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- [00:02]
Dave Cawley
Lemonade, A man might say he would be gone until the moon was full. And when that time came and he hadn't returned, then that would arouse some suspicion. They would send other members to get the findings of whether he was killed on the route or whether he had ran off to another band. Connor Chappoose Conversations with Connor Chappoose, a leader of the Ute tribe of the Yuannon Ouray Reservation. The air smelled of pine as Julia Geisler drove up the Mirror Lake Highway. The winding two lane road is the easiest and most popular way for people to access the western portion of the Uinta Mountains. Its highest point is Bald Mountain Pass, where the road makes a hairpin turn on an outcropping of rock right at treeline. Rounded peaks rise above the forest there like hulking icebergs floating in a sea of evergreen.
- [01:14]
Blake Summers
So it's pretty striking. It's beautiful terrain.
- [01:17]
Dave Cawley
Julia and her partner, Blake Summers, cruised over the pass, driving by campgrounds, trailheads, and several little lakes.
- [01:24]
Blake Summers
You pass Mira Lake, pretty well known big lake out there, and then you come to what's called Hayden Peak. And it's kind of the biggest, most striking formation out there.
- [01:32]
Dave Cawley
You can see Hayden Peak looks like a massive derelict castle. The mountain's west face is composed of crumbling buttresses and cliffs topped by a triangular summit block. It's a prominent landmark that looms over the Highline trailhead where Eric Robinson was supposed to finish his hike on the Uinta Highline Trail.
- [01:52]
Blake Summers
It's right off Mary Lake highway, so it's like pretty well known, a lot of people there, a lot of horse packers.
- [01:58]
Dave Cawley
Julia dropped Eric off at a bus stop 10 days earlier and agreed to pick him up here at the end of his journey. At this day and this time, noon on Sunday, August 7, 2011, she pulled to a stop in the trailhead parking lot. She looked around but couldn't see Eric. So she and Blake settled in to.
- [02:20]
Blake Summers
Wait, hanging out and being excited to see him. And a couple hours passed.
- [02:26]
Dave Cawley
Julia knew Eric wasn't the speediest hiker, so missing his deadline by an hour or so didn't arouse any alarm.
- [02:33]
Blake Summers
And so, you know, we hiked out the trail a little ways. Still not there.
- [02:37]
Dave Cawley
They went back to the car and waited some more.
- [02:40]
Blake Summers
More hours pass and he's not there.
- [02:44]
Dave Cawley
Julia hadn't packed a lunch and she started to get hungry. Rather than keep waiting, she and Blake drove down the mountain, got something to eat, then returned to the trailhead. All told, it took a couple more hours. Still no Sign of Eric. Noon had turned into afternoon, and now evening. Shadows of the pines were growing long, and a seed of concern sprouted in Julia's mind.
- [03:12]
Blake Summers
You know, that's when you start thinking, what was his plan B? And I don't. I don't remember talking about that. We might have of what the plan B was of, like, if you're not here, next steps.
- [03:26]
Dave Cawley
There's no cell service at this trailhead or almost anywhere in the high Uintas. So Julia couldn't call Eric. She told Blake they needed to head home where they could call the local sheriff and report Eric overdue. They came down the mountain at dusk and made that call. Because of the late hour and the lack of evidence pointing to an urgent emergency, the sheriff's office decided not to launch an immediate search. It would wait until the next morning. In the meantime, Julia thought she should let Eric's wife Marilyn know. But she didn't have Marilyn's phone number.
- [04:02]
Blake Summers
Probably called Devin and was like, how do we get in touch with her to let her know he didn't show up?
- [04:07]
Dave Cawley
Remember, Devin is Julia's friend from San Francisco. She looked Marilyn up on Facebook. I'm assuming this is the same Marilyn who is the wife of Eric Robinson. Devin wrote, there's a 16 hour time difference between Utah and Victoria. So Devin's message hit Marilyn's inbox at about 5pm on Monday in Melbourne.
- [04:30]
Marilyn Robinson
It was an evening, so, you know, I'd come home from work and that's, you know, sort of win it all. All eventuated.
- [04:39]
Dave Cawley
Marilyn read the words, Eric did not.
- [04:43]
Marilyn Robinson
Show up, and then call me on this number. And so I called on the phone.
- [04:51]
Dave Cawley
Julia told Marilyn how she had waited all day for Eric and that we.
- [04:55]
Blake Summers
Had called Search and Rescue and yeah, deja vu.
- [05:00]
Dave Cawley
It reminded Marilyn of the call she had received three years earlier when Eric was overdue in New Zealand. She had reported him missing then, only to have him show up a couple days later perfectly fine. He had chided her for overreacting. This would probably end the same way. Or would it? Marilyn felt uneasy. She looked over at the flowers Eric had sent when he departed for the United States more than two weeks earlier. They were wilting.
- [05:32]
Marilyn Robinson
There was an emptiness, you know, once that. Once that phone call came through.
- [05:38]
Dave Cawley
A sense of foreboding.
- [05:40]
Marilyn Robinson
Yes. Yeah.
- [05:53]
Dave Cawley
My name is Dave Cawley. You are listening to Uinta Triangle, an audio documentary from KSL Podcasts. This is the third episode. It's called the Tyranny of Distance. Julia Geisler and her partner Blake Summers returned to The Highline trailhead at first light on Monday morning, August 8th, day one of the search for Eric Robinson.
- [06:22]
Blake Summers
You come back the next day, okay? Maybe they'll be there or they'll hitchhike out.
- [06:25]
Dave Cawley
But Eric wasn't there. Julia figured if Eric had come out during the night and hitched a ride into town, he would have left a note.
- [06:34]
Blake Summers
There was a trailhead kiosk that had a notebook in it, and, you know, it said trail registry or something on it and sign this and put where you're going your timeout.
- [06:45]
Dave Cawley
Julia opened the register box, took out the notebook, and flipped through the pages. She didn't see anything from Eric. Blake was stuffing food and gear into his backpack. He had decided to hike out eastbound on the Uinta Highline Trail, the opposite direction Errik was traveling. He had a goal in mind.
- [07:07]
Blake Summers
Try to start contacting people that were on the trail at the time.
- [07:10]
Dave Cawley
With any luck, he would find Eric or someone who had seen him. Blake told Julia he'd hike as far as Naturalist Basin, a popular spot about a half day's walk from the trailhead. The basin's near Rocky C Pass, the last major hurdle on Eric's walk. It's where Erik might be if simply running behind schedule.
- [07:29]
Blake Summers
So that would have been like his last camp.
- [07:32]
Dave Cawley
Blake set off down the trail as Julia scrounged for supplies to make a sign. She found a scrap of cardboard and wrote the words hiker missing on it, along with Eric's name and a phone number to call. She taped the sign to the trailhead kiosk with with neon pink duct tape. Then she headed home. On the drive, she realized she couldn't say whether Eric had even made it to the start of the trail. The last time she had seen him, a week and a half earlier, he was getting on a bus. Anything could have happened after that.
- [08:08]
Blake Summers
I think that just starts the unknown of like you just don't know.
- [08:15]
Dave Cawley
Maybe the bus had crashed. Or maybe the guide Eric had hired to shuttle him from the bus to the start of the trail robbed him and dumped him somewhere. More likely, Eric might have had some kind of trouble on the trail. Snow conditions in the Uinta Mountains were extreme that summer. The prior winter had packed a record setting amount of snow in the range. Snow that had repeatedly thawed and refrozen.
- [08:41]
Blake Summers
You know, it's gotten harder. It's started to become almost like ice, slick and dangerous.
- [08:49]
Dave Cawley
Julia had never hiked the Uminta Highline herself, so she wasn't sure if portions of the trail might still be buried. If they were.
- [08:58]
Blake Summers
It's technical. You can slip on it if you don't have crampons kind of thing.
- [09:03]
Dave Cawley
Eric didn't like snow, and he hadn't prepared for it. Julia wondered what he'd do if he encountered it.
- [09:10]
Blake Summers
You have no information and you just start, you know, thinking through every scenario and what the terrain is and what the exit points could have been that he could have gone on.
- [09:22]
Dave Cawley
There are at least 20 official trailheads scattered around the perimeter of the Uinta Mountains. Some are hours from the closest town, down rough, unpaved roads with no cell service. Maybe Eric had bailed and hiked to one of those other trailheads. The first thing sheriff's deputies did on day one of the search was drive out to each of those trailheads to check. But Julia wasn't yet aware of this.
- [09:49]
Blake Summers
Not being the sheriff. Like I didn't have a full picture on everything that was happening.
- [09:55]
Dave Cawley
When Julia made it home, she pulled out a copy of Eric's itinerary. It included the name and phone number of the guide he had hired to shuttle him to the start of the trail. Julia called that man, Jeff Stagg, who confirmed he had taken Eric to the chipita Lake trailhead 11 days earlier. Stagg promised to immediately go back to Chipita Lake and personally travel the first stretch of the trail looking for Eric. The distance involved meant he wouldn't be able to report back for at least a full day, possibly more. It was already after noon on day one of the search, and Julia wasn't sure what else to do.
- [10:32]
Blake Summers
Other things are being coordinated, you know, like the helicopters and the horses and things like that.
- [10:37]
Dave Cawley
At that very moment, the sheriff of Duchesne county was calling out his search and rescue team. They had orders to head into the Uintas on horseback, but it would also take them time to muster. Meanwhile, a helicopter belonging to the Utah Department of Public Safety lifted off on its way to fly over the Uinta Highline Trail in search of a missing man. Carrying a ruby red backpack, a pair of hikers moved along the Uinta Highline Trail on the afternoon of Monday, August 8, day one of the search for Eric Robinson. Art lang and Dan McCool were their names.
- [11:36]
Art Lang
We were walking the High Line just for the adventure and challenge of doing it.
- [11:40]
Dave Cawley
That's Art. He's a friend of mine. But I didn't know his personal connection to the Eric Robinson story when we first met years ago. I only learned of it when I saw his name in an official report about the search and told him we needed to Talk. Art and his hiking buddy Dan had started their trek about a week after Eric started his. They were crossing a forested stretch of the trail a bit west of Chipita Lake when they heard a helicopter overhead. The same chopper I mentioned a moment ago on the first flight in search of Eric.
- [12:14]
Art Lang
I think at that point we had six more days to finish.
- [12:19]
Dave Cawley
And I want you to hear Art's side of this story because he saw the search unfold right from the trail. First, though, let me tell you a bit more about Art.
- [12:29]
Art Lang
I'm a longtime backpacker and mountaineer and climber, so I've been traveling the high and wild for in the neighborhood of 40 years.
- [12:38]
Dave Cawley
He's a mountain goat adept at finding his way through the trickiest of terrain.
- [12:43]
Art Lang
I'm a natural navigator and experienced in micro navigation what's in front of my feet, and in macro navigation, looking a long distance and seeing peaks and knowing where I am intuitively on my map.
- [12:55]
Dave Cawley
Art knows the Uinta Mountains better than anyone I've ever met. But this hike in 2011 was his first time walking the Highline Trail from end to end.
- [13:04]
Art Lang
I liked to wander around there, so intended just to walk from A to B and connect all those places that I'd explored.
- [13:12]
Dave Cawley
He'd made meticulous plans.
- [13:14]
Art Lang
I knew where I wanted a camp. I knew how many days and how many miles in between each camp, and.
- [13:19]
Dave Cawley
He didn't anticipate any trouble.
- [13:21]
Art Lang
It's not as committing as some of the places I've backpacked in Alaska or even Yellowstone or places like that.
- [13:27]
Dave Cawley
But as I've said, 2011 was an unusual year. The Uinta Mountains aren't well known outside of Utah, but we're going to spend a lot of time in the Uintas, so it's important to develop a picture of the place. Imagine you're orbiting above the Earth looking down on the western United States. You see the Rocky Mountains running north to south across Montana, Idaho, Colorado, and New Mexico. The Uintas are a subrange of the Rockies, a finger that juts out to the left from Colorado into Utah.
- [14:00]
Art Lang
That Highline Trail runs the length of the mountain range, and the Mountain range is a rare mountain range that is oriented east and west.
- [14:08]
Dave Cawley
Zoom in and you'll notice a barren stripe of elevated rock running through the middle of the range. This is the Uinta crest, an unbroken spine of ridges and peaks rising above timberline. It's the backbone. Spurs branch off the crest to both the north and south. They are the ribs. The rocks that make up these bones were Formed hundreds of millions of years ago, when sediment buried deep underground Transformed into a rock called quartzite. Then, tens of millions of years ago, A warp in the earth's crust Pushed that buried quartzite upward. As the rock rose, glaciers formed on it, ice chewing away, carving deep basins between the ribs. These basins are called cirques. Many cirques in the high Uintas Are today above timberline, Home to an ecosystem called alpine tundra, like what you see.
- [15:04]
Art Lang
In the Sound of Music when the singers running through these big wildflower fields. That's alpine tundra. In the alpine tundra of, say, Utah, the high Line. That tundra exists because the conditions at altitude are desiccating. Cold winds in the winter that cause the trees to not be able to grow. There are plenty of wildflowers and plants that create flowers, but they're only there for a month of the year. So everything's struggling to survive. To me, the ecosystem is precious because it is surviving on the hairy edge of what's possible. And it's doing it with a plum. Life abides, so it lives through those harsh conditions.
- [15:44]
Dave Cawley
The glaciers that sculpted the Uinta Mountains have been extinct for thousands of years. You can still see evidence of them, though, in many little lakes scattered across the range. These lakes are called tarns, and they form the headwaters of creeks and streams, each flowing down out of the tundra into subalpine forest, cutting river canyons. If the rocks are the bones, these waterways are the veins. Each cirque, creek and canyon forms a system called a drainage. That's an area where all the precipitation, all the water drains to a single source.
- [16:21]
Art Lang
The Juntas has a couple dozen drainages, major drainages that come in from the north and come in from the south.
- [16:27]
Dave Cawley
I'm going to take this metaphor one step further by adding trails. Trails are the nerves of the Uintas. They form a network that links many different points. The Uinta highline trail is the central nerve, the spinal column. It parallels the backbone of the Uinta crest from one end of the range to the other. Many other trails branch off of it, Descending out of alpine tundra through the forested canyons.
- [16:55]
Art Lang
And every single one of those has a trailhead and often people at them. And so it's a simple matter if you get sick or get injured. It's a simple matter to crawl or walk down 10 miles to any trailhead, and you're out of there.
- [17:09]
Dave Cawley
An injured person traveling alone Would likely find it difficult to go 10 meters, let alone 10 miles. Keep in mind, Art's perspective is a Product of his extensive experience in the Uintas. He doesn't see the range the same way someone like Eric might not.
- [17:26]
Art Lang
Especially difficult to navigate. It's not especially dangerous place weather. Sure it can be bad, but there's many mountain ranges that are far more risky than the high Uintas.
- [17:39]
Dave Cawley
Maybe so, but that doesn't mean the Uintas are without risk. I told Art I knew of several cases involving people who disappeared in the Uintas. I had come to think of the range as the Uinta Triangle. A place where most visitors come and go without trouble, but where an unlucky few vanish without explanation. Art challenged me on that.
- [18:02]
Art Lang
Is it rare that someone gets lost in the backcountry and is not found, or is it common?
- [18:09]
Dave Cawley
By backcountry, Art means primitive land. Places that require hiking or horse packing to get to, where the only amenities are the ones you carry with you. Front country, by comparison, is where you can camp right out of your car. With conveniences like fire pits, picnic tables, outhouses and paved walking paths, most of the Hyuintas qualifies as backcountry. So Art's asking, do people really disappear in those far flung places, never to return? From my research I can say it happens not often, but more than you might think. Early in my career as a news reporter, I covered the story of a boy named Garrett Bardsley. 12 year old Garrett went on a camping trip with his dad Kevin in August of 2004. They visited the Kuberent Basin, a hanging valley a few miles off the Mirror Lake Highway. Here's how former Summit County Sheriff Dave Edmonds described the area at the time. This country up here is some of the most rugged in the continental United States. This is the top of the world and it's like the surface of the moon up there in some locations. Garrett's dad Kevin left camp to go fishing one morning. Garrett tagged along, but he slipped at the lakeshore and soaked his feet. Kevin told Garrett to go change into dry socks. Camp wasn't far, just through the trees. Garrett walked into those trees but didn't emerge on the other side. The question many of us are asking is how could Garrett get lost? He was only walking from where his group was fishing back to their campsite, which is a very short distance, about 250 or 300 yards, which doesn't seem like a lot. But when you come up in this thick wooded area, it can be a long ways, particularly for a 12 year old boy. People poured into the Kuberant Basin to look for Garrett. Over the next few days the weather took a turn though cold, soaking rain fell. It's possible to experience winter like conditions any time of year in the high Uintas. Because of the elevation, the conditions have been very harsh. They can get even worse. Garrett did not have. He was not prepared. He did not have a heavy coat, he did not have food. He didn't have anything. One night a dusting of snow covered the nearby peaks. Hope of finding Garrett alive faded. Tired and weary after searching for him almost non stop since Friday, the family of 12 year old Garrett Bardsley concedes it's unlikely he'll ever be coming home. We haven't given up hope.
- [20:53]
Art Lang
We don't want to leave Garrett here on this mountain.
- [20:58]
Dave Cawley
Still, the search went on to locate Garrett's body. All the searchers found was a single sock in a boulder field about a mile from where Garrett was last seen. Two theories about why he has not been found. One, he may have kept walking well beyond the search area. Or the more likely scenario is that he took shelter in a secluded area of rocks where he perished from the harsh conditions. The search ended after 10 days of intense effort. At the conclusion, the sheriff offered this advice to anyone who might visit the Uinta Mountains. Never be alone. Always have adequate provisional items and clothing. And if you get lost, stay in one spot. Garrett Bardsley's remains have to this day not never been found. His disappearance left a deep impression on me. As a young journalist, I'd camped and hiked in the Uintas as a boy myself. I couldn't comprehend how he could just vanish. In the years that followed, I covered stories about other missing people in the Uintas. Some were found alive somehow. Brennan walked more than five miles away from his scout camp, including over a 10,000 foot ridge to where he was found. Others didn't survive. Everyone, last report 172 was leaving Clyde's Lake and he was heading for Wall Lake. Want to know if you had flown trial lake yet? We have. We fly it again, but we have floated and at least one of those people was never located. It's a sad reminder to us. Make sure that you come prepared and again make sure that you're with someone. Okay, let's go back to that question Art Lang asked me during our interview.
- [22:44]
Art Lang
I'm asking you as a reporter and an aggressive researcher in this field, is it more common for people to be not found or people to be found in an environment like the high Uintas?
- [22:55]
Dave Cawley
I've tried to pin down the precise number of people who have gone missing in the Uinta mountains and to determine how many were never found. But that's proved difficult. There are a bunch of jurisdictional boundaries with different agencies responsible for searches in different parts of the range. Not every disappearance gets reported. Record keeping gets worse the farther back in time you go. And as I discovered, some missing people are simply forgotten. During my research, I stumbled across the story of a missing man named Lynn Simmons. Lynn was working on a government survey crew in the summer of 1940. The crew was measuring and mapping a square of federal land in the high Uintas. Lynn had taken this tough job to support his wife Rita and their eight month old son. He wrote Rita letters like this one, read by a voice actor. Boy, this country up here is nothing but one cliff after another. Lynn wrote about cold mornings where shrouds of vapor hung over the meanders of the bear river. He talked about a sheep herder who was camped nearby.
- [24:03]
Art Lang
Last night, a bear got into his herd and killed two or three of his sheep.
- [24:07]
Dave Cawley
The sheep herder claimed it was a grizzly, but that wasn't possible. Grizzly bears were by that point exterminated from their native habitat in these mountains. There were still black bears in the Uintas, though.
- [24:19]
Art Lang
Yesterday, while walking through some slag rock.
- [24:21]
Dave Cawley
On the side of a mountain, we.
- [24:23]
Art Lang
We saw our first bear. He was only a small one, pure coal black from one end of him to the other.
- [24:28]
Dave Cawley
This wasn't Lynn's first experience in the woods, but the Uintas felt more wild than almost any place he had ever been. You ought to see our horses up in this country. They can probably smell bears.
- [24:39]
Art Lang
And when you're riding one of them.
- [24:41]
Dave Cawley
Alone, they will go down the trail, Shying at everything from stumps to rocks.
- [24:45]
Art Lang
Sometimes they just jump to try and get rid of you.
- [24:47]
Dave Cawley
About two weeks after Lynn wrote those words, he and three co workers went to the top of a mountain called La Motte peak. I've been there myself. It's a barren pile of rocks that towers more than 2,000ft or 600 meters over the surrounding river valleys. And it's where one corner of this cruise survey project sat. A storm came up while they were on La Motte Peak. That afternoon, the party hurried down from the summit along a narrow ridge, But Lynn lagged behind. At one point, the others looked back and saw him about a mile away. They waved. He waved back. The surveyors who were in front then descended out of the alpine tundra into thick pine forest. They thought Lynn would follow, but he never made it to camp that night. A search started the next morning. It went on for more than a month. Hundreds of people helped comb the mountain until October. Snow forced them out. Lynn Simmons was never found. I discovered Lynn's story while scouring old newspaper archives. It rattled me because I'd previously stood right where Lynn was last seen. Without realizing it, I filed public records requests, hoping to learn more, but was told all of the original reports were lost. I connected with some of Lynn's relatives who knew only fragments of the story passed down as a campfire tale. We worked together to get lynn added to NamUs, the Central Database for Missing Persons in the US I share all of this because Lynn's disappearance led, like Garrett Bardsley's, shows just how easy it is for someone to fall victim to the Uintah Triangle. Most people who go missing in these mountains are quickly found, but those who aren't run the risk of never being found at all. Julia Geisler kept busy as day one of the search for Eric wound down. She pulled out her photos from the John Muir trail, found a few good shots of Eric, and used them to make a missing persons flyer on her computer. She sent the file to some friends and asked for their help printing them.
- [27:15]
Blake Summers
Off on home computers and putting them wherever we could.
- [27:17]
Dave Cawley
She gave a stack to Jonathan McCauley. Jonathan's the guy Eric and Julia met on the JMT, who had brought pizza in to celebrate Devin's birthday. Part of that trail family. Jonathan was going to drive out to the start of the Henry's Fork Trail, a popular path that intersects the Yumuta High Line at about the midway point. He'd start hiking in first thing the next morning. And Julie's friend Devin from San Francisco was booking a flight to Utah, eager to help any way she could.
- [27:47]
Blake Summers
We were just focused, you know, you didn't have a choice but to do everything you could at the moment.
- [27:54]
Dave Cawley
That included keeping Eric's wife Marilyn informed. But that was a struggle.
- [27:59]
Blake Summers
It was really difficult to communicate.
- [28:01]
Dave Cawley
Julia couldn't get her phone to connect to an Australian number.
- [28:05]
Blake Summers
Like was a nightmare trying to dial for some reason.
- [28:08]
Dave Cawley
Instead, she turned to email. For Marilyn, the time difference meant it was already Tuesday morning. She was at work at her job as principal of Volkstone Primary School.
- [28:22]
Marilyn Robinson
And I'm pacing in my office thinking, what am I going to do about this?
- [28:27]
Dave Cawley
Waiting for updates by email was agonizing. She felt powerless, unable to help from half a world away. In one email, Julia extended an invitation, telling Marilyn she was welcome to come and stay in Park City while they sorted all this out. The idea felt a bit crazy. Marilyn had responsibilities. Who would manage the school if she were to leave?
- [28:54]
Marilyn Robinson
My assistant principal was overseas at the time.
- [28:57]
Dave Cawley
Plus, Eric might pop up at any moment. She didn't want to be stuck in a plane somewhere over the Pacific. When that happened, Marilyn had a thought. What about Eric's beacon? He'd bought that epirb, the satellite distress signal. She emailed Julia, asking her to ask the sheriff whether they could track the beacon. Julia called the Duchenne County Sheriff's Office first thing on the morning of Tuesday, August 9th, day two of the search for Eric. She demanded to talk to Sheriff Travis Mitchell.
- [29:32]
Blake Summers
Gotta be your own advocate, no matter what it is.
- [29:36]
Dave Cawley
Mitchell told Julia the beacon could only be tracked if Eric hit the panic button. That hadn't happened.
- [29:44]
Blake Summers
That was the most frustrating part, that he had a GPS unit, but we couldn't see where he was with it because it's not that kind of a device.
- [29:50]
Dave Cawley
Sheriff Mitchell said his deputies hadn't found Eric at any of the trailheads the day before. Now the first wave of searchers were just about ready to depart on horseback, and Mitchell was going to board a helicopter to fly over and personally inspect each of the passes of the Uinta Highline Trail from the air. They agreed to talk again later that afternoon. After hanging up with the sheriff, Julia started calling the local news stations, you.
- [30:19]
Blake Summers
Know, trying to get people to come forward.
- [30:21]
Dave Cawley
She hoped someone, anyone who'd seen Eric would give her some indication where he might be.
- [30:28]
Blake Summers
It's clear we need more resources and more help.
- [30:32]
Dave Cawley
Julia sent another email to Marilyn. I'm going to start calling friends to get more people out there and then hopefully get out there myself, she wrote. I wish the news were better. Art Lang and his buddy Dan McCool were continuing their hike on the Uinta Highline Trail. They were behind schedule, at least according to art's plan.
- [31:06]
Art Lang
Dan McCool was having some trouble. He was off the couch and out of shape as usual. He got in shape on the trip, but this was early on trip, so he wasn't in shape yet.
- [31:17]
Dave Cawley
They were on a portion of the trail through a place called Painter Basin, headed for the highest point on the Highline Anderson Pass. Anderson would have been the second major hurdle of Eric's hike, and it's a place he might have run into other hikers because the pass is also a waypoint on the route to the highest mountain in Utah, King's Peak.
- [31:38]
Art Lang
King's Peak is a lightning rod, both literally and figuratively. In that it's always hit by lightning, but it's also attracting people from all over the world and especially Boy Scouts to go climb it.
- [31:48]
Dave Cawley
King's Peak sits on one of the ribs I described earlier. Anderson Pass crosses that same rib just to the north of the peak, in a notch between the peak and the spine of the Uinta crest. Art and Dan were on their way to Anderson Pass when they heard the rumble of another helicopter.
- [32:10]
Art Lang
It was pretty continuous and frequent. They were buzzing around all over the place.
- [32:14]
Dave Cawley
Art had crossed Anderson Pass several times before and he knew King's Peak was a hot spot for accidents.
- [32:21]
Art Lang
So in my years of experiences as we came up Painter Basin, approaching Kings Peak, it has been unusual to see or hear a helicopter.
- [32:30]
Dave Cawley
This helicopter passed low enough Art could see it belonged to an air ambulance company. It bobbed about like a bumblebee drunk on nectar, then moved off to the west, the sound fading as it disappeared over the horizon.
- [32:44]
Art Lang
And then as we got closer to Kings Peak, we either saw a flyer on a post or we talked to a person that talked about Eric. That's the first we heard of it.
- [32:52]
Dave Cawley
Art took a close look at the flyer.
- [32:55]
Art Lang
I thought, wow, if we're walking the same thing, I guess we're going to be looking for him the next four, five, six days.
- [33:03]
Dave Cawley
Art and Dan reached Anderson Pass and were treated to a sweeping view of the next drainage to the west, the Yellowstone Basin.
- [33:12]
Art Lang
That is one of the prettiest places in the whole mountain range. And I've gone back there over and over again because it's open and beautiful and it's dotted with these big boulders all over the place.
- [33:22]
Dave Cawley
Looking down into the Yellowstone Basin from the pass, you feel like you could step off the edge and fall straight down to the bottom of the bowl, a thousand feet or 300 meters below. If you instead look out into the distance, the ribs of the Uinta Range seem to stack one after another like waves on the ocean, all the way out to the horizon. Art took it all in, wondering if Eric might be somewhere within his field of vision.
- [33:50]
Art Lang
He may have just been wandering around looking for wildflowers or just enjoying the solitude.
- [33:56]
Dave Cawley
Coming off Anderson Pass to the west, the Uintah Highline makes a long traverse on the south face of the Uinta crest. It's a dramatic stretch of trail cut right into the side of a steep slope way above the floor of the Yellowstone Basin. The trail's just a narrow footpath through talus. That's a geology word describing the piles of shattered rock that form below cliffs.
- [34:20]
Art Lang
The trail there's through a big tailless slope and it's a descending pretty good path.
- [34:26]
Dave Cawley
Again, remember, Art's used to this kind of place. If you're afraid of heights, this portion of the trail might feel a bit more spicy. Especially considering what happened next.
- [34:36]
Art Lang
There was a couple fingers of snow.
- [34:38]
Dave Cawley
Steep snow slopes, high angle snowdrifts slashing across the trail looked like they would.
- [34:45]
Art Lang
Be too steep for us to comfortably cross.
- [34:49]
Dave Cawley
Most hikers on the Uinta highline never encounter these drifts because the snow is usually melted out by the start of July. But as I've said before, 2011 was an abnormal year for snow in the Uintas. These fingers of snow were still there in mid August.
- [35:06]
Art Lang
They were only 100, 150ft wide, about.
- [35:10]
Dave Cawley
30 to 45 meters. Art looked to see if anyone had cut or stomped a path across the first drift.
- [35:17]
Art Lang
I don't think there was yet much trail put in across this steep portion because really to do that you'd have to be a. I'm not sure what a boutonniere with an ice axe.
- [35:27]
Dave Cawley
Mountaineers use ice axes to chop steps or as a handhold when traversing steep sections of snow. But they are also crucial safety equipment. Say you slip on steep snow and start sliding. You keep accelerating, unable to stop yourself. If that snowfield ends in a cliff or a rock pile, there's a good chance this slide kills you. That's exactly what happened to Eric's friend Alan Beck. A trained mountaineer with an ice axe can drive that axe into the snow while sliding, using it like a brake. It's a skill called self arrest. Art hadn't brought an ice axe or crampons on this hike. He hadn't expected needing them. Neither had his hiking buddy Dan. If either one of them slipped crossing this drift, they wouldn't be able to self arrest.
- [36:18]
Art Lang
We considered briefly just going down the steep talus slope that to mountaineer a steep tailless slope can be enjoyable if it's the right size particles. In this case stones or pebbles. If it's small, it's fun. You can sat down or you can plunge, step down and go down quickly and it's actually fun.
- [36:35]
Dave Cawley
Glissading is a sort of controlled slide, like skiing without skis. But Art could see the talus in this area was too big to glissade on. What's more, Art knew there were bands of vertical cliffs between where he stood on the trail and the basin floor far below.
- [36:52]
Art Lang
It's uncomfortable to go down at that point.
- [36:55]
Dave Cawley
Uncomfortable being Art's Way of saying unsafe down. Climbing cliffs without any ropes or anchors while wearing a heavy pack is dangerous.
- [37:05]
Art Lang
Keep in mind Dan and I are both mountaineers and skilled in high angle travel. So we're used to steep snow and steep talus and rock cliffs actually.
- [37:15]
Dave Cawley
But Art figured there had to be a better option. He looked up the slope to the top of the snowdrift. It seemed he could scramble up that way easier than going down. So that's what he did.
- [37:27]
Art Lang
That part wasn't too bad. And we just angled towards the top of one of these fingers and it was up against a cliff. And where it's up against the cliff, there was a moat. A moat is a term in which deep snow that's up against the cliff starts melting out against the cliff because the temperature differential and it melts out a gap, a hole chasm between the two. And in the real mountains, that can be very dangerous. As bad as a car can be several hundred feet deep. But in this case, you really can't tell how deep it is. Just looks like a black hole and it's a little bit intimidating.
- [38:01]
Dave Cawley
Crossing this moat would be like walking a balance beam covered with ice. A fall to the left would send you sliding out of control down the snow drift. A fall to the right would drop you into that chasm between the top edge of the drift and the rock wall. A hole you'd be unable to escape without, without the help of rescuers with ropes.
- [38:20]
Art Lang
But in this case, we were able to walk across the top of that snow on a knife edge of that snow. And I think it was a small enough moat. We could even have a hand on the rock. Not terribly intimidating, but a bit sobering. So we did it one at a time, watching the other guy in case something happened, and successfully crossed it.
- [38:42]
Dave Cawley
They made their way back down to the trail. On the far side of the first drift. They walked a short distance, then ran into the second one. This snowfield was wider than the first, but a bit less steep. They again considered their options.
- [38:57]
Art Lang
We wanted to go out to point X in the distance, the horizontal direction. We didn't want to mess around and go down the talus.
- [39:05]
Dave Cawley
So they traversed straight across the face of the second drift. To do this, the they had to kick toe holds into the smooth, crusty surface of the snow, testing each step as they went, compacting the snow under their body weight and hoping it would hold firm. It did. They made it across without problem and completed their descent from Anderson Pass. Once at the bottom, Art thought again about the missing hiker Eric Robinson he'd learned about just a couple hours earlier.
- [39:36]
Art Lang
He was a week ahead of us.
- [39:38]
Dave Cawley
Which meant the snowdrifts would have been even wider when Eric encountered them if he'd made it that far. Art and Dan made camp at a spot with a clear view looking back at Anderson Pass. From a distance, the snow looked insignificant. But Art couldn't help but wonder what that missing Australian backpacker might have done. Did Eric have the knowledge and and experience to find a way around?
- [40:04]
Art Lang
If you were scared of that steep snow slope and didn't figure out you get across on the moat, would Eric.
- [40:10]
Dave Cawley
Have backtracked, gone off trail? Or did he try to cross the snow, slip and slide out of control, landing somewhere in the jumble of rocks below? A boulder pile like that is full of nooks and crevices that could hide a body from view. Which meant Art might be looking in Eric's direction. Direction. Without realizing it, I just knew that.
- [40:32]
Art Lang
We'D be thinking about that and dealing with it the rest of the trip.
- [40:46]
Dave Cawley
It's July 28, 2023, exactly 12 years to the day since Eric Robinson started his hike on the Uinta Highline Trail. I'm sitting in an SUV with audio producer Nina Ernest as we bounce our way up the long dirt road to the trailhead at Chipita Lake, the very place Eric started his hike. We're making this long, dusty drive because I want to try and hike Eric's same itinerary to cross the Uintah Highline Trail. The idea of doing this hike came to me around the start of April. At that time, snow conditions in the Uintas looked a lot like they did in 2011. It was setting up to be another record snow year. I thought I could gain some insight about what Eric might have experienced. You've heard me try this approach once already in New Zealand, and it didn't go so great. I bailed on that hike when it started to feel unsafe, but here I am again. The things you do for your audience. And I hope it works, because I've. Oh, little thunder roll there. That's fun. Oh, yeah. I'm not thrilled at feeling a patter of rain on my arms or at seeing black clouds just off to the west.
- [42:06]
Art Lang
Are you nervous?
- [42:08]
Dave Cawley
That's a good question. That's actually what I was just thinking of. So, yeah, I've been pretty nervous about this for a long time. Nervous because of snow? The US Government has a network of remote weather stations spread out across the western states. They're called Snotel Sites and a bunch of them are in the Uintas. I've been checking the Uintah snotels almost every day right up to the start of July. It appears I might run into dangerous conditions on the trail, just like Eric.
- [42:41]
Art Lang
And it's such a weird thing when.
- [42:42]
Dave Cawley
You'Re kind of, I don't want to say tempting fate, but there is something eerie about tracing someone's footsteps in this way. I don't think I'm tempting fate but it doesn't mean that I want to be flippant about the risks either. I put on my pack and prepare to start walking. Nina comes along. We're only a few minutes in when we encounter a problem. Well, that's fun. The trail is flooded out. A heat wave has sent the Uinta snowmelt into overdrive. Water's inundated a section of the trail. I start scouting for another way around.
- [43:19]
Marilyn Robinson
All right, here's the part then where.
- [43:20]
Dave Cawley
Dave is getting us lost.
- [43:21]
Art Lang
At the very beginning.
- [43:23]
Dave Cawley
My plan was never for Nina to accompany me on this entire journey. She's just here to record sound of the sendoff. I can tell Nina's not willing to walk away with while I'm still wandering around this flooded out meadow. But I find a place where the water funnels into a little stream I can hop over.
- [43:41]
Art Lang
Less than a mile in and you already identified.
- [43:43]
Dave Cawley
You know when there's water across the trail like shin deep water, I don't want to soak my feet right from the get go. So yeah, you got to kind of work your way around but it's fine. The high line is actually just on the other side of the street and it's not a. Not like a big turnaround or anything you've said, I'm sure. Yeah, I'm positive. Nina makes a face at me, a mix of concern and a little doubt. I step onto a rock in the middle of the stream and shout goodbye. I'm looking at rain over North Pole Pass so I gotta get moving but I'll see you in a week. Be careful. I will. Thank you, Nina. All right, see you. I'm on my own from here. Starting from Chipita Lake, a westbound hiker on the Uintah Highline has to cross seven passes. These are the places where the trail climbs up and over the ribs of the Uintah Range or the spine of the Uinta crest itself. You've already heard me describe one of them, Anderson Pass, where art encountered those dangerous snowdrifts. The passes are in order. North Pole, Anderson, Tungsten Porcupine, Red Knob, Dead Horse and Rocky C. I repeated these names like a mantra as I walked. North Pole Pass, Anderson Pass, Tungsten Pass, Porcupine Pass, Red Knob Pass, Dead Horse Pass, Rocky Sea Pass. That's a lot to remember, so don't worry if those names don't stick just yet. For the moment, let's just focus on the first one. North Pole Pass From Chipita Lake to North Pole Pass is a long uphill ramp. You gradually rise out of the trees into alpine tundra. The top of the pass is a barren plateau. It's no place to to dawdle when the weather's bad. The uintas rise high enough that they make their own weather. Thunderstorms boil up almost every afternoon during summer. Lightning strikes are a very real danger if you get stuck in a storm above timberline. So most hikers aim to cross the passes early in the day. I don't have that luxury as I head for North Pole Pass. It's already late afternoon and I'm determined to reach my destination on the far side. I push my pace, but end up overdoing it and collapse right at the top at an elevation of about 12,250ft, give or take. And I gotta be honest, I'm not doing so great. The storm fizzles thankfully, but I feel like I'm going to puke. I just had to lay flat on my back for about five minutes, just kind of letting my body settle. I'm not conditioned for this hike. Earlier in our story, I talked about how I started hiking in my 20s as a way of dealing with some emotional baggage. My first few solo trips felt pretty awkward. It can get boring having no one to talk to for days at a time. On the other hand, being alone forced me to meet someone new myself. I started conversing with my own inner monologue. That voice wasn't always the most kind. It'd say things like, you've really done it this time, stupid. But other times I discovered it could be surprisingly compassionate. Hey, that stuff that happened to you as a kid, it wasn't your fault. In this moment atop North Pole Pass, that inner voice speaks back to me. You'll be alright. Don't give up. I stand, steady my breathing, stand on wobbly legs and pick up my heavy pack. I have a ways still to go in order to reach my intended campsite at a place called Fox Lake. Once there, I pull a microphone and audio recorder out of the backpack. This isn't the kind of gear most backpackers carry. It's heavy and bulky. But I want to be able to record my experiences in the moment and share them with you right from the trail. Even though I'm feeling pretty wrecked right now at the edge of Fox Lake. The sunset here tonight was absolutely fantastic. And there's nobody else here. I'd wanted to get here before sundown because I needed enough daylight to find a specific spot along the lakeshore. I'm camped approximately where I believe Eric Robinson Spring spent his second night on the Uinta High Line. Early in the search for Eric, as the local news media started spreading the word, a man named Carmi came forward to report seeing Eric at Fox Lake on the morning of July 30th. That was day three of Eric's walk. Carmi had snapped a photo of Erik. It showed him next to his tent, squinting into the rising sun, holding a mug of tea. It is the last known photo of Eric, and I now know exactly where it was taken. This tells me something significant. Eric didn't go far off the trail to make camp. He didn't wander in search of the best vista or the most solitude. It also tells me Erik wasn't moving very fast. It took him a day and a half to travel the same distance I did in a matter of hours. So I've skipped one night and I'm already ahead of Eric's schedule. I'm paying a price for that though. I've got a headache and I feel a bit nauseous, which could be from dehydration or a symptom of something worse. Altitude sickness. That would be a trip ending problem. So it's imperative I take care of my body in this moment. I hope you'll forgive me. I'm going to make my dinner as I talk here before because the sun has gone down, the temperature is dropping and I want to get some food in me and then tuck into bed. I need food, water, electrolytes and rest. Tonight we are having instant rice, dehydrated refried beans, dehydrated chicken, little hot sauce and some cups of water in there and some crunchy jalapeno slices. This guy boiling. The last traces of lavender and gold fade from the clouds as twilight deepens. I click on my headlamp and notice the fog of my breath in its beam. It gets cold fast after sundown up here. Even in summer. Steam rises from my dinner as well. It's hard to be patient with this rehydration process. I want to just grab it and eat it. But there's nothing worse than dry marshmallow Dehydrated chicken chunks and crunchy instant rice. So we wait. My thoughts turn to Marilyn as I wait. I sought her blessing before beginning this journey.
- [51:26]
Marilyn Robinson
You asked permission if you could walk. That was very respectful, empathic.
- [51:35]
Dave Cawley
I'd told Marilyn I hoped to gain insight about Eric's experience, which I could then share with her. Sitting here now, right where Eric did 12 years before, I wonder if he also watched stars emerge while making his dinner. Did he hiramoose four foraging in the forest behind like I do? Or was his mind occupied thinking of the challenging path ahead? Did he harbor any doubt in his ability to make it to the end? Back in 2011, on day two of the search for Eric, Marilyn felt the extreme distance tearing at her. She checked her email over and over, hoping for some word from Utah. Her mind kept going back to Julia's invitation. The idea of dropping everything to fly across the world started to seem less crazy. But Marilyn's second in command at Volkstone Primary School was still out of the country, not due back from more than a week.
- [52:45]
Marilyn Robinson
I called my assistant principal and for some reason she had decided to come home early. She was in transit when I got her at maybe Rome airport or somewhere like that. She said, I'll be back in. I'll be there on Monday.
- [52:59]
Dave Cawley
It was already Wednesday in Melbourne. Surely her staff could manage a couple of days without her. Marilyn made up her mind she would travel to Utah, went to a travel.
- [53:11]
Marilyn Robinson
Agent because they can far easier find flights than me. Sitting on the on the computer trying.
- [53:16]
Dave Cawley
To do it, she called her kids, who all seemed unenthused with her plan. They reminded her what had happened when Eric was overdue in New Zealand. This was probably the same. He'd turn up soon. If anyone could survive a few days alone in the mountains, it was Eric. But Rachel Marsden, the second of Marilyn's four kids, recognized a troubling tone in the messages coming from Eric's hiking friends in the United States.
- [53:44]
Marilyn Robinson
Whilst we were initially, you know, thinking things might be okay, I think the concern at the other end probably quickly mounted. And yeah, the decision was made to go.
- [53:58]
Dave Cawley
Rachel told me she and her brothers Marty, Jonathan and David, all worried about their mother's emotional and physical well being.
- [54:05]
Marilyn Robinson
You know, she's 5 foot 2 and pretty stoic. She's not a needy person. She would never ask or want to impose herself.
- [54:12]
Dave Cawley
They agreed someone should go with her.
- [54:15]
Marilyn Robinson
I was the only sibling not working in a job. It was the easiest for me to up and just leave like that.
- [54:22]
Dave Cawley
Rachel had three kids of her own, the youngest only a couple years old, but she figured her husband Jeremy could manage.
- [54:29]
Marilyn Robinson
And I just spoke to Jeremy about not, you know, about Mum and not wanting her to travel alone and feeling concerned for her emotional well being and that I didn't want her to do that by herself.
- [54:42]
Dave Cawley
Jeremy said he'd take time off work, so Rachel called Marilyn and told her she was coming too.
- [54:48]
Marilyn Robinson
It had never occurred to me that I would take somebody, but it was a great sense of relief and support and comfort to go with somebody.
- [54:56]
Dave Cawley
Their flight would depart Melbourne at 9.30am on Thursday, August 11. That would be Wednesday afternoon in Utah.
- [55:04]
Marilyn Robinson
Within a matter of two days, we were organized and leaving.
- [55:09]
Dave Cawley
You had to throw yourself to the universe and just say, I'm getting on a plane, I'm going across the world to look for Eric. That's, that's a lot.
- [55:24]
Marilyn Robinson
Yeah, you're thinking that I went to look.
- [55:30]
Dave Cawley
At this point in our interview, Marilyn paused, as if considering whether she wanted to say the next words out loud. She then started telling me about something that had happened a few days before.
- [55:44]
Marilyn Robinson
Eric went missing within the time frame that he was walking. I woke up in the middle of the night here with an awful sense of being alone. I don't usually feel alone. I can be alone, but I don't feel alone and lonely. And I, I dismissed it because I needed to have a bit more sleep so that I could function well in the day. And it was not until Eric was missing that I felt, oh, I made a bit of a connection with this, linking it to my aloneness in the middle of the night. So whilst you're saying I went over to join the search, but I also went with a big empty suitcase because I thought, I felt I was not bringing him back alive. I just felt that he was gone. I didn't feel that I was bringing my warm hand at Eric back.
- [57:22]
Dave Cawley
Uinta Triangle includes immersive field recordings made in real outdoor locations for the best listening experience. Please consider using a good pair of stereo headphones. 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 u I n t a 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 In Bonus.
- [58:14]
Blake Summers
Episode three, Dave Colley delves deeper into the mystery of the surveyor Lynn Simmons, who vanished in the Uinta mountains back in 1940. Dave teams up with some members of Lynn's family to learn more about who he was, where he might have gone, and to find a way to honor his memory, even though he has yet to be found.
- [58:35]
Dave Cawley
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 Larry Cespuch and John Smith. 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. Lemonada executive producers are Jessica Cordova Kramer and Stephanie Wittleswax. And for KSL Podcasts, our executive producer is Cheryl Worsley. Finally, from me to you. Please remember, wherever your life's trail takes you, none of us ever truly walk alone.
- [59:46]
Blake Summers
Hi, I'm Megan and I've got a new podcast I think you're going to love. It's called Confessions of a Female Founder, a show where I chat with female entrepreneurs and friends about the sleepless nights, the lessons learned, and the laser focus that got them to where they are today. And through it all, I'm building a business of of my own and getting all sorts of practical advice along the way that I'm so excited to share with you. Confessions of a Female Founder is out now. Hear new episodes each week ad free on Amazon Music. You can also ask Alexa Alexa, play Confessions of a Female Founder with Megan on Amazon Music and she will.