Why We Hike

Summary

Uinta Triangle: "Why We Hike" (May 20, 2026)
Host: Dave Cawley, with guest journalist Shara Park
Podcast: Uinta Triangle (Lemonada Media in partnership with KSL Podcasts)

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Episode Overview

In this bonus episode, host Dave Cawley dives into the motives and dangers behind solo hiking, using the mysterious disappearance of Australian trekker Eric Robinson as a lens. Joined by KSL TV journalist Shara Park, Dave discusses not only the personal and emotional draw of wilderness adventure, but also the risks involved—especially in the unforgiving Uinta Mountains. This episode explores themes of connection, vulnerability, and the blurred lines between journalist and subject, with Dave reflecting on his own life in parallel with Eric’s.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Allure—and Risks—of Solo Hiking

• Why hike alone? Shara prompts Dave about solo hiking and what draws people like Eric Robinson and himself into wilderness, noting the perceived danger in going solo.
  • "Isn't it dangerous to go out hiking alone?" (00:30)
• Dave’s motivation: Dave connects deeply with Eric's story, relating to the rejuvenation nature offers and the meticulous preparation Eric undertook—emphasizing that meticulousness isn’t foolproof:
  • "If something bad can happen to Eric in that circumstance... it can happen to me, right?" (01:29)
• Long-term resonance: Dave felt compelled to follow Eric’s story due to both personal identification and the powerful perspective from Eric’s wife, Marilyn.

2. Personal Vulnerability & Honesty in Journalism

• Letting listeners in: Shara notes Dave’s unusually personal approach in episode one, where he draws parallels between his own past wounds and Eric’s motivations for hiking:
  • "It felt fair if I was going to be asking Marilyn to talk about all of these really deeply personal aspects of her life and her relationship with Eric, that I'd be honest with the listener as well about where I'm coming from." (03:54)
• Understanding Eric’s Drive: Dave acknowledges similarities in motivation, but maintains clear boundaries between his experiences and Eric’s:
  • "What motivated us to get out was similar, but the experiences we had in life—extremely different." (04:12)

3. The Psychological Pull of Wilderness

• Returning to ‘normal’ life: Dave recounts his 25-day rafting trip in the Grand Canyon, describing the profound difficulty of re-entering everyday life after such deep immersion in nature:
  • "Coming back out of the Grand Canyon into the world...almost immediately, I had this sense of like, I just want to be back in the canyon." (07:01)
• Nature as escape and therapy: Dave explains that even when outdoor adventures are challenging or uncomfortable, the experience draws many people (like Eric) back, becoming a driving, almost irresistible force.

4. The Uinta Highline Trail: A Test of Endurance

• Trail realities: Shara asks Dave to detail what Eric was facing.
  • The Uintah Highline Trail is roughly 70–100 miles, mostly above 10,000 feet in elevation, traversing ridges and passes—sometimes over 12,000 feet.
  • "You are on your own for the most part. You've got to be self-sufficient. You gotta know how to handle stuff that goes wrong because it will go wrong." (09:54)
• Personal experience: Dave describes hiking the trail himself—once alone—which involved giving his bosses at KSL a safety plan including a satellite tracking beacon (mirroring Eric’s own meticulous safety precautions).

5. Reliving Eric’s Journey—And the Tension of the Unknown

• Critical moment on the trail: Dave describes standing at Dead Horse Pass in bad weather, empathizing with Eric’s potential fear and decision-making:
  • "That’s how it goes wrong." (12:29)
• Real dangers: Even with all precautions, the remoteness of the Uinta Mountains means help is far away; the same systems that were supposed to protect Eric became mysteries in his disappearance (e.g., his untouched emergency beacon).

6. The ‘Why’: Meaning, Connection, and the Human Story

• Dave’s motivation as a storyteller: Asked directly why he pursues such immersive reporting, Dave explains his unique positioning:
  • "No one else will tell it. They don't know enough about it." (13:39)
• Empathy and connection: Dave’s approach isn’t just about telling a true-crime story—it’s to forge a bond between audience, subject, and place, advocating for shared humanity:
  • "I want you as the listener... to be able to really connect and sense that these are real people. These are not fiction stories... this is literally what happened to these people." (14:37)
  • "My hope is that you come away feeling the love of place that Eric and I both share, but also a sense of connection to this greater human family that we’re all part of." (15:52)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On the emotional motivation for nature:
  • "Going out on long hikes and going out in nature rejuvenates me." – Dave Cawley (01:40)
• On journalistic honesty:
  • "It felt fair if I was going to be asking Marilyn to talk about... her life and her relationship with Eric, that I'd be honest with the listener as well about where I'm coming from." – Dave Cawley (03:54)
• On solo hiking and risk:
  • "By and large, the Uintah Highline Trail is not dangerous...but there are consequences if something goes bad." – Dave Cawley (09:54)
• On the unexplainable draw of wilderness:
  • "There is this call of the wild where you just feel that like pull to try to return to that experience." – Dave Cawley (07:22)
• On storytelling and connection:
  • "I want you as the listener...to really connect and sense that these are real people. These are not fiction stories...this is literally what happened to these people." – Dave Cawley (14:37)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:30 — Dave introduces the central question: the danger and allure of hiking alone.
• 01:15 — Shara asks why Dave was personally drawn to Eric Robinson’s story.
• 03:11 — Shara brings up Dave’s personal involvement and openness in the series.
• 05:38 — Dave on the psychological challenge of leaving wilderness to return to ‘regular’ life.
• 08:22 — The rigors and real risks of the Uintah Highline Trail explained.
• 09:54 — Systems of safety and how close the margin for error can be.
• 11:31 — Dave recounts a harrowing experience tracing Eric’s steps at Dead Horse Pass.
• 13:22 — Shara asks Dave “what is your why?”—eliciting his philosophy on journalism and narrative.
• 15:52 — Dave articulates his hope for creating empathy and universal connection through the podcast.

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Tone & Reflections

• The conversation is candid, gently probing, and reflective.
• Dave balances journalistic rigor with honest, vulnerable storytelling—establishing trust with both the audience and his interviewees.
• A persistent thread is the idea of connection—between people, places, and shared human experience—underscoring both the investigation and the adventure central to this series.

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Summary Prepared For: Uinta Triangle, "Why We Hike" episode listeners and the curious
For further content, visit uintatriangle.com.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

I'm Dave Cawley, and this is a bonus episode of youf Into Triangle. As I've talked to people about the disappearance of Eric Robinson, one of the questions that always comes up is, isn't it dangerous to go out hiking alone? My answer isn't a simple yes or no. Let me introduce you to Shara Park.

[C]

What is it that draws you out there? To think I have the confidence to take on nature in that way.

[B]

She's a fantastic journalist for KSL tv. We've worked alongside each other for a long time, long time. And she's one of those people who said to me, what are you thinking hiking solo? I asked her to come talk to me about it, and here's how it went.

[C]

What was it about this story? Eric Robinson.

[B]

Yep.

[C]

What was it about his story that drew you in? That said, I'm going to spend this amount of time, this significant amount of time to dive into his story. And I mean, because it is detailed,

[B]

you know how it is when you cover a story, you have this, like, journalistic distance. You separate, you know yourself from what you're covering. But at the same time, in Eric, I saw a lot of what I see in myself, which is this desire to go out into nature for, like, maybe a different purpose than just I want to go on a pretty hike or I just want to have, like, a fun weekend. Like, going out on long hikes and going out in nature rejuvenates me. And I had this conversation with Eric's wife, Marilyn, the first time we ever talked where she gave me just this kind of little sense that that's what Eric was all about. And the thing that really threw me for a loop about it was Eric's this guy who prepares so well for all of these hikes that he goes on. He's so detailed, so meticulous. He's leaving the list of all the places he's gonna be, the contact information. You know, he's carrying extra food. He's got all this st. And if something bad can happen to Eric in that circumstance, in the back of My mind, I'm thinking, it can happen to me. Right. So from there, rolling the clock forward, as the story continues to unfold over the course of years, it just kept nagging at me like, I've got to follow this story and keep reporting on it. And in follow up conversations with Marilyn, I think that's what really pushed me over the edge into wanting to do this as a long form podcast is her perspective and the transformational journey that she goes through over the course of this story. It just. It really moved me in a way that I thought, I need to find a way to share that with people.

[C]

Okay. Okay. So you. And you covered the initial case of him going missing.

[B]

Yeah. Wow.

[C]

I have stories in my career that have stayed with me time and time again. And you circle back to it and you never forget it, so it makes sense. Okay. I want to ask you, though. In episode one, Dave, you did make a comparison, wounds and abuse and. And the connection that you made with Eric. And it made me pause because as journalists, we don't often insert ourselves. And it caught me listening to episode one because all of a sudden I felt like I was hearing Dave in a different way. And I felt like I was getting to know you differently. And so I'm curious as to why you decided to let us into that part of your life in this episode. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. It was not part of the original plan, I can tell you that.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

As I was sitting down to write and produce the first episode, the first two episodes really, of you into Triangle and looking at Eric's story and this concept of the losses that he went through in his life and how that motivated him to get out. I just kept emotionally for myself feeling this strong, reflective connection. Yeah. And, you know, it's not something that I talk publicly a lot about, you know, what I went through as a kid for a number of reasons. But it felt fair if I was going to be asking Marilyn to talk about all of these really deeply personal aspects of her life and her relationship with Eric, that I'd be honest with the listener as well about where I'm coming from. And I don't want it to come off as manipulative, like I'm trying to garner sympathy or make false comparisons, because, as I say in the episode, Eric and I are very different. I think what motivated us to get out was similar, but the experiences we had in life, extremely different. I pulled back a little bit. I don't go into the details of here's what this abuse was or all of that, because I just Felt like it was necessary to give you enough sense of. I get it, I get where Eric is coming from. And here's a little bit of why

[C]

in episode two, somebody in the episode talked about coming off the trail can be difficult. Reentering civilization. Talk about why, why that's so hard and how it kind of draws them back to the trail.

[B]

So the best way that I can try to explain that feeling is by telling you an experience that I had. I did a 25 day rafting trip down the Grand Canyon, 25 days in the winter with friends and paddling my own boat. So I'm in a little boat paddling it myself every day at camp. You get there, you set up camp and then what do you do? You just go off and hike, you just go explore for almost a month straight. And the first few days you're on vacation, you're still getting in the swing. By the time you're a week in, you start to get routine. By the time you're two weeks in now you're in your groove. Right? And every day is this program and all the things that distract you in your daily life at home, scrolling the phone, dealing with work problems or call, whatever it is, that stuff is all fading farther and farther into the background. I was on this trip in the middle of this was in 2021. And so we were still dealing with the tail end of like Covid and one of the variants actually kicked up while I was in the canyon. So mask restrictions and everything had gone away. The political stuff was gone.

[C]

You're like, no, thank you.

[B]

And I was completely disconnected from that world for a month. And coming back out of the Grand Canyon into the world and taking your phone back on network and all those notifications coming in almost immediately, I had this sense of like, I just want to be back in the canyon.

[C]

Yeah, I don't want to do that.

[B]

Can we just go up to the start and start over again? Right. And so, yeah, I think there's this, it's so contrived to say, but there is this call of the wild where you just feel that like pull to try to return to that experience.

[C]

Do you think that's what got into Eric's mindset? Do you think that's what built and he continued to build and build and build that he seemed to go more often and just in his retirement he just wanted to go more and more and more?

[B]

Absolutely, yeah, 100%. I think he had that drive and every experience, even a bad experience. Right. Getting stuck in bad weather or with you know, whatever befell him on the trail is just a drive that he could not separate himself from.

[C]

That's interesting. We're here in Utah, the Uinta Mountains, the Highline Trail. It's apparently very challenging. Give me a little bit of a snippet here of what Eric was going to be facing on this trail.

[B]

So the Uintah Highline Trail, big picture, you can start at a few different places, but generally we're talking somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 to 100 miles, depending on where you start. Eric was doing a slightly shorter version of it, so about 65 to 70 miles. Most of the time you are at or above 10,000ft elevation in these mountains, which puts you above timberline. So you are up in this ecosystem called alpine tundra. Right. It's just little wildflowers and bushes and just huge, wide open landscapes. Gorgeous. The big challenge with the Uinta Highline Trail is that you're crossing one end of this mountain range to the other. And as you do that, there are a number of ridges that you have to go up and over. So you, you crest all of these different passes.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

And those passes, some of them are up over 12,000ft. So you're doing just elevation up and down and you've got to cover, you know, a significant amount of distance in every day to get from one end of the trail to the other.

[C]

And you did this?

[B]

Yes. So I've hiked the Uinta Highline Trail twice. Once for this project and another time with friends. PR.

[C]

And you did this alone one time?

[B]

Yes.

[C]

For this project?

[B]

Yes.

[C]

Dave. True. I mean, be honest with me.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

Scary.

[B]

No.

[C]

Liar.

[B]

No, it.

[C]

Sorry, I just called him out. Liar. Well, you honestly be. You can't tell me that that is not a difficult, scary experience. Like I can't.

[B]

The first. The first time, sure. There's like some anxiety about am I physically going to be able to do this. And there are a few places where the trail, by and large, the Uintah Highline Trail is not dangerous. There are certain precautions that you definitely need to take. There are consequences if something goes bad because you are at a minimum 10, 15, 20 miles from the nearest road. And often that road's going to be a dirt road. Right. So you are on your own for the most part. You've got to be self sufficient. You got to know how to handle stuff that goes wrong because it will go wrong. For myself on the hiking that I did for this podcast, the only way that I could get my boss and KSL's legal people to feel okay with it was by giving them a safety plan in advance, and that included carrying a tracking beacon, a satellite beacon, so that at any given time they could check in and see where I was. I had the ability to fire an emergency signal. And that's not totally dissimilar from Eric, right. As we hear in the podcast, Eric bought a device, and we know that he went out and something went wrong. And that device, when this search started, was not triggered. And so that will become, as the story moves forward, a big question of

[C]

why did you ever, along that trail, have that moment where you got to where he had that moment where things went wrong and you. You had your own moment of a connection where you felt like, I shouldn't be here or anything like that?

[B]

I've walked Eric's path as well as we can know it from one end to the other. There was a spot when I was doing the Uinta Highline Trail, trying to retrace Erryk's steps and kind of at a pivotal point along the trail, this place called Dead Horse Pass.

[C]

And.

[B]

And the weather was terrible, Right. I got stuck in my tent, similar to Eric, where I thought, okay, I don't want to go over this pass in, like, heavy rain, cloud deck down low. That doesn't feel safe. I have a bailout plan. Like, I've actually thought ahead that this could be an issue. And my bailout plan, it's kind of. It's going to be seriously unfun, and I'm going to be delayed, so I'm going to be late no matter what, right? In my own head, I'm thinking, I'm not at risk, like, my personal safety. I don't feel unsafe at this point, but I do have to think pretty carefully about, here's the amount of food I've got left. Here's the amount of distance I've got to travel, and if the weather doesn't improve, like, I might be coming in on fumes a day, day and a half behind. Do I want. Do I want the powers that be at KSL and the people that care about me to have that experience of waiting for me being overdue as I'm doing this podcast about somebody who was overdue, I really don't. So luckily, the weather broke and I was able to continue on my way without any serious delay. But, yeah, it puts you in that mindset of, oh, okay, this is how it. You know, that's how it goes wrong.

[C]

After listening to these first two episodes, I just. My last Dean or impression or My question, I guess, is, what is your. Why in all of this, Dave? I mean, why do you do this?

[B]

I want to be.

[C]

It's big.

[B]

Well, it is. And my gut reaction is to make a joke and deflect. Because the truth of the matter is, I think I'm a little strange.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

Okay. This is a story that, to me, is very interesting, that I thought no one else. No one else will tell it. They don't know enough about it. Right. So in order to tell this story, I needed to be in the right place at the right time to make a human connection with Marilyn. I also needed to be somebody who had enough knowledge of this hiking culture and specifically hiking in the Uinta Mountains, where the majority of the story is gonna take place. And I kind of looked over one shoulder and the other, and I went, who's gonna do it? No one's gonna do it. When I approached Marilyn with the idea of really focusing this story in on Eric, I knew it was gonna require her to be really, really transparent with me. And that's a big ask for somebody to throw open their whole life, all their relationship. And I'm just. I'm gonna come in and I'm gonna start tearing them apart, Right? Because I know that the work that I've done in Cold and Here, and you went to Triangle, it can feel like more information than some people know they're signing up for. You get fire hosed. Right. But I feel like if we're turning over those stones and we're looking at what's underneath, I want you as the listener, the full picture. I want you to be able to really connect and sense that these are real people. These are not fiction stories. They're not dramatized stories. This is literally what happened to these people. And I want to take you on that journey. I'm very passionate, as you are as a journalist, about helping people interpret the world around them. And the best way for me to do that is with this topic, is to throw the backpack on my shoulders and the microphone in my hand and go out into nature or fly halfway around the world and meet people where they are and say, trust me enough to tell me your story. And you, as the listener, know, hopefully, that you can trust me that when I turn that microphone background on myself, that I'm being honest enough with you. And by the end of the story, my hope is that you come away feeling the love of place that Eric and I both share, but also a sense of connection to this greater human family that we're all part of Well,

[C]

I think that's exactly what the story is, Dave. I think it's a story about connection. I really do. You got me hooked.

[B]

Well, if I got you, hopefully I can get a few more.

[C]

And if Marilyn's listening, I hope she's listening. I hope I get to meet her someday. She sounds like a beautiful soul.

[B]

She really is. Thanks, Cheryl.

[D]

This bonus episode was produced by me, Jenny Ahmet. Our executive producers are Jessica Cordova Kramer and Stephanie Whittles Wax for Lemonada Media and Cheryl Worsley for KSL Podcasts. For more on the story of Uinta Triangle, Visit our website, uintatriangle.com that's uinta u I n t a triangle dot com. Thanks for listening.