EPISODE 4 -- The wife of missing trekker Eric Robinson flies halfway around the world, from Australia to Utah, in search of her husband. A rural sheriff struggles to organize an effective rescue across the vast expanse of the High Uintas Wilderness Area. An unlikely meeting along the Uinta Highline Trail brings Eric’s friends into contact with some important new allies at Dead Horse Pass.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: What happened to Eric Robinson?
Two young fathers are shot to death outside an iconic Utah restaurant. I said, your dad has been hurt really bad. The grief was disorienting for those left behind, until one choice changed everything. I just remember writing this letter and it wasn't me writing it. Can a personal decision shape generations?
We're all falling for this guy's trick.
I'm Amy Donaldson. Season two of The Letter, Ripple Effect, is available now. Follow us at theletterpodcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Lemonada.
As we sat around the campfire, I was just thinking of the rough places over which we had traveled. When Morgan announced the worst was yet to come. That tomorrow morning, we would go over Dead Horse Pass. When I thought of the five horses that have rolled to their death down that slope, I was not a little worried. Dorothy Rutledge, The Deseret News, October 18th, 1930.
Rachel Marsden couldn't sleep. She was on a plane somewhere over the Pacific. The drone of jet engines filled her ears, punctuated by bursts of laughter.
It was excruciating. And we were surrounded by a group of Australian young men going to a Bucks do in Las Vegas.
A Bucks do goes by another name in the U.S., Bachelor Party. Rachel and her mom Marilyn were flying to the United States on their way to join the search for Marilyn's missing husband, Eric Robinson. They were deep in economy class, surrounded by boisterous young men. It was hideous.
They were literally sitting all around us. Rachel had pulled a flight attendant to the side when they had first boarded. I tried to get an upgrade and tell them what the circumstances were.
I wasn't very good at that. The flight was full, and the crew couldn't accommodate an upgrade. To make matters worse, Marilyn's travel agent hadn't been able to book two seats side by side, so Rachel and Marilyn were seated apart. But they eventually managed to talk one of the young men into swapping places. Rachel looked at Marilyn.
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Chapter 2: Who is searching for Eric Robinson?
When I got up there, I didn't say, wow, this is grand but intimidating. I said, cool, look it, there's Red Knob Peak. Cool, there's Explorer Peak. Cool, look it, I can see right down that drainage. I mean, and so the places I'd been before, and it was stimulating and attracting. It drew me down. I wanted to go get closer and see it.
To the west of Porcupine Pass, the Uinta Highline crosses the Oweep Basin. Oweep is a Ute Indian word that means grass. The floor of this basin explodes with greenery and wildflowers during the brief alpine summer. That makes it a popular place for sheepherders. Art looked down into the basin and saw a trampled mess.
A huge herd must have recently moved through the Oweep, chewing all that grass right down to the dirt. The Highline Trail disappeared among countless paths etched into the turf by hooves. Art's mind went to Eric. He had probably come to the Uintas with an assumption.
There's a trail, and I can follow the trail. And maybe coming from Australia with no Uinta's experience, I'd be counting on that.
Eric knew a fair bit about sheep. They're a major part of Australia's agriculture economy. Same with New Zealand. And Eric had trekked around sheep in both places. But those ecosystems are a lot different than the alpine tundra of the high Uintas, where vegetation is very slow to recover from the impacts of grazing.
Eric probably hadn't anticipated needing to tell the highline apart from countless sheep trails.
But if I got up there and I looked down and there's no trail and it's a braided mess, a braided hot mess of sheep, I would say maybe this is going to be a little more challenging than I thought.
Art and Dan descended from Porcupine Pass and began crossing the Oweep Basin. As expected, they soon found the highline proved impossible to follow.
In that case, I had to macro-navigate and could go towards a ridge in the distance 10 miles away, and I could just keep aiming for it because I was in alpine tundra or what had been before the sheep got there.
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Chapter 3: What challenges do search and rescue teams face?
It just seemed very vast. I don't remember looking at Dead Horse being like, there's no way you would go over that.
Julia doesn't dispute saying it, but she told me the entire experience is a jumble in her memory. That makes sense. She was exhausted, under extreme stress, and hyper-focused on her mission. I've stood at that same spot, peered across at Dead Horse, and thought, nope. Dead Horse Pass just looks scary, even when it's not covered in snow.
From Redknapp Pass, intimidating as heck. From Dead Horse Lake, intimidating as heck, even to me. But I knew it wasn't going to be that intimidating when I got to it. A, I'd been there three or four times before and climbed it. And B, I knew that I wouldn't know anything until I actually started up the slope.
The two parties made their way down from Red Knob, into the cirque between Red Knob and Dead Horse Passes. They hiked a few miles through a forested stretch of trail before reaching Dead Horse Lake. From the shore, Art looked across the milky blue water and eyed the snowfield stretching up the cliffy slope on the far side.
It still looked intimidating, but even more doable than it had appeared from a distance.
It always looks 10 times harder than it really is. So until you walk over to the slope and look up at it, you won't have any indication of whether it goes.
Art felt a surge of confidence and relief he hadn't taken the advice of the Indiana group about the Granddaddy Bypass. Deadhorse would go.
We looked at it and were relieved it wasn't going to be too hard to cross because right now we're in a hurry. We want to get back and start helping with the rescue. We're running out of food. We're on the last two days of our trip.
Art and Dan said goodbye to Julia and Blake, who were going to search for Eric around Deadhorse Lake, stay the night there, then hike out the next day. The two parties exchanged contact information and promised to update one another when they'd both returned to Civilization. Art and Dan then made their way around the lake, to the toe of the snowfield. Art stepped onto the snow.
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