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- [00:00]
Amy Donaldson
Two young fathers are shot to death.
- [00:02]
Dave Cawley
Outside an iconic Utah restaurant.
- [00:04]
Amy Donaldson
I said, your dad has been hurt really bad.
- [00:07]
Dave Cawley
The grief was disorienting for those left behind.
- [00:10]
Marilyn Kulstra
Until one choice changed everything.
- [00:13]
Eric Robinson
I just remember writing this letter, and it wasn't me writing it.
- [00:16]
Amy Donaldson
Can a personal decision shape generations?
- [00:19]
Julia
We're all falling for this guy's trick.
- [00:22]
Amy Donaldson
I'm Amy Donaldson.
- [00:23]
Dave Cawley
Season 2 of the Letter Ripple Effect is available now.
- [00:26]
Amy Donaldson
Follow us@theletterpodcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Lemonada.
- [00:39]
George Beard
My camera's named Alice. I sent her last spring to you to be doctored. I love that old thing. She was still convalescent when the summertime came. You charged 30 bucks. I sent you the same. The grand, glorious autumn, which I love so well. Poor Alice. No better now. Don't it beat hell? The trees now are covered with sparkling snow. Oh, Alice, where art thou? Damned if I know. George Beard. Telegram to Eastman Kodak Co. November 26, 1923.
- [01:21]
Amy Donaldson
Go ahead, Marilyn, and tell me what we had for breakfast this morning. Marilyn Kulstra sits in her home in the suburb of Heathmont. I'm across from her, holding a microphone and turning knobs on an audio recorder.
- [01:33]
Eric Robinson
Oh, for breakfast we had lobster bisque, followed by.
- [01:38]
Amy Donaldson
Did we?
- [01:39]
Eric Robinson
Snails. Snails on toast.
- [01:43]
Julia
I don't remember that part.
- [01:46]
Amy Donaldson
We've come a long way from our first conversation. Me, the news reporter on the phone, and she, the widow, who had just learned her husband Eric Robinson's remains were located in the Uinta Mountains. It's now years later, when I've traveled to Australia to meet Marilyn in person and interview her in depth. We've developed a strong rapport. Our conversations have gone deeper than I anticipated.
- [02:10]
Eric Robinson
I'm trusting you are well.
- [02:12]
Julia
And hopefully it's well placed if I violate your trust.
- [02:18]
Eric Robinson
No, I feel sure you won't do that.
- [02:22]
Amy Donaldson
Good. I've come to see Marilyn as a friend. That's a perilous position for a journalist because we sometimes have to push people out of their comfort zones. And I'm about to push Marilyn.
- [02:36]
Julia
You up to this?
- [02:37]
Eric Robinson
Yes.
- [02:39]
Amy Donaldson
You sure?
- [02:42]
Eric Robinson
Yes.
- [02:42]
Amy Donaldson
Okay. Marilyn's brought a box out of storage to show me. A box she's kept tucked away for years. Tell me what is in this box, if you would.
- [02:56]
Eric Robinson
An evidence bag. Okay. And? It's from Allsop Lake, where the backpack was found.
- [03:05]
Amy Donaldson
Eric's backpack and its contents spent five years in the sun and snow.
- [03:11]
Eric Robinson
You smell it?
- [03:12]
Amy Donaldson
Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's like the odor of a used bookstore. Earthy and astringent.
- [03:20]
Eric Robinson
I can Smell. I can smell the backpack and the contents, the things that came back. It's a smell of items sitting locked away for a length of time, weathered, maybe a little bit damp. You can smell the mustiness of that.
- [03:40]
Amy Donaldson
When hikers found Eric's partial remains and his backpack in 2016, it answered the question of where he'd been for five years. But it didn't explain how or why he ended up in such a dangerous spot so far off the Uinta Highline Trail. Marilyn hoped she might find the answer to that question. In this box of evidence containing the items recovered from inside the backpack, we.
- [04:05]
Eric Robinson
Have Eric's trail map, and we have Eric's notebook. And you can see that it's very weathered. It's been out there. It's got just a few things in it, notes and addresses, but not much significance.
- [04:25]
Amy Donaldson
It's the notebook Marilyn gifted Eric before his second trip to Nepal. She had urged him to write about his experiences. I take it and flip through the fragile pages, but there's not much there. Next is the epirb.
- [04:40]
Eric Robinson
This is Eric's freedom to walk solo.
- [04:44]
Amy Donaldson
He had promised Marilyn he'd be safe trekking alone so long as he had this emergency beacon. But he never pressed the button.
- [04:52]
Eric Robinson
Yep. Unused of no assistance at all, Marilyn.
- [04:59]
Amy Donaldson
Pulls a leather wallet out of the box. She thumbs through the cards inside. Driver's license, credit card, YHA membership. That's the Youth Hostels Association.
- [05:10]
Eric Robinson
You can sleep anywhere in shelter with that around the world.
- [05:14]
Amy Donaldson
There's a senior citizen card, which Eric received when he turned 60.
- [05:18]
Eric Robinson
Before he got it, he was indignant that people would ask if he had one because, do I look that old? And after he got it, he was very proud to have it because it gave you a lot of lurks and perks, because a canny Scotsman likes to get something for free sometimes.
- [05:35]
Amy Donaldson
When Marilyn first received this box in the mail, she opened the wallet and saw her own face staring back at her.
- [05:41]
Eric Robinson
That was a confronting moment. You know, the photo of me was somewhat wet and stuck to the COVID.
- [05:49]
Amy Donaldson
I can see the photo is badly damaged. Season after season of exposure to snowmelt has caused the emulsion to lift off the paper and bond to the plastic window inside the wallet.
- [06:02]
Eric Robinson
But one of the things that I found of a huge comfort, I'm imprinted on the wallet here.
- [06:10]
Amy Donaldson
Marilyn's image is fused into the plastic.
- [06:13]
Eric Robinson
In just a little way. I was there with him.
- [06:20]
Amy Donaldson
We both sit quiet for a moment. Then Marilyn takes the last item out of the evidence box. It's the one object most likely to harbor the answers we seek. Eric's camera.
- [06:35]
Eric Robinson
The memory card was in good condition and on here are the precious photos of his last trek.
- [06:48]
Amy Donaldson
My name's Dave Cawley. You're listening to Uinta Triangle, an audio documentary from KSL Podcasts. This is the eighth episode A Picture's Worth I've been obsessed with a dead man's camera for years. Marilyn mentioned Eric's camera to me during our very first conversation over the phone shortly after his remains were located in 2016.
- [07:21]
Eric Robinson
I believe that the final photos that Eric took are still intact.
- [07:27]
Amy Donaldson
She hadn't yet received the box at that point and hadn't seen the pictures.
- [07:31]
Eric Robinson
Herself and looking forward to when that's released to be able to share Eric's appreciation of the Uintas.
- [07:42]
Amy Donaldson
The Uintas are a place worth appreciating for sure. But the idea Eric might have taken photos there in his final days caught my attention for a different reason. I wondered if photos might reveal why he left the Uinta Highline Trail prior to his death. I told Marilyn the situation reminded me of another story from early in my career. There was a story that I covered when I was a brand new reporter and it was a story of a mother and daughter who came up to the Uintas and ran into a circumstance where they didn't return very much like Eric and they had had a film camera. You and I wouldn't be here talking about Eric if not for this case of the missing mother and daughter. It's my origin story in a way, and I'd like you to understand how it prepared me for the task of investigating Eric's death. So let's jump back to September of 2003. I had just started my first real job as a radio news reporter when Carol Weatherton and her daughter Kim Beverly vanished in the Hygintahs.
- [08:48]
Dave Edmonds
It was no more than a day hike. We're under the understanding that they were going to come up here for no more than about 24 hours.
- [08:55]
Amy Donaldson
That's the voice of Dave Edmonds, the sheriff of Summit county at the time. Carol was 58, Kim was 39. They had traveled to Utah from their homes in Florida and Georgia for a week long vacation.
- [09:09]
Dave Edmonds
They are avid hikers. This is something that they like to do on vacation, so this is not out of the ordinary for them at all.
- [09:16]
Amy Donaldson
Kim and Carol started their hike on a Monday. A Forest Service ranger saw them at the Crystal Lake trailhead that morning and warned them a storm was coming. They didn't appear to be dressed for bad weather.
- [09:28]
Dave Edmonds
We are hoping that they're prepared for a long stay in the woods, Although there's no evidence that would lead us to believe that they are prepared to stay in the woods that long.
- [09:36]
Amy Donaldson
No one realized they were missing until they failed to catch their flights back home the following Saturday. The Parrish rented SUV has been in this parking lot for a week now, and authorities are searching the numerous trails that begin here. Searchers admit the women's chances of survival after a week are not very high.
- [09:53]
Dave Edmonds
Last night, it froze up here, and over the past week, it's been down into the teens, and that's a factor.
- [10:00]
Amy Donaldson
That'S around negative 8 Celsius. Unusually cold for early September. Kim and Carol used a guidebook to plan their hike. They'd marked the page for a trail called the Clyde Lake Loop. Bloodhounds bolted off down that trail, Seeming to follow ascent, but they didn't find the missing mother and daughter. Searchers say it's likely the two went off trail because after three days of searching, no one has reported seeing any sign of the women. Sheriff Edmunds called off the search after 10 days. And winter snow soon buried the Uinta Mountains. But Summit county search and rescue team commander Allen Sidaway refused to give up.
- [10:43]
Allen Sidaway
Over the winter, this case has been on the forefront of the Summit county sheriff's minds and especially on the minds of our search and rescue members.
- [10:51]
Amy Donaldson
So the following June, after the snow melted, Sidaway sent cadaver dog teams into the backcountry by helicopter.
- [10:59]
Dave Cawley
The captain says their department looked over.
- [11:01]
Amy Donaldson
The case and made aerial surveys, then.
- [11:03]
Dave Cawley
Decided to conduct a training exercise in the area, briefing searchers they could find clues about the missing hikers.
- [11:11]
Amy Donaldson
One of the searchers saw something shiny glinting in the sun, maybe a mylar balloon that had escaped the hands of a child and floated into the mountains on a breeze. It actually turned out to be strips of a Mylar emergency blanket shoved into a crack along the top of a large boulder around this rock, Searchers found two backpacks, A pair of water bottles, A container of matches, and more items.
- [11:41]
Allen Sidaway
That you would carry in a pack for a day hike, such as a first aid kit, lip balm camera, that type of thing.
- [11:50]
Amy Donaldson
A camera that wasn't all.
- [11:54]
Allen Sidaway
Further search revealed some bone fragments in the area of the camp.
- [12:09]
Amy Donaldson
I've been on the same cell phone plan for ages, and I'm sure I pay way too much. And yeah, like you, I've seen the ads for Mint Mobile. There's always that question in my mind when I think about switching. Is it really worth it. I asked around and my boss was like, yeah, I know some folks on Mint, they like it a lot because they got a great deal and they're students with kids so their budget's pretty tight. Coverage wise, everything's great, equal to the big carriers. So there you go. With Mint, you can get the coverage and speed you're used to, but for way less money. And for a limited time, Mint Mobile's offering three months of unlimited premium wireless service for 15 bucks a month. That's what these students were using and they loved it. All plans come with unlimited talk and text as well as high speed data on the nation's largest 5G network. This year, skip breaking a sweat and breaking the bank. Get this new customer offer and your three month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month@mintmobile.com that's mintmobile.com Uinta speeds may slow above 35 GB on unlimited plan. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. I don't know about you, but sometimes I get so busy with work or other things that I'll look down at my watch and realize it's already late and I haven't had dinner. Then I go raid the pantry only to think I don't want to spend the rest of my evening making dinner from scratch. To be honest, I need to do better. That kind of experience makes Factor a really appealing option. Factor's Chef Crafted Dietitian approved meals are ready in just two minutes, taking the hassle out of eating well. They come fresh and ready to eat, so prep time's a non issue. And if you're trying to stay active, especially during the summer months, Factor's got gourmet meals that fit your gains and goals. They have options like calorie, smart, protein plus keto and more. Get started at FactorMeals.com Uwinta50 off and use code UINTA50OFF to get 50% off plus free shipping on your first box. That's code UWENTA50OFF@FactorMeals.com Uinta50OFF for 50% off plus free shipping FactorMeals.com Uinta 50 off the discovery of human remains in the Hyuintas brought local news crews rushing up to the Crystal Lake trailhead. The Summit County Sheriff's Office held them there, miles away from the actual site because recovery efforts continued into the next morning and they discovered more bones today.
- [14:38]
Allen Sidaway
If it's determined that they are in fact human remains, the nature of the remains that we've recovered is such we'll have to Do DNA testing in order to try and identify the person.
- [14:50]
Amy Donaldson
They weren't dealing with an intact skeleton, only bits and pieces. A forensic anthropologist determined at least four of the bones were human. Two right femurs and two right humeruses. Two victims, not one. A couple weeks later, Sheriff Edmonds announced DNA testing confirmed one set of bones belonged to Kim Beverly. The other could only be Carol Weatherton. At a press conference, Edmonds said he believed they died from hypothermia.
- [15:23]
Dave Edmonds
It should be noted that the scene appeared to be configured by individuals who were attempting to shelter from bad weather.
- [15:29]
Amy Donaldson
Deputy Jim Snyder, the guy who had found Kim and Carol's jeep, Stepped to the podium. A large map hung from a whiteboard next to him. Snyder pointed to a place called Long Lake, A couple miles back from the trailhead. It's my opinion that Kim and Carol were probably in that area. The storm was pressing down on them, and they simply chose the wrong path. They simply went through the wrong pass and led them down into that hazardous canyon in the middle fork of the Weber. And then they were overtook by the storm. Snyder supposed Kim and Carol made a 90 degree turn off the wide well, Traveled easy to follow trail onto a faint, difficult to follow footpath by accident, Then followed it up and over a tall hill. They went through this pass in the opposite way into a very remote canyon that no one, hardly anyone goes into. And that's where they were eventually located. This theory went against conventional search and rescue wisdom, but in the eyes of the authorities, it was the only explanation that made sense, Given where Kim and Carol ended up. A photo lab managed to develop the film from Kim and Carol's camera. A KSL news radio reporter named Mark Juke gained access to those 23 images a couple years later.
- [16:51]
Mark Juke
It was haunting to see the photos. I mean, really, when you look at these people out for a day hike and there's no perceived threat, and really, why should there be?
- [17:01]
Amy Donaldson
Mark's a former colleague of mine, but we were competitors back in 2006. That's when he obtained permission from Carol's husband, Jim to publish the pictures.
- [17:11]
J
Kim and Carol had no working knowledge of the weather patterns up there. And so the clouds, as the series of pictures proceed, the front that was coming in caught them completely by surprise.
- [17:23]
Mark Juke
There are those times when we become powerless against nature. And I think his motivation was to try to get that warning out.
- [17:32]
Amy Donaldson
Kim and Carol's photos showed overcast skies as they started their hike.
- [17:36]
Mark Juke
The detective who was working this case really focused on the body language of these two at the first, they were relaxed and happy and, you know, look at this beautiful scenery. Light jackets tied around their waist. You're enjoying the day. You hear that wind roar through the pines, and you think, maybe storm's a coming.
- [17:59]
Amy Donaldson
The weather shifted at photo number 18. It showed a slab of bedrock with shimmering sheets of rainwater cascading down it. A photo of rain pounding the surface of a lake followed.
- [18:12]
Mark Juke
Very heavy, cold rain is just pelting the lake to the point that you see the big splashes.
- [18:18]
Amy Donaldson
Summit county deputies told Jim this was Long Lake, where they believed Kim and Carol got lost.
- [18:24]
J
They had in all probability, based on the pictures, gone down to a lake and came back up to the trail and went the wrong way. And that's also right about the time the weather hit.
- [18:35]
Mark Juke
And the last photo I think of Carol shows that she had then pulled up her hoodie, maybe a forced smile a little bit. Carol is kind of bunched up and she has her shoulders shrugged.
- [18:51]
Amy Donaldson
Kim and Carol did underestimate the risks.
- [18:54]
J
It's very different from the mountains and, say, in the Appalachians, Blue Ridge Mountains and things on this side of the country.
- [19:02]
Amy Donaldson
But they were not reckless.
- [19:04]
J
They had maps and were prepared in that respect.
- [19:08]
Amy Donaldson
Their remains were located less than three miles or five kilometers from the trailhead. They could have reached safety with just an hour of brisk walking.
- [19:19]
J
I'm confident they did not understand that it really was just a wilderness. I think had they known those things and other people should know that you don't go out into that area without a gps.
- [19:31]
Amy Donaldson
I'm not convinced a GPS would have saved Kim and Carol because I don't believe they got lost. And I can tell you the official account of how they went missing is wrong. Here's how I know. Soon after Mark published his story, people started posting comments.
- [19:52]
Mark Juke
People who knew that area were able to go through and say, okay, this looks like they first went here.
- [19:58]
Amy Donaldson
They recognized landmarks and locations from some of the pictures.
- [20:02]
Mark Juke
Oh, and look, here's the notch.
- [20:03]
Amy Donaldson
Those places were not on the trail to Long Lake, where the sheriff supposed Kim and Carol got lost. They were on the Clyde Lake loop, the trail Kim and Carol had circled. In their guidebook. Those two trails start from the same place but go in opposite directions.
- [20:21]
Mark Juke
There are a lot of uintophiles out there who almost instantly said, well, wait a minute, this is. This actually looks like it's this and that. And there were. There was a discussion, quite a bit of discussion, on which direction they might have gone and how they ended up where they were.
- [20:37]
Amy Donaldson
A geocaching group soon pinned down several more of the local locations. Again, they were on the Clyde Lake Loop. Who was right? The sheriff's office? Experts or nerds on the Internet? The key to deciding would be finding where Kim and Carol took that photo of rain pounding the surface of a lake. Summit county insisted it was Long Lake. It took several years, but a member of the mountain climbing website Summit Post eventually proved otherwise. That picture, one of Kim and Carroll's last, was taken at a place called Hidden Lake off the Clyde Lake Loop. All of the evidence said Kim and Caril never went to Long Lake. Debunking the official theory of their deaths proved difficult, though, because the sheriff's office hadn't disclosed the exact location of their rock shelter to the public.
- [21:35]
Mark Juke
And it wasn't to mislead anybody, but it was just to protect the privacy of the family.
- [21:40]
Amy Donaldson
They only shared a single photo of it that Mark the reporter published with his story.
- [21:46]
Mark Juke
They were very careful not to show any remains, and that was fine with me. They wanted the public to know the story, and they also wanted to be the gatekeepers of how much the public knew.
- [22:00]
Amy Donaldson
I started taking him and granted Carol's photos out on hikes to verify and refine the work of the Internet geocachers. By recreating each shot with my own camera, I even filled in a few gaps, placing a couple photos the geocachers had missed. In doing this, I gained a good understanding of what Kim and Carol experienced.
- [22:20]
Mark Juke
On their last hike from a journalism perspective. That's why we do what we do. We want to shine light on things and hopefully give the public the ability to make more informed decisions and to be more safe.
- [22:34]
Amy Donaldson
But I couldn't come to a solid conclusion about what had happened to them without knowing the location of their rock shelter. So I sent Summit County a public records request, obtained the coordinates, and went to visit that solemn spot myself.
- [22:52]
Julia
They stopped in the hollow of this rock.
- [22:57]
Amy Donaldson
The official theory says Kim and Carol got here by walking a half circle going left or clockwise. Their pictures prove they actually hiked a half circle going right or counterclockwise. The official theory says Kim and Carol got lost by making a navigational mistake, having walked the path revealed by their photos. I don't buy it. I believe it's more likely they knew where they were, at least roughly, and were intentionally trying to take a shortcut by going off trail.
- [23:29]
Julia
I've come to believe they were attempting to circle a large feature right up here, Mount Watson.
- [23:37]
Amy Donaldson
It could have worked, but for some reason, they stopped short.
- [23:41]
Julia
The Hillside to the right here is very steep.
- [23:45]
Amy Donaldson
I believe one of them was injured probably by a slip and fall on the uneven rain soaked ground.
- [23:52]
Julia
They might have been forced to stop at this location.
- [23:56]
Amy Donaldson
Remember, their first aid kit was open and medical tape removed as if they had tried to make a brace or splint.
- [24:04]
Julia
I personally don't believe this is a spot that someone would stop unless they had an emergency.
- [24:13]
Amy Donaldson
Imagine if Kim, the stronger hiker of the two, broke her ankle. Carol would have probably refused to leave her alone while going in search of help. They would have hunkered down to wait as daylight faded and as frigid rain turned to snow. Risk multiplies when you leave an established trail. That's the lesson I took from Kim and Carol's photos. And it's a lesson that will also come into play in Eric Robinson's case. Eric arrived in Utah to hike the Uinta highline trail in 2011. He spent a few days relaxing with his friend Julia before starting out.
- [24:59]
Dave Cawley
It was just a really uplifting like just upbeat time that he was here. Showing off Park City.
- [25:06]
Amy Donaldson
Julia had recently started a new business called Park City Yoga Adventures. It was an outdoor guide service combined with a yoga studio.
- [25:14]
Dave Cawley
From the beginning we always offered paddleboard yoga in the homestead creator which is like doing yoga on top of paddle boards in the hot spring.
- [25:21]
Amy Donaldson
These yoga sessions were one of the company's biggest draws.
- [25:25]
Dave Cawley
Definitely became honestly world renowned where and like coffee table books and on New York Times and everybody likes to mention the Bachelor.
- [25:34]
Amy Donaldson
She hired a photographer to take promotional pictures of the paddleboard yoga and that photo session coincided with Eric's visit. So he came along and I guess.
- [25:44]
Dave Cawley
He had the camera in the crater and I was definitely snapping photos.
- [25:47]
Amy Donaldson
Eric left on his hike a couple days later but never came back. Five years passed before the Judd family found Eric's remains at Allsop Lake. They took the SD card out of his camera and turned it over to the Summit County Sheriff's office.
- [26:02]
Eric Robinson
They must have gone, what is on here?
- [26:05]
Amy Donaldson
A deputy plugged the card into a computer. Up popped images from this 64 year old man's camera of attractive young women bending and stretching in a steamy underground cavern.
- [26:21]
Eric Robinson
I'm just imagining what was happening in that room. When they got the memory card working and the conversation and the look of surprise on their faces, Marilyn received a.
- [26:35]
Amy Donaldson
Call from a detective who asked if she was aware of her husband's photography hobby.
- [26:41]
Eric Robinson
Does the wife know? Of course she knew about that.
- [26:43]
Amy Donaldson
You know there's nothing untoward with that little misunderstanding. Resolved. She asked, what about the other photos? What about the pictures Eric took on the Highline Trail? Eric's Pentax camera was digital. The photos he took included metadata. That's extra information that gets baked into an image file. Stuff like camera settings, dates, and times. When the Summit County Sheriff's Office reviewed Eric's photos, they noted the date on the final picture was August 5, 2011. They assumed that's when Eric died. But Utah's chief medical examiner told Marilyn he couldn't put that date on the death certificate.
- [27:30]
Eric Robinson
The medical examiner said to me that the death would be noted as the. I think the 19th of August 2016. And I said, but we have evidence from the camera that it's 2011. And he goes, yes, but the timestamp.
- [27:51]
Amy Donaldson
Wasn'T proof of when Eric died. Marilyn disagreed.
- [27:57]
Eric Robinson
And I said, well, I would like that to be more factual. And he said, I'll see what I can do. And in due course, the. The death certificate arrived with the 2016 date on it.
- [28:10]
Amy Donaldson
The day Eric's remains were found, five years after he died. In his will, Eric stated he wanted to be cremated because only a small portion of his skeletal remains were recovered. Marilyn chose to have his clothing and the backpack ruby cremated as well. The parcel containing those ashes and Eric's possessions arrived in the mail a few weeks later. Marilyn downloaded Eric's photos to her computer. There were 77 from his hike.
- [28:40]
Eric Robinson
I just sat there, and I looked at them over and over.
- [28:43]
Amy Donaldson
The first showed Eric standing at the Chipita Lake trailhead at the start of his trek, wearing his backpack and a broad smile, cocky.
- [28:52]
Eric Robinson
Here I go. I've made it this far. The adventure's coming.
- [28:56]
Amy Donaldson
The rest showed wildflowers, wildlife and wild country.
- [29:01]
Eric Robinson
You know, showed how happy he was to be there in his place in the mountains.
- [29:05]
Amy Donaldson
Marilyn even saw a few versions of what she called Eric's signature photograph.
- [29:11]
Eric Robinson
The backpack and the poles against a signpost or propped up against a rock showing the scenery.
- [29:19]
Amy Donaldson
Her knowledge of the Highline trail was limited to the one meadow she had visited at the end of the search, where she had built a cairn for Eric. She couldn't point to that place on a map, let alone any of these signposts Eric had photographed. Did the photo show Eric was lost, or did they prove he'd been right where he had planned? Marilyn couldn't say. She scoured the images, trying to suss out the story hidden within them, but just couldn't. Couldn't see. Felt like trying to read a book written in a foreign language. She needed an interpreter, but didn't know who to ask. And so her lingering questions about Eric's death remained unanswered. Instead, Marilyn set herself to the task of honoring Eric's final wish. He had told her that when he died, he wanted his ashes spread in three places. Scotland, Patagonia, and in the Grampian mountain range of western Victoria, a place also known by the aboriginal name Garroward.
- [30:25]
Eric Robinson
It speaks to the significant chapters of his life.
- [30:29]
Amy Donaldson
Marilyn's daughter Rachel and her husband Jeremy thought it fitting. It was a real reflection of Eric. You know, he planned his farewell tour of, you know, where he wanted his ashes. Marilyn. Marilyn had lost her lifelong love of traveling after Eric disappeared. This farewell tour would require her to confront and overcome that. She committed herself to the task.
- [30:51]
Eric Robinson
They're equally as stubborn as each other, I think.
- [30:54]
Amy Donaldson
Marilyn requested that Eric's ashes be split into four portions. She provided one to his son Glenn, and dedicated the other three to her mission. The first lady of the farewell tour began in January of 2017. Marilyn flew to Scotland and went to the small town of Ballingree, where she had Eric's ashes interred in the same cemetery plot where his mother was buried. Eric at first conceived this farewell tour idea after a trek in Patagonia with his buddy Allen. He had said Allen should be the one to carry a portion of his ashes back there to Torres del Pine National Park.
- [31:33]
Eric Robinson
Alan, bless him, didn't hang around for that responsibility.
- [31:39]
Amy Donaldson
As you might remember, Allen died in 2008 in a fall from a glacier in New Zealand. That meant Marilyn inherited the task of carrying Eric to Patagonia. As luck would have it, a friend had already talked her into booking a cruise to Antarctica. The itinerary included a serendipitous stopover in Chile, so Marilyn was able to visit patagonia in early 2018.
- [32:05]
Eric Robinson
And I was able to do that myself and enjoy another place and experience the magic of nature in a place that Eric had walked.
- [32:16]
Amy Donaldson
Marilyn hiked up a hill east of Torres del Paine. Friends, including some she had just met on the cruise, accompanied her. They recorded a video to commemorate the moment. Marilyn angled into the wind and raised the bag of ashes over her head. She gave it a shake.
- [32:34]
Eric Robinson
For all the wonderful times, Eric. For all the fun and the laughter we had together, all the hikes we did, all the tears that we shared over silly things and arguments that we may have had, they're all forgotten. For the wonderful times and for our children back in Australia, this one is for them.
- [32:57]
Amy Donaldson
The final toss she dedicated to her.
- [32:59]
Eric Robinson
Grandchildren, memories will live on of you through the stories that we tell. Farewell, Eric. Cheers.
- [33:08]
Amy Donaldson
Cheers. One more container of ashes remained. Shortly after returning from Antarctica, Marilyn, her kids and their families drove to the Grampians.
- [33:26]
Eric Robinson
We hiked into Mackenzie Falls, and it's always a very busy place.
- [33:32]
Amy Donaldson
Mackenzie Falls is the crown jewel of Grampians National Park. The trail starts near where the Mackenzie river plunges over a cliff, cascading down rock lake ledges into a beautiful pool. A stair step path takes hikers down beside the falls. Marilyn and family convened at the bottom amid a throng of tourists.
- [33:53]
Eric Robinson
I said, let's go downstream of the river a little bit.
- [33:57]
Amy Donaldson
They walked along hopping rocks across the river, looking for a good place.
- [34:02]
Eric Robinson
Everybody's in for a little bit of an Eric type hike. Not quite knowing where around the next bend was the place, Marilyn found a.
- [34:12]
Amy Donaldson
Spot where the water slowed and formed swirling eddies.
- [34:16]
Eric Robinson
And there was a big rock shelf.
- [34:18]
Amy Donaldson
Plenty of space for the whole family to sit. Marilyn pulled a few mementos out of her backpack.
- [34:25]
Eric Robinson
His Australian flag, his Scottish flag, his football team scarf.
- [34:29]
Amy Donaldson
Eric had carried the flags during his second trip to Nepal and flown them on the side of his tent. Now Marilyn draped them over the rock. If you're keeping count, this was the fifth time Marilyn hosted some sort of funeral for Eric. It felt much different than any of the others. There were no microphones this time, no scripted speeches. Just the people who loved Eric most together in a place he cherished.
- [34:57]
Eric Robinson
We had Tim Tams because that was his favorite chocolate biscuit.
- [35:03]
Amy Donaldson
Marilyn joined her grandkids at the water's edge where she opened the last container of ashes.
- [35:10]
Eric Robinson
We took it in turns of putting spoonfuls of the ashes into the eddies of the river as it came down over the rock ledges.
- [35:19]
Amy Donaldson
The Mackenzie carried Eric down over the rocks and roots, returning him to the earth. For his family, it seemed a fitting farewell. But at some level, Marilyn still felt it wasn't enough. She knew much of Eric lingered in a corner of the hi Uintas, at a remote spot she didn't think she could ever reach. When I first spoke to Marilyn in 2016, shortly after Eric's remains surfaced near Allsop Lake, she told me she had drawn comfort knowing he never set off his emergency beacon.
- [36:09]
Eric Robinson
So I carried in my head that whatever happened had happened quickly and that he would not have been in any pain or suffering.
- [36:16]
Amy Donaldson
But the medical examiner wasn't so sure, suggesting Eric might have survived for hours or even days. This planted disturbing mental images in the mind of Eric's Friend Julia.
- [36:28]
Dave Cawley
I mean, of course, you see the horrific images of, like, how long did he suffer? And just what it would sound like in that basin if somebody was calling, like, could it was anybody in there? Like, you would have heard somebody echoes off those canyon walls.
- [36:42]
Amy Donaldson
Julia and her friend Devon hiked to Allsop a few weeks after Erik's recovery to see the place where he'd lost his life. The cliffs below the saddle where Erik fell were more imposing than she'd expected.
- [36:55]
Dave Cawley
When you get to Allsop and you see it, you're like, wow. This was a site of an accident.
- [36:59]
Amy Donaldson
What could have compelled Eric to leave the trail and attempt such a dangerous route? Julia didn't know. I had a hunch about it, but wouldn't begin to explore that until after two more people disappeared in the Uinta Triangle. The first case involved a man named Melvin Heaps, a retired physics professor from Mesa, Arizona. He went out for a day hike starting from the Crystal Lake trailhead in July of 2017. Melvin was never located. A year later, a guy named Ray Humphries went on a backpacking trip with his family. Ray and his family sat around a campfire until after dark, when everyone retired to their tents. Ray went to fetch water to douse the fire. He didn't come back. Searchers found Ray's body a few days later in an unlikely spot on the far side of a river gorge. Both of these cases drew my thoughts back to Kim and Carol, the mother and daughter, and how their photos revealed the true story of what had happened to them. And I wondered about Eric and his camera. I hadn't talked to Marilyn since 2016, two years earlier. I had no idea what, if anything, she had discovered in his photos. I hesitated, reaching out to her for fear of stirring up painful memories. But I couldn't shake this nagging curiosity. So at last I sent Marilyn a message.
- [38:32]
Eric Robinson
Not a shock, but, you know, a surprise that somebody wanted to, you know, further explore and investigate.
- [38:39]
Amy Donaldson
Everyone seemed to have moved on from this story, but I couldn't let it go. I wanted to know, just like Marilyn, whether Eric's camera held the answer to that last lingering question. Why did Eric verify? Veer off course from the Uinta Highline Trail, Marilyn responded to my message. She told me she had the photos Eric took on his last hike, but confirmed what I'd suspected. She lacked the knowledge of the trail necessary to unravel the story contained within those images. I made her an if she'd share those photos with me, I'd figure out where Eric had taken every Single one of them. That might tell us. Did he get lost? Or did he have a good reason for leaving the trail? The photos were the only way to know more than that. I told Marilyn I wanted to get inside Eric's head so I could understand his motivations, his fears, anything that might have influenced the path he chose. That could involve digging into Marilyn's private life and eventually publishing what I found.
- [39:46]
Eric Robinson
And having talked to you, I was not suspicious about the journalistic approach.
- [39:53]
Amy Donaldson
So, with Marilyn's blessing, I went to work to decipher the story hidden within Eric's photos. I needed to place every shot in time and space. To do that, I extracted the metadata from each of the 77 photos and built a spreadsheet. This provided a timeline. Right away, I noticed the clock on Eric's camera was set for his home time zone in Australia. It was 16 hours ahead of Utah time. The Summit County Sheriff's Office had told Marilyn the final photos were from August 5th. I let her know that was incorrect. The actual date was August 4th.
- [40:37]
Eric Robinson
I'm grateful for your attention to detail, because that is not always my way of doing things.
- [40:44]
Amy Donaldson
I started pinning my best guess for each photo's location on Google Earth. For weeks, I worked to refine those guesses until I felt confident they were mostly correct. Meanwhile, Marilyn sent me another file. It was the data from Eric's GPS unit. And if you're picturing a continuous line showing his every move, that's not what this was. The GPS data was just a sprinkling of pinpoints marking each place. Eric had powered the device on to check his position. There wasn't enough resolution in the GPS data to be of much help until I combined it with the photo locations. Merging those two datasets created a good breadcrumb trail of Eric's final trek. But I told Marilyn good wasn't good enough. I asked her permission to take our research into the field. I wanted to recreate Eric's last walk, just as I had done with the mother and daughter, Kim and Carol. Marilyn agreed.
- [41:50]
Julia
Once I walk off into these trees behind me, it's basically feet on Trail.
- [41:55]
Amy Donaldson
For 70, 80 miles. You've been hearing me do this hike. Following Eric's footsteps. Throughout the course of our story, I carried Eric's photos with me. Because Google Earth guesswork can only get you so close. My goal was to plant my feet right where Eric stood every time he pressed the shutter button. Eric started from Chipita Lake on July 28th. That's day one. He didn't go far that afternoon. Only a couple miles. It would be really common for somebody doing this trip to do the drive, get up here and actually camp here for a night and then start off fresh first thing in the morning. I skipped this step which is how I overexerted myself and nearly puked on my Day one. On day two, Eric crossed North Pole Pass and arrived at Fox Lake.
- [42:52]
Julia
I'm taking a walk down to the edge of Fox Lake to see if I can find the exact spot where Eric took one of his photos.
- [43:01]
Amy Donaldson
On day three, Eric hiked from Fox Lake to Gilbert Creek. The pictures show he stayed right on the trail the whole way. Day four was an anomaly. Eric only went about three miles or 5km kilometers. He needed to average double or triple that distance each day to stay on schedule. What slowed him down? I think he probably spent most of this day sheltering from bad weather. His pictures show ominous skies with dark clouds shrouding the high terrain. Eric headed for Anderson Pass on the morning of day five. During the ascent he took a series of three, three photos from a spot a little ways off the trail.
- [43:45]
Julia
I just located where those were taken, recreated those with my own camera.
- [43:51]
Amy Donaldson
Snow is what forced Eric to deviate.
- [43:55]
Julia
He encountered a low angle snow field that the trail had been kind of kicked through. But it didn't match where the trail should come off on the far side. So he kind of had to improvise as he worked his way up this slope.
- [44:13]
Amy Donaldson
He'd gone around this snow rather than across it even though it wasn't steep or dangerous. Then he regained the trail and crested Anderson Pass on the far side. He ran into that high angle snowdrift we've talked about before, the dangerous one.
- [44:32]
Julia
So we're to going to photograph it.
- [44:36]
Amy Donaldson
Wow, I can't even get a good shot. Eric didn't take any photos of the drift from the trail. That's evidence he was in problem solving mode. We know from what Eric told Russ, the Boy Scout leader, he scrambled down through some cliffs rather than cross the drift Again. He didn't take pictures.
- [45:00]
Julia
Makes sense that he would have stowed his camera, stowed his trucking pole, gone full hands and feet, scrambled.
- [45:10]
Amy Donaldson
Eric made it safely to the floor of the Yellowstone Cirque and checked his gps. He walked a ways then took a photo looking back up the slope he had just descended.
- [45:21]
Julia
Probably to memorialize how scary as crap it was.
- [45:25]
Amy Donaldson
I couldn't quite place this picture on Google Earth and hoped it would jump out at me once I reached the cirque myself. When I got there I realized finding the exact spot would be practically impossible. There are a few features to line up, but mostly it's just rocks that all look similar. I searched for more than an hour. Just as I was about to give up, I saw a small cairn atop a grassy knoll in the distance. I walked over to check it out.
- [45:56]
Julia
Eric might have mistaken this for the.
- [45:59]
Amy Donaldson
Way to go go. No might've about it. He saw this cairn, assumed it was a trail marker, and walked toward it. I say this with confidence because once at the cairn, I turned around and saw the exact scene from Eric's photo. A perfect alignment of random rocks.
- [46:20]
Julia
We got the picture.
- [46:22]
Amy Donaldson
A puzzle piece snapped into place in my head. This cairn was why Eric told Russ and the Boy Scouts he'd had trouble finding the High Line again below Anderson Pass. He'd been misled. I dismantled that cairn to prevent anyone else from making that same mistake. From the grassy knoll, Eric spotted the faint trace of an old abandoned footpath. He followed it until it faded out beneath his feet. Then he took out the GPS and used it to navigate back to the Highline Trail. Eric emerged from his tent with his camera at dawn on day six.
- [47:04]
Julia
His photos show that he had a really nice morning in the upper Yellowstone. Saw a few deer, was enjoying the wild flowers.
- [47:18]
Amy Donaldson
He broke camp and headed west under clear blue skies.
- [47:22]
Julia
Pretty easy to tell where you're going on this stretch of the Highline, which makes what happened next all the more confusing.
- [47:31]
Amy Donaldson
Eric arrived at the intersection where the High Line meets the Yellowstone Creek trail. He took off his pack and photographed it leaning against a signpost. Proof of Eric knew right where he was. He saw sheep grazing nearby, took a picture of them, then went looking for the herders. He found them about a half an hour later.
- [47:53]
Julia
You can see the sheep herders have a little black and white dog and a gray horse. And the sheepherder is fixing his saddle on the horse.
- [48:03]
Amy Donaldson
Eric should have gone west from the herder camp, continuing on the Highline. Instead, he went south down the Yellowstone Creek trail. The evidence tells me this was intentional, not a mistake. Eric checked his GPS a few times over the next hour as he descended out of the alpine. He took just one photo in this stretch. It showed Yellowstone Creek running over a rock ledge.
- [48:33]
Julia
Wow. So here's a nice view of Yellowstone Creek cascading through bedrock.
- [48:44]
Amy Donaldson
The photos all have numerical file names. This shot labeled 5316 wasn't where I'd guessed it would be.
- [48:52]
Julia
I have 5316 where I just stopped to Say, wow, but that's too high. There's a table, steep slope down to the water. And Eric's picture is taken right at the water, so he has to be a little lower here.
- [49:06]
Amy Donaldson
I used the scientific method. Hypothesis, experiment, conclusion, study the photo, make a guess, check that guess in the field. If it's wrong, refine the guess until you get it right.
- [49:22]
Julia
Boom. We found it. Man, I love it when I find a good photo location solid.
- [49:28]
Amy Donaldson
Okay, this is why just accepting my Google Earth guesses wasn't good enough. Correcting this location in the field provided valuable information about Eric's movements. He took this photo of the creek at 11:01am he ran into the Boy Scouts at about 11:45. Knowing the distance between those two points, I could calculate Eric's speed. He was cruising downhill much faster than usual, moving like someone motivated to cover a lot of ground, not conserving energy like he would if planning to continue hiking for several more days. To me, that's more evidence he was bailing out. Then he ran into the Boy Scouts. Something about that encounter made him change his mind and decide to return to the High Line using that horseshoe I've described before. His pace slowed. He didn't take another photo until he passed Five Point Lake at about 6:30pm Eric set camp at the same place I listened to a lone coyote. And early the next morning on day seven, he passed the spot where I encountered a herd of elk. Eric regained the high line. About 20 minutes later, I'm back on the Highline Trail.
- [50:57]
Julia
Here's the sign that Eric photographed with.
- [51:00]
Amy Donaldson
His pack next to it. When I first looked through Eric's pictures, I was stunned by what came next. I had thought Russ and the Boy Scouts were the last people to see Eric. His pictures proved otherwise.
- [51:18]
Julia
Eric took one photo in this stretch just below Porcupine Pass of a sheep herder on horseback. Which means that unidentified sheep herder is very likely the last person who ever saw Eric alive.
- [51:37]
Amy Donaldson
The herder looked right down the barrel of the lens. There is no question he had a one on one interaction with Eric. The Duchenne County Sheriff's Office contacted the Wyoming rancher who employed the herders early in the search. And several people, including Art the mountaineer and Eric's friend Julia, tried to talk to the herders as well. This man was presumably among them. But none of the herders ever mentioned Seahawks. Eric. I'm not sure why. Maybe a language barrier got in the way. Maybe they just didn't want to get involved. Whatever the reason, consider the implications the herder had information that could have saved searchers a tremendous amount of time and money, maybe even allowing them to find Eric's body and spare Marilyn five years of torment. After leaving this herder, Eric headed to Porcupine Pass, the place I dodged lightning bolts.
- [52:40]
Julia
You can hear it crack.
- [52:41]
Amy Donaldson
A lacking. I lingered a bit too long at porcupine because I was determined to recreate Eric's shots all right.
- [52:51]
Julia
His view into OLEAP is from, like, right here.
- [52:57]
Amy Donaldson
I missed one of them, though, because a thunderboom sent me running. Eric enjoyed better weather than I did. As he crossed the Oweep basin, he photographed sheep blocking the trail and checked his GPS when he reached an intersection with a broken signboard. This is part of that navigation crux we've talked about before. The evidence shows Eric made it through the crux when without problem. Day eight, August 4, 2011, was Eric's final day. He awoke that morning at Lambert Meadow and followed the high line to its junction with the Lake Fork river below Red knob Pass. At 9:42am he stopped in a meadow, turned around and snapped a picture looking south. I don't know why he stopped there. It wasn't the most scenic view, but the spot's just a stone's throw from where Marilyn, Rachel and Julia built the cairn for Eric two weeks later. It's not easy to see. You wouldn't find it or even recognize it as a cairn today if you.
- [54:09]
Julia
Didn'T know to look for it.
- [54:11]
Amy Donaldson
I stopped at the cairn to pay my respects.
- [54:14]
Julia
I've carried a photo of Eric with.
- [54:16]
Amy Donaldson
Me on this walk, and I've just set it out across these rocks at this cairn so that I could take a photograph of it to send to Maryland. Next, Eric ascended Red Knob Pass. He took a series of shots from the top, capturing a panoramic view. Comparing his photos to my mine. It's striking just how much more snow he saw. That's especially true as he turned west toward the most intimidating portion of the trail still off in the distance, Dead Horse Pass. I came down from Redknop and hiked across the head of a basin called West Fork Blacksfork to reach the spot where Eric's photos came to an end.
- [55:04]
Julia
The final photos from Eric's camera were taken right here at Dead Horse Lake, just below the biggest hurdle on the Uinta Highline Trail, Dead Horse Pass. But when Eric came here in 2011, that pass was draped with snow.
- [55:19]
Amy Donaldson
The last two photos were captured at about 2:30pm they looked across the lake at the Sheer ramparts of the Uinta crest. The impressive. The probable path of the Highline Trail up and over that wall was just out of frame to the left.
- [55:36]
Julia
And I'm just imagining Eric Robinson looking at this slope and seeing this snow all the way up to the top and seeing that steep gradient, thinking to himself, I'm not up for this. There's gotta be a better way.
- [55:52]
Amy Donaldson
Remember Eric's adventure buddy Alan died in a fall from glacier ice just a few years before this. And Eric had risked a dangerous down climb at Anderson Pass to get around a high angle snowdrift. The snow on Dead Horse looked much worse. Eric might have taken out his map looking for another way around. The only good detour, a route I've previously called the Grandaddy Bypass, would take at least a couple extra days. There was no way Eric could go that way and still get to the end of the trail on schedule. What about bailing out? He would have seen a trail going north down the West Fork Blacks Fork drainage. But it ended at a remote dirt road. There was no guarantee Eric would find anyone there to give him a ride. There was one other option. Allsop Lake. Looking up from the map, Eric would have seen a ridge or saddle standing between himself and Allsop. The map didn't show any trail going over it, but from this side, the saddle looked like it could be easily crossed. If Erik could get to Allsop, he could connect to a trail that went almost all the way out to the Mirror Lake Highway. It was by far the shortest possible bailout path. He just needed to get over that saddle. The GPS data showed Eric abandoned the Highline trail at Dead horse Lake, turning 90 degrees and heading straight toward the saddle. I followed those last few breadcrumbs to the place where the GPS data ended.
- [57:37]
Julia
Eric Robinson's GPS unit took its last reading from this spot as he was headed toward a low point on the saddle behind me. Dead Horse Pass, which he was supposed to cross, was now well behind him, meaning he was off route and headed in the wrong direction again.
- [57:55]
Amy Donaldson
I don't think this was a mistake, but Eric couldn't accurately judge the danger of this alternate path. He had no idea what the far side of the saddle looked like. As I stood at the base of the saddle contemplating my next move, curling fingers of gray cloud reached over the towering wall of the Uinta crest.
- [58:19]
Julia
These clouds are blowing over my head and it feels like some giant claw reaching over and grabbing me.
- [58:31]
Amy Donaldson
The leading edge of a storm crashing against the other side of the Uinta crest, pushing up and over. It left me with an ominous feeling. I needed to go to the top of the saddle to see what Eric saw. Regardless of the weather, I soon found a game trail widened by the footfalls of past hikers that zigzagged up the side. Eric would have found the same path and probably felt reassured. It started to drizzle. The game trail was badly eroded. Still, it didn't take long to reach the top. Bits of shattered rock the color of dried blood littered the ground to the west. I could see the teardrop shape of Allsop Lake in the basin below, peeking out through a gap in the cloud. Rain pattered on the hood of my jacket so close to my ears, it sounded like gunfire.
- [59:31]
Julia
High on this saddle, Eric Robinson came to a problem he couldn't overcome. He had hiked up from the dead Horse Lakeside. But in looking over this slope down into the basin below, he saw no obvious way to go down. No trail, no path to follow.
- [59:53]
Amy Donaldson
Once again, Eric was led astray. I started moving in the direction of Allsop, as Erik would have done. The top of the saddle is flat and barren, so it was easy walking. At first. I followed the path of least resistance to where the ground started to slope down. It became more steep the farther I went. My steps became slow and deliberate. I knew this slope eventually rounded all the way off, becoming vertical. I wanted to tow right up to that edge so I could look down and see where Errik came to rest. But I wondered what might happen if the wrong rock shifted underfoot and sent me tumbling. If I kept going, I might reach a point where I couldn't continue down and I couldn't ascend back up. That's called getting cliffed out. And it's extreme, extremely dangerous. Eric made two choices that multiplied the risks he faced. He traveled solo and went off trail. Now I was doing the same thing. And I realized my obsessive tendency for detail might get me killed. So I stopped short of the brink and retreated to safety. I had seen enough to understand how Eric ended up past the point of no return in the cliffs beneath the saddle.
- [61:22]
Julia
And when the Summit County Sheriff's Office recovered Eric Robinson's remains from below these cliffs, they also found something unexpected up here. A rope webbing and carabiner attached to rocks.
- [61:38]
Amy Donaldson
A discovery they did not disclose back in 2016. A discovery I only learned about years later through an open records request. A discovery that completely changed how I interpreted Eric's last move. Marilyn told me a Summit county detective questioned her about this rope.
- [62:05]
Eric Robinson
They asked me if he Carried rope because I had not listed that as any of his belongings. And I said, definitely not. He didn't carry rope. He didn't climb. He didn't use rope at all.
- [62:17]
Amy Donaldson
So where did it come from? I filed another records request for any photos Summit County's deputies took on the day they recovered Eric's remains. The sheriff's Office provided about 45 images. None of them showed the rope. But I later learned Summit county had sent Maryland pictures as well, hundreds more than they had shared with me. Those photos did show the rope as well as the backpack, the bones, and everything else. I shared those pictures with Julia, and we both noticed some clues.
- [62:52]
Dave Cawley
His trekking poles are folded up. He was definitely prepared to be in fifth class, which means you're, like, using hands and feet to navigate through things.
- [63:00]
Amy Donaldson
Fifth class comes from a rating scale called the Yosemite decimal system. It's a way of describing the difficulty of a hiking or climbing route. Class one is easy trail hiking. Class two is off trail. Class three is scrambling. Class four involves a mix of scrambling and climbing, where ropes aren't required. And class five is technical rock climbing. Most people would want to be roped up for the class five down climb Eric attempted. And even then, finding a safe way down would be tricky. There aren't any formal climbing routes on.
- [63:35]
Dave Cawley
This wall, and it is a huge rock face of multiple tiers. It's not an established area where there's been lots of traffic going through there, so things are loose and you can't see. You know, you start down climbing something, you can't see what you're getting into, and then you've got a really heavy backpack on your back. Like all that compounds just the technical terrain that he was trying to navigate through.
- [63:59]
Amy Donaldson
Julia told me, and I agree, Erik wouldn't have done this on a whim.
- [64:05]
Dave Cawley
I think it was pretty clear he was trying to get off the trail to come back to his family.
- [64:12]
Amy Donaldson
Imagine you're Eric picking your way down through these cliffs. No helmet, no rope, no harness, no one spotting you. Then you see a rope.
- [64:24]
Dave Cawley
Maybe he saw it and it was like, oh, this is where the trail grows, because there's a rope there.
- [64:29]
Amy Donaldson
Proof someone had gone this way before. If they did it, so can I. An insidious bit of deception. The rope was badly weathered by the time it was discovered in 2016. It had been exposed to years of sunlight, water, and abrasion on the rock.
- [64:47]
Dave Cawley
Climbers don't typically leave their ropes, especially over multiple seasons.
- [64:51]
Amy Donaldson
It would have looked a lot better in 2011. But even then, Eric placing his weight on it would have been a gamble.
- [64:58]
Dave Cawley
Climbers are pretty particular like your rope weathers. And you're trusting your life to this cord. You're not going to leave it out there in the elements.
- [65:05]
Amy Donaldson
The rope wasn't rigged for climbing or rappelling. It wasn't attached to a bolt or a natural anchor. Whoever had placed the rope simply made it into a giant circle by tying a loop at each end, then linking those loops with a carabiner. They slung that circle of rope over an outcropping of rock to down climb.
- [65:27]
Dave Cawley
Off of a rope like that. I don't know what people were using that for, but I feel like it's just like somebody's ill fated attempt at trying to go up and down that.
- [65:36]
Amy Donaldson
The rope didn't reach all the way to the bottom of the cliff. It dangled 15ft or so, say about 4 or 5 meters above steeply angled ground.
- [65:46]
Dave Cawley
I don't see Eric using a rope that was that short.
- [65:50]
Amy Donaldson
Marilyn also doubted Eric would have trusted his life to a random bit of rope. But she couldn't say for sure.
- [65:59]
Eric Robinson
It's all supposition, it's all conjecture as to what was happening. And that's probably the piece of the piece puzzle. Whether he tried to use the rope because it was left there by some sloppy climber he may have.
- [66:16]
Amy Donaldson
If you fell from that rope, you'd hit the ground, tumble a short distance, then pitch over the edge of the next set of cliffs. Eric's remains were in the rocky runout below that lower cliff band, directly under the rope. If it didn't play a role in his fall, then it's a remarkable coincidence. Eric's photos in GPS don't show how his fatal fall happened, but they lead you to where he would have found the rope. And you can only understand how the rope relates if you have all the photos taken by the Summit County Sheriff's Office. It took me years to collect and interpret this evidence, but now I can finally share what it tells us about how Eric died. Eric's pictures show he carried a plastic water bottle in the left side pocket of his backpack. It was a knockoff version of Analgene. That's a brand well known in the outdoor industry for their almost indestructible bottles.
- [67:24]
Dave Cawley
It takes a lot to bust an algine that hard plastic.
- [67:27]
Amy Donaldson
The sheriff's office photos show the bottom quarter of that bottle was smashed out a gaping hole about the size of a baseball.
- [67:36]
Dave Cawley
They don't break like that, like it was. It Just looked like an impact.
- [67:41]
Amy Donaldson
Eric's backpack, Ruby had a padded back panel made up of two pieces of foam encased in nylon and sewn together. The photos show the reinforced stitch linking those two panels was ripped clean apart. Ruby's left shoulder strap was sheared off. So was the buckle on the hip belt. All of this points to a severe and, I believe, unsurvivable hard stop. It wasn't a shortfall that left Eric alive and conscious, say, with a broken leg leg trying to reach the beacon. No, it had to be a harder fall from height, an impact that caused unsurvivable blunt force trauma. It would have happened fast. Just a few seconds and it was over. I had reached the point where Eric's footsteps ended, but I still had a ways to go. On my own hike, I backtracked to Dead Horse Lake, where I spent a sleepless night listening to surges of rain on the tent fly. At first light the next morning, I poked my head out and saw the cloud deck down low below the top of Dead Horse Pass. The idea of crossing that pass in a drenching fog with no visibility didn't entice me, so I waited. And waited for hours. A pause in the storm finally arrived that afternoon. I broke camp in a rush, shoving wet gear into my wet backpack, and hustled to the bottom of the pass. Only small splotches of snow remained there, nothing like the conditions Eric encountered in 2011. I started up, ascending through a rock field to where the trail narrowed and became exposed, a place where a slip and fall could seriously injure or kill you.
- [69:58]
Julia
I'm glad I'm not doing this in the rain or in that cloud. Holy cow.
- [70:03]
Amy Donaldson
The ground surface here was made up of crumbled shale, thin fragments of rock that slide easily.
- [70:12]
Julia
This stuff is very slippery from the rain.
- [70:19]
Amy Donaldson
Step by mushy step, I headed toward the top. At one point, I. I paused to let my eyes feast on the scene of Dead Horse Lake below. It has a pale blue color, the result of sediment called rock flower or glacial milk suspended in the water. It's stunning. There's another, smaller lake called Ijad just beyond. It's tempting to let your eyes drift that direction, but do so at your own risk.
- [70:52]
Julia
All right, so as I'm walking this path, it's just really narrow, about the width of your two feet standing together. But below it, Dead Horse Lake. Ijad, the whole basin is just beautifully framed. How can you not take a photograph of that?
- [71:13]
Amy Donaldson
That old saying, a picture's worth a thousand words. When through my mind. I wanted to share this view with Marilyn to help her understand why Eric might have been scared away from attempting this part of the trail while it was covered with snow. But I also realized not even the best picture could capture it. You have to see it in person. There it is.
- [71:39]
Julia
I see the cairns, and that is the top of Dead Horse Pass.
- [71:49]
Amy Donaldson
I cruised down the other side of the pass and hiked hard, trying to make up for lost time. As dusk descended, I set my final camp at the side of a little known lake and sat alone listening to a choir of Boreal chorus frogs. Eric would have loved hearing this, I thought. Remember Eric's frog pond, the one he'd built in his garden at home? The Boreal chorus frogs of the Hyuintas are distant cousins of the brown tree frogs that inhabit Heathmont. A while ago, I told you how I started solo hiking as a way to process difficult memories and emotions. Being alone during moments like this is how I find peace. But here I found myself wishing Eric was alive and that we had bumped into each other on the trail. We could have sat together as the stars emerged, swapping stories of our different experiences in nature. Two fellow travelers crossing paths. Maybe he would have told Marilyn about the obsessive American podcaster he'd met on the trail. We might have even taken a photo together. Instead, I sat quiet and recorded the sound of frogs. Marilyn traveled around the world to honor Eric's final wish. As our story nears its conclusion, she'll realize there's one stop still to go on that farewell tour. Uinta Triangle includes immersive field recordings made in real outdoor locations. For the best listening experience, please consider using a good pair of stereo heads. And if you'd like to build a better picture of the places we visit, you can find maps, photos and video@uintatriangle.com that's uinta spelled uinta triangle.com find us on social media using uintatriangle. Bringing you this story has been an effort years in the making to support this kind of work. Please follow the show and share it with your friends. You can also help us by subscribing to Lemonada Premium right in your podcast player. It gets you access to exclusive bonus episodes. Here's producer Andrea Smarden with a peek at the latest bonus as we've heard.
- [74:31]
Dave Cawley
In this podcast, a mishap in the mountains can carry life ending consequences. Hiker and mountaineer Art Lang shares what beginning backpackers should know before v Venturing.
- [74:42]
Amy Donaldson
Into the high and wild Uinta Triangle is researched and written by me, Dave Colley. I also did the field recording. Andrea Smarten is lead producer and sound designer with contributing producers Ben Kiebrick and Jenny Ament. Our main score and original music are by Alison Layton Brown. Additional voices in this episode from Aaron Mason Uinta Triangle is a production of KSL Podcasts and Lemonada Media. My personal thanks to the following past and present members of the KSL Podcasts team Aaron Mason, Amy Donaldson, Felix Bunnell, Josh Tilton, Kellyanne Halvorson, Nina Ernest, Ryan Meeks and Trent Sell. Finally, from me to you. Please remember, wherever your life's trail takes you. None of us ever truly walk alone.
- [75:45]
Marilyn Kulstra
Suffering is inevitable and it sucks, but we're still expected to thrive. Everything Happens is a podcast for people who are tired of coffee monk platitudes and want something with a little more teeth and a lot more heart. Each week, Duke professor Kate Bowler talks with guests like Glennon Doyle, Sharon McMahan, and Coach K about grief, absurdity, and the beautiful, terrible days we actually live through. No hustle culture, no silver linings, just real talk and good company. Listen to Everything Happens. Wherever you get your podcasts.