CHAFFEE COUNTY, Colo. — Two Colorado college students are missing after going on a hike at Ice Moutain in Chaffee County over the weekend, deputies said in a news release Tuesday, adding that while they are optimistic they’ll find them, the window of opportunity is closing.
Kaden Matsuda, 19, from Ridgeway, and 20-year-old Jackson Donlon, from New York, reportedly left the Colorado Mountain College Leadville campus Friday planning to hike Ice Mountain on the far north end of Chaffee County.
Deputies said hikers planning this hike would drive near Winfield (County Road 390) and access Mt. Huron trailhead. Deputies responded to the trailhead Monday and found Matsuda’s vehicle, according to a news release.
Friends who spoke with deputies said both planned on returning from the hike Saturday if they didn’t feel safe, but if they felt confident about their hike, they would return on Sunday.
Family and friends told deputies both are experienced hikers and should have had appropriate clothing before leaving for the hike. They also showed deputies a text with a map plot pinpointing Ice Mountain as their destination, with another image showing the area around Winfield and the trailhead circled potentially indicating where they would go in and/or camp, the release states.
When deputies responded to the Mt. Huron trailhead, they noted that there was about eight inches of snow on the ground but none under the vehicle. Deputies said weather conditions were still favorable on Friday as it would have been raining in the area.
On Saturday, however, heavy snow started falling between 1 and 1 p.m., which created what deputies described as “horrific road conditions” around the county. Deputies had to deal with over a dozen slide offs and traffic accidents in a matter of minutes around the County, deputies said.
“Ice Mountain is a very technical climb, and it is recommended that hikers be very experienced when trying to tackle it. That is when it is dry,” said Chaffee County Sheriff Andy Rohrich, adding the mountain received up to two feet of snow by Saturday night, with some areas getting between three or four feet of snow due to sluffing and drifting.
Though avalanche concerns are minimal because it’s only the first big snow the season, boulder fields that search and rescue teams will have to cross to reach the peak “are now covered in all the snow making it extremely dangerous and virtually impossible on foot,” Rohrich said. “There is also nowhere on the mountain a helicopter could land to bring staff in.”
Rohrich said the county’s search and rescue team was deployed Monday to begin the search for the two missing hikers, but the pair were not found.
At around noon Tuesday, a helicopter searching for both hikers spotted an object near Lake Ann and a search team was sent in on foot to the area. At the scene, they discovered that the object was the hiker’s tent that had collapsed under the weight of the snow.
Deputies said there was no snow under the tent and there were no visible footprints in the snow which suggested that the tent was all in place before the snow came in. The only sign of both hikers were their sleeping bags, stove and some clothing inside the tent.
“Unfortunately, we still have not located Kaden and Jackson, and our hearts go out to their families. It is unimaginable what they must be going through. We are still optimistic Kaden and Jackson are hunkered down somewhere waiting to be rescued. Our window of opportunity is closing as poor weather is expected again later this week, so we are putting all our available resources in the field. We are also considering other potential destinations they may have been headed to other than Ice Mountain,” said Rohrich. “They are both strong young men. Kaden is studying to be a wildland firefighter, and Jackson is studying to be a mountain guide ‘Mountainair,’ so hope is not lost. Please keep the families in your thoughts as we continue to search.”
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Right to Hunt and Fish? Amendment 83
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