Chepindel Lake trailhead, northwest of Vernal.
Speaker 2: He began his solo hike on the High Line Trail,
Speaker 2: and he intended to cover about sixty miles over ten days.
Speaker 2: Like I said, and like I said he was expected
Speaker 2: to return August seventh. Friends and family knew that after
Speaker 2: leaving the lake he would be out of cell phone
Speaker 2: range and would not be in regular contact until he finished,
Speaker 2: so obviously the lack of messages during the ten day
Speaker 2: window did not really stand out as unusual. It's now
Speaker 2: July thirtieth of twenty eleven. A significant a piece of
Speaker 2: information emerged during the August search that another hiker had
Speaker 2: encountered Eric at Fox Lake on July thirtieth, and a
Speaker 2: witness reported seeing Eric near Fox Lake and described him
Speaker 2: as good health and good spirits. And this encounter would
Speaker 2: have been about two days into his trek, so we
Speaker 2: know two days in he's good health, happy, enjoying life.
Speaker 2: When the witness came forward during the search, Fox Lake
Speaker 2: then became kind of the last known sighting used by searchers.
Speaker 2: And we'll get into more details on that in a
Speaker 2: few minute.
Speaker 4: He is Fox Like, we actually just passed it, okay,
Speaker 4: so that how many miles in was it was?
Speaker 2: Oh geez, I think like it was like forty something
Speaker 2: if but we don't know where where he started.
Speaker 4: We didn't we didn't see the lake that he started on.
Speaker 4: Chad Trepida.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go back and see if I can pinpoint it.
Speaker 2: I mean, I was talking talking to you for a
Speaker 2: little bit.
Speaker 4: What's that.
Speaker 2: It's Taylor Taylor Lake. Okay, I saw a tea and
Speaker 2: I got excited. So it could have been from the
Speaker 2: other way and he was going this way. Because if
Speaker 2: this is the trailhead.
Speaker 4: Oh there it is where Oh you found it right there, Trepid,
Speaker 4: the Lake traiload.
Speaker 3: Hey, okay, that's where he started. Okay, all right, so
Speaker 3: two days in he made it to Fox Lake. Where
Speaker 3: are we now?
Speaker 4: I think it's trying to go back to Oh, it's
Speaker 4: trying to start over. Okay, So that's good.
Speaker 3: We know the start point and we know he was
Speaker 3: seen alive at Fox Lake. So it's now August seventh,
Speaker 3: twenty eleven, the date he was supposed to be picked up,
Speaker 3: and he does not appear at the Mirror Lake Trayhead trailhead.
Speaker 3: Eric's friend in Utah knew he'd planned to complete his
Speaker 3: highline hike and emerge at this area. On August seventh,
Speaker 3: She arrived at the trailhead around midday to pick him up.
Speaker 3: He wasn't there, so she and her partner walked a
Speaker 3: little way. You know, they did a little walking around,
Speaker 3: hiked a bit of the trail, then left, and then
Speaker 3: came back and returned later in the day. He was
Speaker 3: still not there, But it's totally not uncommon for hikers
Speaker 3: to be held up like they slept in or this
Speaker 3: is a good.
Speaker 4: Question for you.
Speaker 2: What do you think is a reasonable window on a
Speaker 2: multi day, very hard, long distance hike without coverage so
Speaker 2: you don't know what's going on. I can see you
Speaker 2: just calculating all the variables. Yes, like a fair window.
Speaker 3: If I start worrying, said yeah, because I mean in
Speaker 3: searchers and law enforcement do this calculation too, because you
Speaker 3: don't want to just be spinning up searches every day
Speaker 3: for hikers.
Speaker 2: Over so they're two hours late, they'll probably be all right,
Speaker 2: just chill out.
Speaker 3: What do you what would you get? I would say
Speaker 3: you have to factor in a few things. You factor
Speaker 3: in his experience level, fitness level, and then time of
Speaker 3: day you're supposed to meet him, so noon, I would say,
Speaker 3: if he's not there by night, I'm telling authorities like
Speaker 3: six hours.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like, so you have a six after six hours,
Speaker 2: you're gonna start at least notifying.
Speaker 3: I think for someone in his experience level, okay, and actually,
Speaker 3: and you know what, it probably doesn't hurt to just
Speaker 3: tell him right away, like law enforcement will determine when
Speaker 3: is the proper time to start a search.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say, like to a listener, if someone's late,
Speaker 2: say you could say, here's there, tell them who they are,
Speaker 2: how good they are when they were due, and you
Speaker 2: could even say, hey, I'm not worried yet, but I
Speaker 2: just want you to be aware that he's not here yet.
Speaker 4: He's overdue. I'm going to be coming back to check
Speaker 4: on it, but I just want somebody to know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a good way to go about
Speaker 2: it right away, just to raise the alarms.
Speaker 4: But you're telling somebody to if they.
Speaker 3: Say, hey, so let's rephrase at a worried level, well no,
Speaker 3: I would say, like besides, like just in your head,
Speaker 3: what would you.
Speaker 4: Think is safe? And then I'll tell you mine.
Speaker 3: Okay, So personally, not factoring in what law enforcement do,
Speaker 3: I would say, if someone's overdue, let them know. They'll
Speaker 3: start the search when they deem it appropriate. I think
Speaker 3: person that's the official advice from locations. I know, if
Speaker 3: someone tells you they're going to be out at a
Speaker 3: certain date and time and they are not there, and
Speaker 3: I would say, given give an hour before calling law enforcement.
Speaker 3: Like if I was going to pick you up in
Speaker 3: some remote place and it was noon and you weren't there,
Speaker 3: and like an hour or two went by, I'd probably
Speaker 3: call the police and be like, hey, my buddy told
Speaker 3: me he was at noon. He's not just a heads up.
Speaker 3: He might still be hiking in. They'll they do this
Speaker 3: all the time.
Speaker 4: They'll figure out what they want.
Speaker 3: But personally, if that you were late and now it's
Speaker 3: dark and you still haven't shown up, now.
Speaker 2: You're breaking out of champagne and celebrating because you're like,
Speaker 2: I got the best episode ever.
Speaker 3: Right now, I'm getting a little worried, like, okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: Joe's experience.
Speaker 4: He said you be here. He's about to do another
Speaker 4: night that he didn't plan for.
Speaker 3: Now something might be wrong, okay, And if you're not
Speaker 3: there by morning or like noon the next day, now
Speaker 3: I'm full blown like something's wrong.
Speaker 4: So you know, it's weird for me.
Speaker 2: I think the more experience you have, the bigger the
Speaker 2: window I would give you. And that sounds counterintuitive, and
Speaker 2: why I'll give you my thought behind this, and this
Speaker 2: could be wrong.
Speaker 4: This is just my initial hunch.
Speaker 2: Some expert could be like, that's the dumbest thing ever,
Speaker 2: and fine, tell me if that's the case. But I
Speaker 2: would think, like if I know the guys very experienced, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I would say twelve to twenty four hours, okay. And
Speaker 2: the reason is because I'd be like, oh, if they
Speaker 2: ran into something, they'll probably I would alert people right away,
Speaker 2: like you said, Yeah, but I wouldn't be worried until
Speaker 2: about two days past okay, because I'd be like, Okay,
Speaker 2: if they did run into something, they got hurt, they'd
Speaker 2: probably be able to like figure it out, and maybe
Speaker 2: they're hunkered down and then rescues it.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't be worried.
Speaker 3: I guess another variable you got a factor in two
Speaker 3: is location and weather.
Speaker 2: Well locations unknown. Yeah, So if this was like Yellowstone,
Speaker 2: I'm less worried. Yeah, there's trails everywhere.
Speaker 3: If it's like Danali and you were just out in
Speaker 3: the country for two.
Speaker 2: Years in the Australian or Australian Alaskan Triangle, yeah, very worried.
Speaker 4: Yeah, three hours day, Oh, very worried.
Speaker 3: If it was sunny in blue sky like this, your
Speaker 3: entire time on your hike. Less worried if like a
Speaker 3: huge snowstorm blew through, much more worried about yep. So yeah,
Speaker 3: there's so many variables. It's I think everyone each one
Speaker 3: is unique. But I think the good advice would be
Speaker 3: if they're overdue, alert the authorities. They're not just going
Speaker 3: to spin up a search like you know, an hour
Speaker 3: after someone's been missing.
Speaker 4: So he he definitely was on the hardest segment. He
Speaker 4: was on the hardest stretch. One was on the hardest stretch.
Speaker 3: So like I said, she arrived, he wasn't there. They
Speaker 3: walked around, didn't find him. They came back later in
Speaker 3: the day he'd still not arrived. And in the same
Speaker 3: light that day, relatives in Australia did not yet know
Speaker 3: anything was wrong. They expected Eric to finish travel to
Speaker 3: Vancouver and re establish contact around that time, but the
Speaker 3: concrete information they had was that his trip end date
Speaker 3: was August seventh. So by the evening of August seventh,
Speaker 3: his friend contacted authorities and to say that Eric was
Speaker 3: overdue prop which started the formal search planning. So they
Speaker 3: kind of followed my fear of like give it till
Speaker 3: dark and if he doesn't show up, all right, call.
Speaker 4: Authorities I have. I think they did the right thing.
Speaker 3: So by August eighth, the local sheriff's office launched a
Speaker 3: search operation for what they said a missing Australian hike
Speaker 3: er overdue on the Highline trail.
Speaker 4: Last last question, this one doesn't is gonna take a while.
Speaker 2: Do you think that the more days that are planned,
Speaker 2: the bigger the window gets. That's a good question because
Speaker 2: you would say, like a day hike, a day hike
Speaker 2: in their windows, I'm concerned exactly, like within a couple hours.
Speaker 4: But if they've been gone two weeks and they knew
Speaker 4: what they were doing, yeah, like that's interesting.
Speaker 3: So obviously in this case, the authorities basically started to
Speaker 3: search the next day, so they were concerned. Okay, So
Speaker 3: they didn't do it immediately August eighth. They started planning
Speaker 3: on the seventh, Okay, so they even.
Speaker 4: So, they didn't hop in their horses and start from what.
Speaker 3: I don't know exactly the time of day they started
Speaker 3: the search, but I'm assuming when you know, it was
Speaker 3: light out, So sometime in the morning on August eighth,
Speaker 3: the search and rescue mission started.
Speaker 2: Okay, so they were they were concerned, but not concerned
Speaker 2: enough to immediately drop everything and go.
Speaker 3: And I mean if they told them at night and
Speaker 3: they didn't do until morning, it's hard to drum up
Speaker 3: a massive search in the middle of the night.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's fair.
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess we've seen ones for kids, though,
Speaker 2: where it's like yeah, and granted, children I think elicit
Speaker 2: that type of response usually because they typically don't know
Speaker 2: what they're doing, so okay, so yeah.
Speaker 3: Based on how quickly the search started, I think authorities
Speaker 3: thought something was wrong in this case. But that's an
Speaker 3: interesting point, Like, these are all variables. It'd be fun
Speaker 3: to see a study done on all of these different
Speaker 3: variables of how long the plan trip was, to how
Speaker 3: overdo they were, to when the actual search started.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna I'm gonna try and do some research while you're.
Speaker 3: Taking I would bet that it's probably different by jurisdiction.
Speaker 4: I bet it's not all the same, it's all over
Speaker 4: I bet that there's probably not.
Speaker 3: And it's probably based on past history, probably in areas
Speaker 3: where they've had a lot of massive searches for people
Speaker 3: that they've never found him. Probably when someone goes missing,
Speaker 3: they kick off the search right away.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But now there areas like highly trafficked national parks where
Speaker 3: people are overdue all the time and then walk out.
Speaker 4: They're probably like a little.
Speaker 2: They also probably get reports of missing people and then
Speaker 2: they're like, oh, they just can't like so it's like
Speaker 2: a little bit more.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm with say, with the cases that we've covered, the
Speaker 2: searches pretty quickly start after they're reported missing fair enough,
Speaker 2: so I think it's safe to say that within twenty
Speaker 2: four hours a search usually is started.
Speaker 4: Right, I'm gonna do some searching and I'll let you know, so.
Speaker 3: Like I said, August eighth, the search started. Eric's wife, Maryland,
Speaker 3: told reporters at the time there had been no confirmed
Speaker 3: sightings of him since July thirtieth. He had not used
Speaker 3: his he had not used his mobile phone, his emergency
Speaker 3: beacon had not been activated, and neither his tent or
Speaker 3: backpack had been located. So that's an interesting piece of
Speaker 3: information that he had an emergency beacon with him and
Speaker 3: it was not activated. So that's another variable for your question.
Speaker 3: M So, if somebody is extremely lost and injured, you
Speaker 3: would think they would just spool up their emergency beacon
Speaker 3: and just get it over with. So that just keep
Speaker 3: that in the back of your head for this case.
Speaker 3: So he had a beacon with him and he didn't
Speaker 3: use it. She described the situation as surreal and said
Speaker 3: clearly we are very worried at this point. Initially searchers
Speaker 3: had a broad intended route and slowly updated this as
Speaker 3: evidence came in so start the search. They didn't know
Speaker 3: a real fixed They kind of had a broad area
Speaker 3: of where he'd be hiking. August tenth to twelve, twenty eleven,
Speaker 3: the search operations intensify around Fox Lake, being the kind
Speaker 3: of the last known sighting. Over the week following August eighth,
Speaker 3: search operations intensified. The County Sheriff's office deployed horses, hell helicopter,
Speaker 3: volunteer hikers.
Speaker 4: Across the wilderness area.
Speaker 3: The search was shaped initially by the assumed route so
Speaker 3: Cheppida Lake to Mirror Lake via the high Line Trail,
Speaker 3: with Fox Lake as a last known point. Eric's wife
Speaker 3: described to the media that he had explored nearly every
Speaker 3: hiking trail in Australian overseas and was well equipped, reinforcing
Speaker 3: the idea that he was experienced and prepared and around
Speaker 3: this period I mentioned this a little bit earlier, but
Speaker 3: a hiker who had met Eric near Fox Lake contacted
Speaker 3: the Sheriff's office and officials began using Fox Lake as
Speaker 3: the obvious known last sighting. August thirteenth, twenty eleven, as
Speaker 3: the search entered its seventh day, the county Sheriff's officials
Speaker 3: received critical new piece of information and LDS Bishop from
Speaker 3: West Jordan contacted them on Saturday, August thirteenth to report
Speaker 3: that he had encountered Eric Robinson on August second in
Speaker 3: the Yellowstone Creek drainage while leading a group.
Speaker 4: Of Boy Scouts.
Speaker 3: Eric had been approximately three and a half miles south
Speaker 3: of the high Line trail at that time. The bishop
Speaker 3: described Eric as in good health and good spirits. So
Speaker 3: now we have another sighting later on near the Yellowstone
Speaker 3: Creek drainage area.
Speaker 4: He's a picture of him at Chipeta trailhead.
Speaker 3: Okay, so yeah, very fit individual. Yeah, he looks very
Speaker 3: well prepared. Has a massive backpack like we carry. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: he's got all the stuff he needs.
Speaker 4: Yes, he's ready to go.
Speaker 3: So now this new sighting moved the last known position
Speaker 3: forward from Fox Lake on July thirtieth to Yellowstone Creek
Speaker 3: on August second, and this provided a lot of new
Speaker 3: hope that they might find him, and it also focused
Speaker 3: the search more August thirteenth, fourteenth of twenty eleven, following
Speaker 3: the bishop's support, searchers obviously adjusted their focus. They concentrated
Speaker 3: on an area between the Five Points Lake and Bluebell Pass.
Speaker 3: Trailheads teams on horseback headed into the area and Sunday
Speaker 3: hikers sent in Saturday didn't. They didn't report any fresh
Speaker 3: sightings of Eric. Chief Deputy Born noted his concern that
Speaker 3: the emergency locator beacon still had not been set off.
Speaker 3: At the same time, he emphasized that they had not
Speaker 3: given up hope. So that is a concerning bit of
Speaker 3: news that if he's this overdue, why hasn't he set
Speaker 3: the beacon off yet?
Speaker 4: So interesting mid.
Speaker 3: August twenty eleven, so as the search continued beyond the
Speaker 3: seventh day, Australian news coverage started picking it up.
Speaker 4: So they noted that he was six days.
Speaker 3: Overdue, and they talked about the horses, helicopters and teams
Speaker 3: of voluntary hikers out there hiking checking form. Maryland repeated
Speaker 3: publicly that his phone hadn't been used, his beacon hadn't
Speaker 3: been activated, and none of his gear had been located.
Speaker 3: It's late August twenty eleven, and sadly, the search was suspended.
Speaker 3: I guess not late August seventeenth of twenty eleven, roughly
Speaker 3: ten days after the search began and the overdue report
Speaker 3: was filed. They made the difficult decisions to spend the
Speaker 3: active search. So several years go by, nothing is found,
Speaker 3: no news, and it's now August of twenty sixteen and
Speaker 3: the family does a trip to Allsop Lake. So, five
Speaker 3: years after his disappearance, a Coleville area family, Mark Judd
Speaker 3: and his sons, including Kelvin and Kimball, planned a summer
Speaker 3: backpacking trip into the High Juinta's Allsop Lake, a relatively
Speaker 3: remote basin in the headwaters of the East Fork Bear River,
Speaker 3: was chosen as their destination. They camped on the east
Speaker 3: side of the lake in a basin that is scenic
Speaker 3: but does not sit directly on the main high line trail,
Speaker 3: and it also sees very light visitation compared to the
Speaker 3: better known areas in the basins. It's August eighteenth of
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen, and that's a Thursday. Calvin, his father, Mark,
Speaker 3: and brother Kimball left camp to explore a steep wooded
Speaker 3: slope leading towards a saddle east of the lake. And
Speaker 3: this is a ridge that separates the Allsop Basin from
Speaker 3: the and containing Dead Horse Lake on the other side.
Speaker 3: As they climbed, they angled up through the forest and
Speaker 3: then onto more open rocky ground above the tree line.
Speaker 3: They saw other hikers descending a tallislope on the north
Speaker 3: side of the saddle, but chose a different line, aiming
Speaker 3: for a collar further south. While traversing the steep boulderfield
Speaker 3: so loose rock broken tails, Kevin's father noticed something red
Speaker 3: below a large boulder. He pulled out a pair of
Speaker 3: binoculars and he said, this is a quote that looks
Speaker 3: like a backpack. So as they worked down to it,
Speaker 3: the family saw torn fabric flapping in the wind that
Speaker 3: looked like part of a tent. They found a trekking pole,
Speaker 3: and they found others scattered gear, including clothing, across the slope.
Speaker 3: Then Kimball spotted a hiking boot wedged among the rocks,
Speaker 3: and this was a quote from me. He said, you
Speaker 3: could see the bottom of it from where we were standing,
Speaker 3: and you could see the vibrum's soul. He picked up
Speaker 3: the hiking boot, and sticking out of the hiking boot
Speaker 3: was a t in a fibula with hiking socks torn
Speaker 3: half torn over it. The men had realized they had
Speaker 3: found partial human remains on a steep mountain side, far
Speaker 3: from any established campsite or trail. Continuing down to the backpack,
Speaker 3: they opened it and examined the contents. They found a
Speaker 3: sealed bear resistant food container canister with an Australian flag
Speaker 3: sticker on it. Among the food, they found at least
Speaker 3: one item, a granola bar with an expiration date of
Speaker 3: twenty twelve, confirming the gear had been there for a while.
Speaker 3: And at the bottom of the backpack they found a
Speaker 3: wallet and inside the wallet was his driver's license bearing
Speaker 3: Eric Robinson. So oh, I mean, pretty clear and convincing
Speaker 3: evidence that they found his remains.
Speaker 4: So I'm going to give that a ninety nine point
Speaker 4: nine percent. Yeah. So.
Speaker 3: Kevin later recalled that these details the Australian flag expired
Speaker 3: food ID card led him to conclude they had stumbled
Speaker 3: on an answer to a missing hiker case that hadn't
Speaker 3: They hadn't personally followed. There was no cell phone service
Speaker 3: in the base and the call authorities, so they had
Speaker 3: the return to CAPP. Knowing they needed to report the find.
Speaker 3: August nineteenth of twenty sixteen, they alerted the authorities. The
Speaker 3: juds approached another group of backpackers camp near Brian, including
Speaker 3: photographer and backpacker Dan Ransom. After hearing their story, Ransom
Speaker 3: remember details of the twenty eleven missing Hiker search and
Speaker 3: suspected the remains might be of those of Eric Robinson.
Speaker 3: Ransom uses personal low care beaconed to send a message
Speaker 3: to authorities giving the location and nature of the find. So,
Speaker 3: guided by Kevin and Kimball, Summit County Search and Rescue
Speaker 3: personnel and deputies climbed the boulderfield. They located the scattered bone,
Speaker 3: fragments and partial remains. They identified the backpack and other belongings,
Speaker 3: including a tent, trekking poles, and personal items. The bones
Speaker 3: were collected and transported to the Utah State Medical Examiner's
Speaker 3: Office for DNA analysis. Summit County Sheriff Sergeant Ron Bridge
Speaker 3: described the train. He said the remains and items were
Speaker 3: found about one hundred and fifty yards down a steep
Speaker 3: slope characterized by harsh boulderfield and the location lay near
Speaker 3: the high Line trail on Allsop Lake side of the ridge,
Speaker 3: but not along the main travel path. It's now August
Speaker 3: twenty third to twenty four of twenty sixteen, and this Wednesday,
Speaker 3: Desert News reported that human remains have been found near
Speaker 3: Alsop Lake and were believed to be those of Eric Robinson,
Speaker 3: who had gone missing in twenty eleven. They just kind
Speaker 3: of repeated what we had said, how the remains were discovered,
Speaker 3: who discovered him. Summit County deputies then searched and located
Speaker 3: as backpack, poncho, walking stick, and other personal items, and
Speaker 3: the cause of death had not been confirmed, but the
Speaker 3: remains and personal items being about one hundred and fifty
Speaker 3: yards down a steep slope of Harsh Boulder trains suggested
Speaker 3: a possible fall, and Fox thirteen also This Interesting reported
Speaker 3: on August twenty fourth that DNA testing had confirmed the
Speaker 3: remains were Erics. However, medical examiner records later provided to
Speaker 3: KSL so that's the local state out there basically said
Speaker 3: they didn't need the do DNA analysis, that they pretty
Speaker 3: conclusively were Eric's remains, So very interesting.
Speaker 4: There's some discrepancy there.
Speaker 3: Late August twenty sixteen, families reaction, I am public framing.
Speaker 3: In a follow up story, Eric's wife, Marilynd expressed that
Speaker 3: the discovery had brought peace of mind and answered a
Speaker 3: question of where he was. They had gratitude towards the
Speaker 3: Judd family and law enforcement agencies for the care and persistence.
Speaker 3: Investigators and commensentators emphasized that Eric had been fastidious about
Speaker 3: his packing, safety gear, food, beacon g and I would
Speaker 3: agree like he.
Speaker 4: Was very prepared.
Speaker 2: The area where he died was extremely difficult to search.
Speaker 4: We were not laughing at what Mike was saying.
Speaker 2: We don't have boxes covering a window, so sun wouldn't
Speaker 2: be in his space and just fell off.
Speaker 3: Off the windows. So yeah, apologiz, I was not laughing
Speaker 3: at this case.
Speaker 4: I just want to make that discision. Yeah, but I
Speaker 4: think I'm good. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Like I said, this area where he passed was very
Speaker 3: extremely difficult to search, and it's not shocking that they
Speaker 3: didn't find his remains during the original search. Now this
Speaker 3: post twenty sixteen, I don't normally give direc shout out
Speaker 3: well you always include the sources in the show notes,
Speaker 3: but shout out to KSL Podcasts for the reporting on
Speaker 3: this case.
Speaker 4: I've got it pulled up and I was going to
Speaker 4: go into it soon. Yes, images. Yeah, so they did
Speaker 4: an amazing job.
Speaker 2: They actually had a guy go out there and recreate
Speaker 2: his entire hike and take pictures. It was Dave Cally
Speaker 2: Dave Callie in twenty twenty three, so three years ago.
Speaker 2: KSL Podcasts they did a whole multi episode on this case.
Speaker 3: I highly recommend going to listen, and we're going to
Speaker 3: link it. We'll link it, okay, so listen to there
Speaker 3: we posted. We can tag them too, and just make
Speaker 3: sure we get all the credit. Yeah, we don't want
Speaker 3: to pull a crime junkie.
Speaker 4: No, yes, we did not. Joe and I did not
Speaker 4: hike this and investigated ourselves.
Speaker 2: We should say, now we didn't talk to him yet, right, No, okay,
Speaker 2: so I'm sharing their website right now. We didn't talk
Speaker 2: to him about this. But KSL podcast go listen to
Speaker 2: their whole version of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they so they basically what they did was
Speaker 3: they took they got access to his camera because he
Speaker 3: had a camera that had seventy seven photos on it that.
Speaker 4: Were still good. Yeah, and it survived all that time.
Speaker 4: And they they used his GPS data with those photos,
Speaker 4: and then they sent a guy out onto the trail
Speaker 4: to photograph the same areas where the photos were taken
Speaker 4: of kind of mark to actually get the locations marked. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I was reading this.
Speaker 2: It's called rephotography or repeat photography, the process of taking
Speaker 2: matching sets of images from the same location over spent
Speaker 2: of time positions. And some of the images pairs presented
Speaker 2: here are precise to within a matter of centimeters. So
Speaker 2: I looked at some of them real quick, and they're
Speaker 2: like exact shots of what he took just in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So what I'll do is I'll go I'm going
Speaker 3: to go through the We're going to take a quick
Speaker 3: pause so you can put your wall down to take
Speaker 3: my box back up on the window.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we'll be right back. It just fully fell. I
Speaker 4: need the.
Speaker 2: Different hold music for this. Let's see if I have
Speaker 2: something here, maybe the jazzy stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, here we go.
Speaker 2: Let's go all right, We'll be right back, and ladies
Speaker 2: and gentlemen, we're gonna take a quick break while Mike
Speaker 2: goes and fixes the window. I'm gonna actually put it
Speaker 2: on Mike's camera here so we can see what's going on.
Speaker 2: For those watching the video. Mike is holding the box
Speaker 2: up to the window. He's got a roller tape. He's
Speaker 2: trying to do this quickly because we don't want to
Speaker 2: be here very long. Oh, one of the pieces of
Speaker 2: tape is completely unusable, so he's making a new piece
Speaker 2: getting at the top here. Oh, very nice, it's held up.
Speaker 2: Good job, Mike. Actually, you know what I can do.
Speaker 2: I can actually switch this here. There you go. I'm
Speaker 2: out of music.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: Look at how sophisticated our setup is here. I think
Speaker 2: you should leave it in the audio version because it'll
Speaker 2: make people go to the YouTube version. We have one
Speaker 2: of our posters here blocking the top there. We have
Speaker 2: a poster of the Kyle Britton episode. And Mike's just
Speaker 2: making sure this last little bit here doesn't fall down again.
Speaker 2: You only had like two pieces up right, Yeah, not anymore.
Speaker 2: No way, we got hockey tape, hockey sock tape making
Speaker 2: this happen.
Speaker 4: Now. Gonna make sure I get this back in the
Speaker 4: right spot. All right, I think you're good. We're back.
Speaker 4: We're back. All right, there we go, all right here,
Speaker 4: we are back.
Speaker 2: That was awesome. So a first, it's been a long
Speaker 2: time since we've had a first here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we haven't recorded in.
Speaker 2: The behind the scenes shot too mid episode, so I
Speaker 2: think you should leave the audio in the whole time
Speaker 2: and then people, if they really want to know what's
Speaker 2: going on, you gotta go to YouTube.
Speaker 4: Yeah and smash that subscribe Buttonyes.
Speaker 3: Alright, So, like I said, the memory card contains seventy
Speaker 3: seven photographs taken during his final hike and the GPS
Speaker 3: data exported from his garment, and it showed his route
Speaker 3: as a series of track points without intact timestamps, but
Speaker 3: when aligned with the photos like Joe said, and known
Speaker 3: trail features, they gave solid spatial clues about where he
Speaker 3: went next. The recovered photographs showed at least three sheep
Speaker 3: herders along the route his route, but none was known
Speaker 3: to have reported seeing him during the original search, and
Speaker 3: they said this doesn't necessarily imply wrongdoing or deliberate silence.
Speaker 3: They may have not recognized and remembered the date all
Speaker 3: that stuff, So, like I said, rephotography and highline field
Speaker 3: work was done by Dave Cawley, and he undertook an
Speaker 3: eight day solo hike of the high Line trail, carrying
Speaker 3: Eric's photo set and using it as a guide to
Speaker 3: rephotograph each location.
Speaker 2: It sounds amazing. Yeah, this is where you're gonna want
Speaker 2: to go on YouTube. So here we have the trailhead
Speaker 2: is this is uh one three pm. Yeah, this is
Speaker 2: Eric's photo. Here is Dave's photo. Yeah, and they have
Speaker 2: it listed the twenty twenty three match. Yeah, scroll down here.
Speaker 2: So this was day to July twenty ninth, twenty eleven.
Speaker 2: This was Eric Robinson's first night campsite near Chipeda Trailhead,
Speaker 2: photographed at eight o eight am on the morning of
Speaker 2: his second day. Okay, and here's the twenty twenty three match.
Speaker 2: So it's it's really cool. Look at you can see.
Speaker 2: I wish and maybe it's said that. I wonder if
Speaker 2: it's the exact same time of year too. I didn't
Speaker 2: look that. I'll look at that when we're done. Here
Speaker 2: here is the southern edge of Reader Lakes at eight
Speaker 2: fifty five am the match. You can see like the
Speaker 2: trees are way more full. Look at all time that
Speaker 2: tree is. And then twenty twenty three. Yep, some wildflowers
Speaker 2: that he took. This as Eric's photo. They didn't replicate that.
Speaker 2: One water crossing near Reader Lakes at nine thirty three am,
Speaker 2: and then they repeated it. He look at how much
Speaker 2: looks like it might be a different time of year.
Speaker 2: It seems more green in Eric's photos.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Quaint Trail Vicinity looking east to reader basin in ten
Speaker 2: thirty three am.
Speaker 4: Here's the match. Yeah, looks like way less full. I
Speaker 4: don't know what is really a fire or something? Yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Taylor Lake eleven forty seven am. There's the match this one.
Speaker 2: I doubt they have a match on. Yeah, they don't
Speaker 2: have a match in that one. Nearing Top North Pole
Speaker 2: twelve thirty seven. Wow, this is really cool. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: you can find all this and go to KSL dot com.
Speaker 2: You can get Yeah, he can set up his poles
Speaker 2: like he set up his bag and his poles.
Speaker 4: He's like really trying to make it exact. That's really awesome.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so huge shout out to this KSL podcast podcast Kills.
Speaker 4: This is what we want to do. You guys are
Speaker 4: you're killing it? Good job?
Speaker 3: Yeah, real quick, I'll go through the updated timeline while
Speaker 3: Joe's kind of going through these. So Day one, July
Speaker 3: twenty eighth, after traveling Park City to Vernal and then
Speaker 3: by vehicle, chep to Lake. Eric begins his sole highline
Speaker 3: hike at approximately one PM and camps less than two
Speaker 3: miles from the jailhead. Day two July twenty ninth, he
Speaker 3: crosses the North Pole Pass, camps at Fox Lake. Day three,
Speaker 3: July thirtieth, he has his fire Layton Lake encounter with
Speaker 3: another hiker, Eric photographed by them. Later that day he
Speaker 3: moved west and camped near Gilbert Creek.
Speaker 4: Here's that photograph that the guy took of.
Speaker 3: Him, Yeah, Jay Forgely thirty first. It was a short day,
Speaker 3: camped at eastern edge of a painter basin, heavy clouds.
Speaker 3: Day five August first, he crossed Anderson Pass face steep
Speaker 3: high engel snow on the west side of the pass
Speaker 3: over cliffs. Lacking the technical gear, he bailed blow. Day
Speaker 3: six August second, he encounters sheepers and later a boy
Speaker 3: scout group led by Russ Alson. Appears healthy and in
Speaker 3: good spirits, but shows scrapes from the difficult train. Receives
Speaker 3: direction through Garfield Basin and photographs five Point Lake that evening,
Speaker 3: confirming he followed the recommended route, and this later was
Speaker 3: revised to about five miles south of the highland. Originally
Speaker 3: it was three and a half miles. Day seven August third,
Speaker 3: he crossed Garfield basin Porcupine Pass.
Speaker 2: So look at how much snow is on Anderson Pass
Speaker 2: for Eric's photo versus this one. So it is way
Speaker 2: snow here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 3: He crossed Garfield Base and Porcupine Pass and into Upper
Speaker 3: Lake Fork Drainage Camp. He camped Interneer Lambert Meadow. Day
Speaker 3: eight August fourth, air crossed Red Knob Pass at approximately
Speaker 3: twelve fifteen pm. A photograph taken shortly afterwards showed dead
Speaker 3: Horse Pass appearing substantially snow covered. His final photographs were
Speaker 3: taken near the outlet of dead Horse Lake at approximately
Speaker 3: two twenty four and two twenty six pm. So, I
Speaker 3: don't know if you can find those.
Speaker 4: Getting down there sheepherder? Is this a picture Eric took
Speaker 4: of a sheepherder? He's scrolling. He got a lot of
Speaker 4: good photos. Yeah.
Speaker 2: This dude from KSL at his work cutoff for him. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's for sure. So they said that the sheepherders were not.
Speaker 3: Like a no, they just didn't remember seeing him. Like
Speaker 3: it wasn't anything suspicious here.
Speaker 2: Due to the imminent threat of lightning five point thirty
Speaker 2: two five was not replicated in the field in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three. Okay, so he was up here, but there's lightning,
Speaker 2: so he didn't take pictures. Yeah, he got out of there,
Speaker 2: smart yep. Scrolling down, I'm skipping a lot of these.
Speaker 2: Just eight was this last day? Yeah, Eric Robinson's final day.
Speaker 2: I mean we rarely get this much of a like
Speaker 2: look into directly, like what he was experiencing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's see the final picture. Let's just go to
Speaker 4: that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the final picture was the out twenty twenty three match.
Speaker 2: He's got storms coming in twenty twenty three. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: we're just scrolling through all the photos. Okay, So there's
Speaker 2: a map that was his GPS. So this is the
Speaker 2: last photo from Eric Robinson's camp.
Speaker 3: Okay, so yeah, this is the outlet of dead Horse
Speaker 3: Lake and approximately two twenty four and two twenty six pm. Okay,
Speaker 3: so we never get this level of detail, like directly
Speaker 3: what he saw, like yeah, on the final day. And
Speaker 3: then this is a cool little map of the different
Speaker 3: pings from his GPS device, so you can kind of
Speaker 3: see how he's progressing through And they did a really
Speaker 3: great job. So you know, like I he said that
Speaker 3: something happens to him on day eight. You know, that
Speaker 3: was August fourth. He failed to meet his friend Julia
Speaker 3: on August seventh. The formal search started on August eighth,
Speaker 3: and then his remains weren't found until twenty sixteen.
Speaker 4: So I'm on their website.
Speaker 2: And unofficial trail zigzags up the eastern of dead Horse
Speaker 2: Lakes side of the saddle. Eric's GPS data revealed he
Speaker 2: moved in the direction of that trail and likely used
Speaker 2: it to ascend the top of the saddle. From there
Speaker 2: he would have had a picturesque view of Allsop Lake.
Speaker 2: Eric did not take any photographs from the top of
Speaker 2: the saddle, meaning he's likely moving with a degree of urgency.
Speaker 4: To descend the far side.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the unofficial trail ended at the top of the
Speaker 2: saddle when the Summit County Sheriff's Office recovered Eric's remains
Speaker 2: from the base of.
Speaker 4: Allsop Lakes side of the saddle.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there were some interesting There was a rope
Speaker 3: that was found.
Speaker 2: Yeah, badly whather rope attached to the cliff directly above
Speaker 2: where Eric came to rest.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: In the course of recovering Eric's remains and geart. The
Speaker 3: investigators also photographed and collected a rope, webbing and carabiner
Speaker 3: that was fixed to a rock on the upper cliff
Speaker 3: band above the boulder field. Later disclosures stated that the
Speaker 3: rope was not part of Eric's equipment. His wife confirmed
Speaker 3: he did not use rope and did not climb. The
Speaker 3: rope was poorly anchored and did not match modern climber standards,
Speaker 3: and a serial number on the caribiner indicated it had
Speaker 3: been manufacturing in two thousand and nine, suggesting the rope
Speaker 3: was set up. The rope setup was placed by someone
Speaker 3: else in two thousand and nine to twenty eleven, and
Speaker 3: images released show the rope hanging in a way that
Speaker 3: might appear to be distressed or improvising hiker, like a
Speaker 3: potential aid for descending the cliff, but there's no direct
Speaker 3: evidence that Eric actually used it.
Speaker 4: The investigative series.
Speaker 3: That we're looking through also treats this rope as an
Speaker 3: unexplained artifact at the accent site that may or may
Speaker 3: not have played a role.
Speaker 2: So, okay, he came upon it, it was like, oh,
Speaker 2: I use this, and it was badly weathered and yeah broke.
Speaker 3: So get into theory is real quick, because I kind
Speaker 3: of think we know what happened in this one. So
Speaker 3: the main theory is Anderson passed. Bailout theory, so Eric's
Speaker 3: forced off trail just sent below Anderson passed, and August
Speaker 3: first showed he recognized he was neither equipped nor inclined
Speaker 3: to tackle the snow. After that, he might have chosen,
Speaker 3: at least briefly, to abandon his original highline plan by
Speaker 3: dropping into Yellowstone Creek and aiming for a southern exit.
Speaker 3: The scout encounter on August second, however, orientated him back
Speaker 3: towards the high line, and probably something happened where he
Speaker 3: fell and went down that boulderfield based on the remains
Speaker 3: how they're found. All the other theories are more or
Speaker 3: less a fall, you know, I.
Speaker 2: Would I honestly like, I feel like we're not guessing anymore,
Speaker 2: not all the information we have.
Speaker 4: I mean, that just.
Speaker 2: Seems like what happened, yeah, based on the reports of
Speaker 2: what the snow was like on that in that area. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And how he would have had to go around it yep, unfortunately,
Speaker 2: I think, And how he didn't use his beacon, yeah,
Speaker 2: which if he fell and hurt himself, he would have
Speaker 2: got the beacon, or.
Speaker 3: If you're like really lost and he's experienced enough like okay,
Speaker 3: you lost, he might try to navigate out. But at
Speaker 3: some point, just like I have this beacon, I was
Speaker 3: just gonna use it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was probably just like a misplaced footing a slip.
Speaker 3: And and he could have been it could have been
Speaker 3: late in the day or he's getting dark out and
Speaker 3: he's trying to rush off.
Speaker 2: Well, and before I knew that's what happened, we were
Speaker 2: looking at the map literally at that saddle and we're like, oh,
Speaker 2: look at there's this hidden cliff like right here. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and we literally said, oh, if you fell off of that,
Speaker 2: you'd be it would be done. But from the top
Speaker 2: it looked like you could make it down, So like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I wonder if he was kind of going to peak,
Speaker 2: and maybe if he was, if he was being careful
Speaker 2: and knowing, maybe there could be cliff and you're approaching slowly,
Speaker 2: but then slip on snow and then what were they
Speaker 2: saying in all the reports, if you slip, you'll you
Speaker 2: will slide down. Yeah, so he could have just uncontrolled
Speaker 2: descent and down the side and then off the click.
Speaker 3: Like you said, sometimes things are hidden. He might have
Speaker 3: just been tired and like I'm going to go try
Speaker 3: to get down here, and didn't realize there was such
Speaker 3: a steep drop and just took one wrong step, And
Speaker 3: it could have been could have been dark out, there
Speaker 3: could have been weather in the area that was pushing through.
Speaker 3: Like There's a whole ton of variables that could have
Speaker 3: caused it. But I think we pretty much it was
Speaker 3: a fall.
Speaker 2: I feel like, besides the solved cases we covered, this
Speaker 2: is the one that I would almost give the most.
Speaker 2: The best guess is what we don't know is what
Speaker 2: caused the fall. Yeah, I mean that's that's the speculation.
Speaker 3: But I would say it's not like something like he
Speaker 3: was hypothermic and he was confused, like he was prepared.
Speaker 3: It was could have been just a freak a slip.
Speaker 4: We've all done it.
Speaker 3: You're tired and you just you your guard is down
Speaker 3: a little because you're just exhausted and just miscalculated something
Speaker 3: and your pack, your pack's heavy. It's going first, it's
Speaker 3: going to take you right over the cliff. Like I've
Speaker 3: had it almost happen to where you don't catch.
Speaker 4: Yourself, you stumble, and and then the weight pole part of.
Speaker 3: The reason I like having hiking poles with is they've
Speaker 3: helped catch myself because if you're just hiking with and
Speaker 3: your pack starts going.
Speaker 2: It'll take especially with us carrying like fifty Yeah, just
Speaker 2: a garbage or just garbage that I don't need.
Speaker 3: I almost I almost took a dive off in Hawaii
Speaker 3: on the seven mile marker. Yeah, the seven mile hike,
Speaker 3: because it was seven hundred feet to steep like rocky ocean,
Speaker 3: and I missed my step and my whole right leg
Speaker 3: was dangling and I caught myself with my hiking pole.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there you go, and don't do that. I was.
Speaker 3: I was like, someone just shot me full of like
Speaker 3: like adrenaline. I was like, and then like I was
Speaker 3: like ready to hike and get off there. Yeah, that
Speaker 3: will wake you up.
Speaker 2: So do you want to know the closest thing to
Speaker 2: a formula that I came up with pulling from some
Speaker 2: of the Rutherford County SAR manuals.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 2: So, A useful way to describe it is search urgency
Speaker 2: equals vulnerable ability plus environmental danger plus evidence of trouble
Speaker 2: plus significance of the delay minus ability to survive independently. Okay,
Speaker 2: it's kind of like what we were saying. It's yeah,
Speaker 2: it's very especially we threw it. Yeah, I mean there's
Speaker 2: formulas to everything. So some agencies actually use numerical search
Speaker 2: urgency charts.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: One current County Star Operating Guide scores nine categories. One
Speaker 2: number of missing people two age, three, medical condition, four
Speaker 2: physical condition five, clothing six, equipment seven outdoor experience and
Speaker 2: familiarity with the area eight weather, nine terrain and known hazards. Okay,
Speaker 2: So in that particular system, scores range from nine to
Speaker 2: thirty three, with the lowest score representing the greatest urgency.
Speaker 2: It also says that a critical score is even one
Speaker 2: category such as dangerous weather, serious medical vulnerability, into inadequate equipment,
Speaker 2: or hazard as trained may justify an immediate response. That
Speaker 2: scoring system is not a nationwide NPS standard, but illustrates
Speaker 2: how SAR commanders think.
Speaker 4: It's basically what.
Speaker 3: Joe saying is there is a formulae use, but it's
Speaker 3: kind of it depends. It's a formula that they can
Speaker 3: tweak and it's not one size fits all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they said, does planned distance matter, Yes, but
Speaker 2: not as simple as miles to hours calculation. So elevation gain,
Speaker 2: trail versus off trail, river crossing, snow, heat, mud, ice,
Speaker 2: technical climbing or scrambling, packweight, daylight, So there's a lot
Speaker 2: of things that go into it. Experience can cut both
Speaker 2: ways in that one. I'm just paraphrasing here, but a
Speaker 2: practical comparison, So this is good lower initial urgency. A
Speaker 2: healthy experience thirty five year old is two hours late
Speaker 2: from a multi day trip, knows the area has a tent,
Speaker 2: warm clothing, food, navigation equipment, and stable weather.
Speaker 4: Immediate high urgency.
Speaker 2: A seven year old diabetes is forty five minutes late
Speaker 2: from a two hour day hike, is alone, has no
Speaker 2: overnight equipment, darkness, is approaching in.
Speaker 4: Severe weathers and forecast.
Speaker 2: So it they have a basis, honestly, kind of how
Speaker 2: we do our show is like how they calculate in
Speaker 2: the field, like, Hey, what are all the conditions? Who
Speaker 2: are we dealing with? Let's paint a pick sure of
Speaker 2: what's going on, and that will determine how quick we respond.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because you think about from their perspective, it's a
Speaker 3: big effort to mobilize a search like this.
Speaker 4: If you're talking one hundred, it costs a lot of money.
Speaker 4: And lots of money. People don't like thinking like that. Craft.
Speaker 2: Yeah, people don't like thinking like that. But quite literally,
Speaker 2: you're not going to send out the brigade for a
Speaker 2: healthy person who's on a day hike on a well
Speaker 2: maintained trail that's an hour late. You're not gonna you
Speaker 2: might have like an MPs person go walk the trail.
Speaker 2: Yeah whatever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, that's interesting because yeah, you're the resources are finite,
Speaker 3: and if you do this every day, you're gonna if
Speaker 3: you did it every you'll be run out of resources
Speaker 3: to conduct search and rescues by like June. Yeah, like
Speaker 3: so no, that's interesting, kind of getting at what we
Speaker 3: were talking about. There's so many variables you have to
Speaker 3: put into deciding when is the right time, and you
Speaker 3: can tell in this case, he was reported missing that
Speaker 3: evening and they essentially started planning the search that night
Speaker 3: and kicked it off the next day.
Speaker 4: So pretty urgent. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think probably a lot of that had to do
Speaker 3: with his age, solder, and the tear the terrain he
Speaker 3: was in.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and now you're a day overdue.
Speaker 2: Yeah theoretically, yeah, so interesting, All right, cool, I'm glad
Speaker 2: that they got closure.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I always liked one it's closed, but you won't like
Speaker 2: the next case then oh dang it.
Speaker 4: Okay, well, thanks again for tuning into our show.
Speaker 2: We appreciate all of you for listening and sharing locations
Speaker 2: and known with your friends and family. Be sure to
Speaker 2: like and fall us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube,
Speaker 2: where you can find the videos of each episode. And
Speaker 2: you're gonna want to see this one because it shows
Speaker 2: Mike fixing the window. Also, if you'd like to support
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Speaker 2: the beauty of nature, whether backpacking, camping, or simply taking
Speaker 2: a walk, always remember to leave no trace.
Speaker 4: Thanks and we will see you all next time.
Speaker 2: Yeah,