True Crime: The Alpine Divorce Phenomenon

There's a trend that you might not have heard of until now, men guiding women on a hike, then losing them. Or worse. 

Let's get into it.

The situation regarding women going missing or being abandoned by male hiking companions—often referred to as the "Alpine Divorce" trend—has gone viral on social media. It involves male partners abandoning or storming ahead of female hikers, leaving them vulnerable to extreme environments. Tragic incidents have even resulted in manslaughter convictions

1. The "Alpine Divorce" Phenomenon - 

The Trend: Women have shared stories on platforms like TikTok detailing experiences where male partners pushed them beyond their limits, stormed ahead to reach summits, or abandoned them in unfamiliar territory.

The Consequences: In January 2025, an Austrian mountaineer was convicted of manslaughter after leaving his exhausted girlfriend on a mountain, where she froze to death.

The Intent: While some incidents are driven by male ego and impatience, outdoor advocates warn that these actions can be premeditated or life-threatening.

2. Search and Rescue Operations

Recent Cases: For example, the search for a 49-year-old female hiker, Jaslinda Saludin, on Malaysia's Gunung Batu Putih trail gained widespread attention. She became separated from a group that included mountain guides and was the subject of intensive search and rescue efforts.

Cold Cases: Many historical disappearances highlight the dangers of being left behind. Notably, the disappearance of Michelle Vanek on Colorado's Mount of the Holy Cross gained closure when a female-led rescue team successfully used modern technology to locate her remains nearly two decades later.

3. Outdoor Safety and Responsibility

Partner Dynamics: Experts advise that if a partner abandons you in dangerous or unfamiliar terrain to achieve their own hiking goals, it is a significant relationship red flag.

Preparation: Wilderness experts stress the importance of carrying independent gear (like emergency blankets and communication devices) and sticking with hiking partners of similar fitness levels and experience.

Show Sources and Materials:

Women are being abandoned by their partners on hiking trails. What's behind 'alpine divorce?' - Alaina Demopoulos, The Guardian

Men are allegedly abandoning women on hikes, sparking discussion of the Alpine divorce, Rachel Kiley, Yahoo New 

She Vanished on a Colorado Mountain. 19 Years Later, a Mysterious Dream Helps Rescuers Find Her. - Heather Hansman, 5280 

Jaclinda left a note, says mountain guide, New Straits Times

The Art of Empowering Yourself Against an Alpine Divorce, Climbing.com

If you are searching for a fresh, binge-able podcast, this might be the one for you!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

You're listening to Curious Cat, the podcast that examines the shadowy space where science and the supernatural collide. I'm your host, Jennifer Holtz. Join me every week as I explore what it means to be a soul in a meat suit. Welcome to Curious Cat. It's a true crime phenomenon that I had to do my own digging into just to make my head realize: is this a real thing? Is this happening? Or was it something spun up on TikTok? I am solo this week. I thought I'd be joined by my cohort Jesse. And I'm hoping he can join me, but it's been like an hour and I can't I don't know where he is. So this is kind of creeping me out a little bit. And if he jumps into the chat, you're gonna hear me go back and kind of do a recap of what this thing is and uh get him up to speed. So hopefully everything's okay with Jesse and hopefully everything's okay with you out there, dear listener. I do have the ghost app going because I'm like, guides, what is happening to my friend? He's not responding to, you know, texts or phone calls. So anyway, maybe it's no big deal and we have our wires crossed and I'm overthinking this, but I just wanted to be completely transparent with you. So I told you there's a trend, and you might not have heard of it until now. It's about men that are guiding women on a hike and then losing them, or even worse is happening. Let's get into it. The situation regarding women going missing or abandoned or being abandoned by male hiking companions, it's being referred to as the alpine divorce trend. It's gone viral on social media. It involves male partners that are abandoning or storming ahead of female hikers, leaving them vulnerable to extreme environments. Tragic incidents have even resulted in manslaughter convictions, which I'll mention, uh I'll go into the details of in a little bit. But here's more about the trend. Women have been sharing stories on platforms like TikTok, detailing experiences where their male partners pushed them beyond their limits, their physical limits or their psychological limits, and they stormed ahead to reach summits or abandoned them in unfamiliar territory. In January 2025, an Austrian mountaineer was convicted of manslaughter after leaving his exhausted girlfriend on a mountain where she froze to death. And put a pin in that because I'll be giving you more details on that in a second. While some incidents are driven by what people are saying is the male ego and impatience, outdoor advocates are warning that these actions can be premeditated or even life-threatening. Yeah, no kidding. And then the second part of this is search and rescue operations. So here's some recent cases. And I can go into these in detail. Uh, the search for a 49-year-old female hiker, Jaslinda Saludin, on Malaysia's Ganung Batu Patu Trail, gained widespread attention. She became separated from a group that included mountain guides and was the subject of intensive search and rescue efforts. There are cold cases that fit the bill looking back as well. And actually, I looked into one of them that this overview mentions. And I'm going to talk about it in a little bit because I don't think it does fit the bill. But they're saying many historical disappearances highlight the dangers of being left behind, notably the disappearance of Michelle Vanick on Colorado's Mount of the Holy Cross, which gained closure when a female-led rescue team successfully used modern tech to locate her remains nearly two decades later. This all brings to mind outdoor safety and responsibility. And they say partner dynamics are very important to touch upon here. Experts advise that if a partner abandons you in dangerous or unfamiliar terrain to achieve their own hiking goals, it's a significant relationship red flag. Yeah, no kidding. They're saying uh wilderness experts are stressing the importance of carrying independent gear like emergency blankets and communication devices, and sticking with hiking partners of similar fitness levels and experience. And I would argue, and we'll go into it later in great detail about partners that you need to be have clear communication before you're on the trailhead with them. And if you have different goals for what a hike is and what the whole point of it is, you need to listen to each other and then listen to your instincts. So they say this if you're planning an upcoming trek and want advice on evaluating trails, choosing a reputable guide or essential gear for staying safe in the backcountry, let me know. I can easily help you plan. And this was from a clanker. I don't even know what to make about this. Thank you for your feigned concern, Clanker. The Guardian's Elena Demopoulos writes this as stories of men leaving their dates in sketchy situations go viral. Experts say these incidents could stem from big egos and poor communication. End quote. Demopoulos goes on to detail one account of a woman that asked to be called MJ, who was on a hike with a sort of male friend or boyfriend. On the trail, it was revealed that he'd been seeing other women, and soon he was frustrated with her slow hiking speed. He ditched her, and at the top of the mountain, they took a photo together. But MJ soon realized he'd made friends with another female hiker on that ascent, and she was ditched fully and completely. MJ continues to feel a trauma response in her body from that experience, but other accounts had even worse endings. Last month, an amateur Austrian mountaineer was found guilty of gross negligence, manslaughter, for leaving his exhausted girlfriend behind on his country's highest peak while he went in search of what he said was help. This man, a Salzburg chef, identified only as Thomas P. But actually, since this article came out, he's come out as Thomas Plamberger. He said he was endlessly sorry for her death. And his lawyer called it a tragic accident. But Thomas P. could not explain why he failed to wrap his freezing girlfriend in her emergency blanket before heading down the mountain without her. Earlier in the trek, he had also told a police officer over the phone that they did not need any help, even though a rescue helicopter was made available to them. A former girlfriend testified that Thomas P. had left her behind on a trail during a hike in 2023. So that was the last mountain expedition we undertook together, she said at trial. Naomi, 46 years old, an educator and member of the Wine Hiking Society, a community organization for women that promotes outdoor exploration and socialization, was not surprised when she saw discussion of alpine divorce on TikTok. It feels like another version of a Me Too story to me, she said. My response is like, well, of course this happens. About 20 years ago, Naomi hit Deseret Peak. It's an 11,036-foot mountain close to her home in Salt Lake City with two friends, another woman and a man who she had a close but not romantic relationship with. On the way up, Naomi started to feel disoriented, possibly from altitude sickness. I am guessing that as well. But the man who was chasing a goal of hiking the highest peak in every county in Utah didn't want to stop for her. Naomi also, by the way, requested to use only her first name for the sake of her privacy. The man and the woman left Naomi on the way up. She knew they would not come back for her because the trail was a loop and she feared she would pass out. She said this, quote, I felt like I had to crawl on my hands and knees, and finally I made it to the top. Naomi eventually stopped hiking with the man. Quote, I realized at some point that every bad thing that would happen to me outside, he was the common denominator, she said. I would often find myself in sketchy situations that were way outside my comfort zone, which is often a theme in these stories of either being left behind or pushing yourself beyond your limit. A few years ago, Naomi was hiking Arches National Park in Utah when her group noticed a woman lying on the ground in distress. The woman told them she suffered from severe vertigo, not ideal given the park's topography, and her date had gone to retrieve his camera after she accidentally dropped it into the bowl near Delicate Arch. There was no way she was going to get out by herself, and we hiked with her back down to the trailhead, Naomi said. On the way, they learned that she was on a second or third date with the man. We were asking her, like, so this might be the last date, huh? TikTokers talking about alpine divorce might not know that the phrase comes from an 1893 short story by the Scottish-Canadian writer Robert Barr about an unhappily married couple who spends a weekend away in the Alps. The husband had planned to push his wife off the summit during a hike, but in an O'Henry-esque twist, the wife tells him she has framed him for murder before jumping off the ledge herself, right before the police she called show up. That said, many alpine divorces do not happen because a man has ill intentions. Maybe, like the Austrian hiker claimed, he thought he was doing the right thing. Maybe he was impatient or had a woefully uncritical view of the Hemingway-esque macho man archetype that he wanted to embody in nature. Or maybe he had a radically different goal for the hike than his partner, and they failed to touch base beforehand. Blair Braverman is a writer, adventurer, and dogsled musher who has competed in the Ididerod in Kobak 440. She took 36th place in the 2019 Ididerod, becoming the first Jewish woman to finish the storied thousand-mile race. Personally, if I were with a man and he wandered away from me on a mountain, I'd be more worried for him than me, she said. I think it's interesting that the term assumes that the woman is the one with less capability. If there is a feminist spin on alpine divorce, it's what comes after the women are left behind. When her ex ditched her on Zion, MJ hiked alongside a friendly female stranger and her young son. Naomi helped the woman with Vertigo in arches. It happened to me many years ago when user wrote in the comment section of a viral TikTok clip. I met two girls on the mountain and told them what happened. And we walked down together. They wouldn't let me go alone. MJ did not hike for a year after her alpine divorce. She figured her inability to keep up with her ex meant that she wasn't fit enough for the type of activities she grew up loving. When I got home, I was like, something's wrong with me that I wasn't able to keep up with him. It took two of what she calls eat pray love trips to the wilderness of Montana alone to find her spark again, her spark in her confidence. MJ is in a loving, committed relationship with somebody from North Carolina now, where she lives. He's not that outdoorsy. And sometimes he jokes, aren't you glad I don't like hiking? After her Zion trip, MJ is content to have a personal relationship with the outdoors unencumbered by a man. Yahoo News is covering the phenomenon as well, writing this. Just saw a TikTok of a girl whose boyfriend abandoned her during a hike in the woods. And this is from user Hell Line Zero, who wrote on X, the comments were all about how this is a thing multiple men do. It's so common, it's called alpine divorce, and there are support groups for it. All I can say is WTF is wrong with men. Why would you ever consider abandoning someone that way? I'm mortified. Then there's this story, and I teased you at the onset about this because I don't think it fits the bill, but it's the story of Michelle Vannock from Colorado. 5280's Heather Hansman writes this. She finished on a Colorado mountain. 19 years later, a mysterious dream helps rescuers find her. Michelle Vanick disappeared on Mount of the Holy Cross in 2005, setting off the largest search for a missing hiker in state history. The trail went cold until an all-women team reopened the case. Erica German often gets a weird feeling before she finds a body in the wilderness, a prickling sensation under her skin, followed by a surge of adrenaline. It was September 13th, 2024, and the Vale Mountain Rescue Group Volunteer had been out all day hiking with a partner, Zack Smith, on Mount of the Holy Cross, looking for clues to an unsolved case that had mystified searchers for years. The sun was sinking low in the sky and they were almost ready to head home, carefully picking their way through the steep terrain above the boulder field at the mountain's base. Tired from the day's long, tricky trek, German thought this latest excursion would be just the latest in a series of fruitless searches for the missing hiker. But as German shimmied across a skinny ledge, she heard Smith shout to her, I think I see something red. It looks like a piece of fabric. She walked toward her friend's voice and spotted a flash of blue also hidden beneath the rocks. She stepped closer. The back of her neck began to prickle. Holy Cross, they write, is one of Colorado's most iconic fourteeners. Its distinctive cross-shaped coulier has captivated painters, photographers, and the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who penned a sonnet to its cross of snow, describing the peak as sun-defying in its deep ravines. Holy Cross is not a technical peak, but the journey to the top is long and demanding. The standard North Ridge route gains 5,600 feet over 11 miles, and the final push to the 14,007-foot summit traverses a long exposed scree field. Screfields are basically loose shale, is basically what they are. They're really tricky. Although several thousand people climb Holy Cross every year, it's an ambitious choice for a novice hiker. Michelle Vanick, however, was looking for a challenge, a mom to four kids. Vanick lived a busy life in Lakewood, where she volunteered at her church, St. Francis Cabrini, and at a nonprofit for teen mothers. By the summer of 2005, the 35-year-old had started to think about returning to work outside the home and taking on other adventures. Vannock was a good athlete, a former swimming star and triathlete who could handle a suffer fest. Despite growing up in Colorado, she'd never climbed a 14er before. A family friend named Eric Sawyer, who was comfortable in Colorado's big mountains, offered to lead her up her first one. Sawyer selected Holy Cross, and Vanick liked the choice because she was familiar with the Vale area from ski trips there. Vanick and Sawyer, who did not respond to inquiries from 5280, drove to the Half Moon Campground. It's about 10 miles southwest of Minturn in Vannock's car on the morning of September 24th, 2005. Vanick pulled a blue beanie over her blonde hair, laced up her sorrel boots, strapped on a new camelback she'd bought for the hike, and put on her blue mittens. They ran into trouble almost immediately. Sawyer forgot his lunch and water filter. More troubling was their realization, a few miles into the hike, that they'd taken the wrong route. Instead of climbing the standard 11-mile North Ridge trail, they'd followed the Halo Ridge route. It's a more difficult 15-mile trail around the south side of the mountain that traverses three 13-ers on the way to the summit. They likely got on the wrong path at the parking lot, where construction of pit toilets may have made pinpointing the right trailhead tricky. It would be too complicated to turn back, they decided. They were behind schedule and hoped to make up time so they kept climbing. Vanick and Sawyer navigated seemingly interminable switchbacks and fields of ankle-cracking talus, gaining more than 5,000 feet of elevation. By early afternoon, about a half mile and 500 feet below the summit, Vanick decided she was too tired to go on. She was low on water and food, and she was starting to feel the throb of altitude sickness. She encouraged Sawyer to head to the peak while she waited. He told her he would tag the summit and then meet her on the Northeast Ridge, where they planned to begin their descent. Sawyer indicated a point she should hike towards and then headed for the top. He summited at 1.42 p.m., briefly called his wife and then jogged down to find Vanick. She wasn't in the place they'd planned to meet. Sawyer yelled her name, scanning the trail. Some other hikers who had been with him on the peak heard him calling and came down to help. Sawyer frantically asked anyone who came by if they'd seen his friend. Then he headed down toward the trailhead and called 911. That night, Vale Mountain Rescue, a volunteer search and rescue group, dispatched through the Eagle County Sheriff's Office, went out with dog teams to try to find her. The dogs picked up her scent and the group combed the mountain until 2 a.m. when the animals were exhausted and sharp boulders had cut up their paws. The hunt for Michelle Vannock became the largest search for a missing hiker in Colorado history. The U.S. Forest Service dispatched a plane. Rescuers brought helicopters, horses, and dogs. The mountain crawled with as many as 850 searchers. The operation grew so large in part because the area they had to scour was vast, and also because Vannock's family and friends rallied all the volunteers and resources they could find. It's not uncommon for hikers to run into trouble on Holy Cross. Fail Mountain Rescue responds to about 15 individuals or groups there each year. Scott Beebe, a longtime member of the team, says hikers tend to get confused near the summit instead of taking the correct route to the Northridge Trail, which looks steep from the top. They can mistakenly head down mellower-looking paths that actually deadened above the cliffs. The searchers traced these and many other routes looking for Vanic to no avail. A few days in, snow began to fall. By the 8th, when rescuers were trudging through two feet of powder, the search was called off. Everyone was baffled. We ended up the last day with not a clue, not a gum wrapper, not a boot print, absolutely nothing, wrote searcher Tim Cochran in his report to the sheriff. How can anyone just vanish into thin air? Media coverage of this story continued for months, though there were a scant new details to report. Missing hikers trail littered with clues, the Denver Post declared that December. A year earlier, PBS newscaster Gwen Eiffel had coined the term missing white woman syndrome to describe the disproportionate share of news stories focused on cases like Vannox. White women, especially those who are young and conventionally attractive, make up almost half of all missing person stories covered by the media. This attention can help solve cases, but it can also lead to wild speculation. The internet interrupted with baseless theories about Vanic, with some commenters concluding that she had been abducted by aliens. Oh my gosh, we're about to be joined by my partner in crime. Jesse, are you there?

SPEAKER_01 21:53

It's like I lost time. Okay, hold on a second.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

No worries. I actually started recording, and so I'll get Up to speed on what we're talking about this week, and I am right in the middle of telling a story about one of the hikers that went missing.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. I'm so sorry. Can you see me? Am I on? I cannot see you. No. I don't all right. Hold on. Let me see what's happening. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, okay. Sorry, it was hidden. All right, hold on. There it is.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

Okay, you lost time, but wait. We're right in the throes of a story. So you're gonna have throws. Yeah, I I started recording without you.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

I don't I don't I don't blame you because today was yeah, it went from completely normal, getting ready to log in to batch it to batch hit work emergency. And like my word computer is not connected to anything personal, so I couldn't message you. And my phone was across the room, and I couldn't, and I was in a all right, anyway.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

But here's the scoop. I was so worried. I was telling the listeners at the top, I'm like, I can't find my partner in crime, and I'm kind of scared. So I had my ghost app out and it said distance, how midway. So I knew you were midway through whatever it was, and I was like, is he okay? Is he okay? And the ghosts were fine. So I knew it was okay, but I had this anxiety, fucking anxiety. I'm sorry. It's so appropriate because okay, Jesse, I told the listeners when you joined us, I would get you caught up. This is the topic this week. We are talking about a phenomenon. It is called, have you heard of this? Called the Alpine Divorce. No, never. I didn't think so. It's something that I feel like we have to raise awareness about. And as a hiker, it actually felt good to do the first part by myself as a female hiker. And it's good to share the second half with you because it's this thing where basically to encapsulate it, men will take women out for these hikes and then just ditch them, abandon them. And in some cases, the women die. And one Austrian court convicted 37-year-old Thomas Plamberger recently of gross, negligent manslaughter because the woman that he had gone hiking with died. He left her, he said, to go get help. He didn't even put an emergency space blanket on her and she had it and she froze to death. She died. But this is the thing that kills me is what did he get as a punishment? Five months of suspended prison time, which what the fuck is that? That means not prison time, right? And an $11,300 fine.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

What is the guy rich?

SPEAKER_00 24:51

I have no idea. I and it's happened to him in the past. This happened in Austria. This happened in Austria, but it's happening throughout the world. So what happened is like I guess a TikToker went viral because she was like, This is really weird. Here, I'll read you this and then that you'll be up to speed. And then I'm going to tell you a little bit about Michelle Vanick, which I was telling them about. Because here's the scoop. In a TikTok with more than 4.2 million likes, a woman is crying and she's taking shaky steps down a rocky formation saying, He left me by myself. I should have never come with him. And that has kind of kicked off the most recent um spate of people talking about these um alpine divorces. And there are even support groups. But I was telling them about this story that people were trying to retroactively say was one of these alpine divorces, but I do not think it fits the bill at all. The person, she is a woman that was from actually from Lakewood, Colorado. She went to a church that's literally half a mile from my house, and she's the mother of four. And she wanted to get in shape to start doing like 14 or so. A dear friend of their families, Eric Schwab, I think his name was. Um, I might be getting his name wrong, but he um brought her up and they were on Mount of the Holy Cross. And honestly, it's I don't think there's anything nefarious. But so after they couldn't find her body, um, then people on the internet did what they do and they started going a little bananas. And this was the part of the story I was on. The internet erupted with these like theories about Vanic, uh, even thinking that it could have been an alien abduction. In 2014, the a podcast called Serial fueled a boom in true crime media, and online slews began picking over the case with renewed interest. And Eric Sawyer, that's his name, and they were trying to say that Eric Sawyer murdered Michelle Vanick, plain and simple, which I am like so mad about because that is not the indication I get at all. But someone wrote this on Reddit's Unsolved Murders Forum in 2020. Her story was set to ominous music on podcasts, including Lost in the Woods, Locations Unknown, and Mysterious Headlines. She became a chapter in the book Colorado 14ers Disasters, Victims of the Game. And then armchair experts turned over the same few tantalizing details. A duffel bag with a shotgun in it was found near the trailhead. Separately, rescuers encountered a man camping on a mountain who wouldn't come out of his tent for questioning. And a dog team spotted blood in the snow. But the weather came in so fast that handlers weren't able to follow the track. Now, are these fiction? Are these like spun up? I don't know. But none of these leads went anywhere. And each contributed to the assumption that Vannock had encountered some sort of violent end. But for Ben Vanick, who's Michelle's husband, the endless speculation was just like elongated trauma. It added to his unresolved grief. And he said this I could be walking down the street and see someone with a similar profile and double take. Was that her? He'd ask, because nothing was found. Your brain goes to the oddest things. Was she kidnapped? Was she killed and buried? We knew that she would never have left the family. She was too proud of all she accomplished. She loved her kids and me, her nieces and nephews. The most painful aspect of the rumors, Ben says, was that they flattened the story of someone who was devoted, caring, and complex into a cheap, sensational tale. News stories, podcasts, rumors about the rare negative things that happen to women in the wilderness can make it seem like women don't belong outside or they aren't safe there. That's the part that really triggers me. The narratives also perpetuate these untrue stereotypes that women aren't as capable as men. Erica German says that men have questioned her abilities while she was rescuing them. She's on this rescue force. And one asks this, what is she gonna do? That attitude also exists when the within the rescue community. So German's really important to the story of Michelle Vanick because she is part of the group that actually found her remains finally on the mountain. But I'm wondering if you have questions about it to this point and like, ah my God. We don't, we we have no idea why this is happening. Well, no, we don't. I don't, I uh I mean, there are theories. Some people are saying that it's because um it comes down to bad communication. You know, people will be on a first date, and one person is like, they're at the bottom of the trailhead, and one person's idea of a hike is, you know, vibing with nature, taking photos, eating a snack when you're kind of winded and keep going, but it's not about the summit. And they're maybe hiking with somebody that it's like their goal is to take the picture at the top and go, yeah, we nailed it. And they need to have that conversation at the bottom of the mountain. And it could also be that one person, it's like if you're in a dating situation, but you're not like in a deeper relationship or whatever the thing is, it's like it could be that ego of like, you need to see how strong I am compared to you. It's I don't know, but people speculate that it's like this weird ego gets overlaid. But then, like, I talked to Doug, and he was the one that pointed this whole subject matter out to me. And he's like, This is really awful. You really need to make sure you know who you're hiking with. And I kind of like that you kind of go out there on your own and tell me, or we go, because he's like, this could get really messed up really quickly because he feels like it's kind of nefarious, and it reminds me of remember um uh the scientist uh Reza, um Monica Reza, because she went up with a guy and a woman, and the woman tapped out really early, and then she's going up to the mountain top with him, and all of a sudden she's ditched on the trail. He's like, Well, I told her where to go at the fork, but he didn't track her or wait for her. And I feel like women are too polite to go, this is rude. We were supposed to be hiking together, and that means next to each other. That's what that means. It's an experience we decided to do together.

SPEAKER_01 31:45

If you're invited out with somebody to hike or you're on a date or something, you would think that they you would keep them right next to you.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

You know, I know it's it's just it's it's bad manners. It's like saying, let's go out to dinner, and then you go sit down at a separate table and you sit on your phone instead of talking to the person across from you. You you know what I'm saying? It's like it's weird, rude.

SPEAKER_01 32:11

But it's like if this is a thing that keeps occurring, I I mean, do we believe that much in coincidence that like the these things just keep randomly happening? These alpine divorces.

SPEAKER_00 32:27

It's weird because a lot of the people that it's happened to are on like second or third dates, they're not like committed relationships yet, or sometimes when they're on the trail, the person that they're they're with that they thought they were dating will just like disclose to them, I've been like banging a bunch of other women, and then they're like on this trail with them, and it's like, okay, break up like a grown-up. That's fine, go do your thing. But dude, at what point does this end in murder or ditching somebody and they can end up really hurting? So weird, like uh it's it's odd. It's uh do people not want to have a moment? Would they rather lose somebody on a hiking trail than actually look and be an adult and say maybe we shouldn't date anymore? Is that what we've come to?

SPEAKER_01 33:22

I mean, is that what we're doing to break up with people now? We're taking them out to the to on the murder hike. I mean, like, I don't know. I liked it better when people broke up with you over text. Me too.

SPEAKER_00 33:34

I liked it better when even they ghosted. You know what? That feels more civilized than this.

SPEAKER_01 33:40

My friend from Austria said that um that that they said that he had done this before to somebody else. And the trial it came out, and that um she was potentially sick when she went on this hike with him. So she might have already had like a um you know something akin to ammonia or something. Yeah, like she was already kind of sick, you know what I mean? Yeah, and it made her more susceptible to, but I mean doesn't matter, but yeah, the company line is that or his the you know, his defense line was that he uh, you know, he he he just ran off to go get help to bring help back to her.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

Well, I think I covered it earlier before you had joined, but in the trial, actually, police had encountered them earlier on the trail, and they had said, Do you guys need help? Any rescue help or anything? And he was like, No, he brushed them off, Jesse, and then he ditches her. So that feels like not only misjudgment but malice.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

Yeah, that seems yeah, yeah, yeah. I I don't I don't necessarily believe that we're taking people out on these trails and then just like leaving them, and then like that's just happenstance, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 34:58

It's like yeah, I wouldn't leave, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:01

I wouldn't leave somebody out on a trail.

SPEAKER_00 35:03

Yeah, I would say if you're not feeling well, let's turn around. What can I do to help you? Yeah, um, exactly. Yeah, so going back just to give people closure about the hiker that was from my neck of the woods, um, who went missing, Michelle Vanick. Um, there was a woman, she was one of the rescue team that found her. But German, who had been criticized because she's a woman, she was an experienced river guide and a swift water rescuer when she moved to the Vale Valley in 2011. She grew up rafting in North Carolina, so that's no joke. She was comfortable with long days in the mountains and sketchy terrain. And then she tried to join Vale Mountain Rescue in 2012. German passed all of her initial tests, but wasn't invited to go on searches until after members of the organization saw her working as a rescuer at a white water race. Shortly after, she became one of only four female members of the 75-person team. Early on, she felt like she had to consistently push to be invited on missions. Her experience isn't out of the ordinary. Only about 30% of search and rescue group members nationwide are females. In Colorado, search and rescue volunteers don't get paid. In Vail, they do everything from tracking down missing skiers to pulling off uh perilous high rope helicopter-based hoist evacuations from remote backcountry peaks, they write. Funded entirely by grants and donations, the group performs about 170 rescues each year. And for the past two decades, Vale Mountain Rescue leaders continually told volunteers to be on the lookout for clues to Vannock's case anytime they had a mission on Holy Cross. Quote, we were always reminded black leggings, blue jacket, blue hat, BB says. German didn't need to be reminded though. Vanick had been a part of her life since she arrived in Colorado. German just happened to move into a house with Betsy Cochran, the widow of Tim Cochran, who had directed the initial search for this missing hiker. I mean, there are no coincidences. Betsy, his uh widow, often spoke about Tim's rescue missions, saying he lived the last years of his life wondering what had happened to Vanick. German became fascinated by the mystery. So, despite the media attention, there remained no clues about Vanick until 2022. Oh wow. Yeah, yeah, in August of that year. So it'd been like what's that, 17 years? Yeah, that's been a long time. Yeah, in August of that year, a local ski coach and his son were bouldering in the Lake Patricia area, which is just off the northeast side of the Holy Cross. And they found a sorrel uh hiking boot propped up on a rock. And and Vannock was wearing a sorrel boot. The coach was familiar with Vannock's story and called in the coordinates to the sheriff's dispatch. Ben Vanick, later, her husband, later confirmed that that boot had belonged to his wife. Field rescuers brought in search dogs to sniff around the area, but nothing else turned up. The find, however, inspired renewed interest in the then 17-year-old case. It also raised new questions. The boot had been on the other side of the mountain from where Sawyer had left Vanic and where most of the original search had occurred. So no wonder they missed it. Rescuers hadn't checked that area until the last day when that snow fell. It was like two feet of snow fell. So they'd been looking in the wrong place, maybe the whole time. The next clue came from an unexpected place. In fall 2023, Michelle Vanick visited BB in a dream. She told me she wanted to be found by a team of women, he says. Outside of his rescue work, BB is a Lutheran pastor. So he's not someone who takes spirituality lightly. He's also not someone who often has visions of dead women in his sleep. Every guy I've told about the dream tells me I'm nuts. Every woman, they all say, Yeah, of course, BB says. One man didn't think he was crazy. Ben Bannock, the husband of the missing hiker. His wife was deeply spiritual, apparently, and she was religious. He said this about her. For her to come to Scott BB and say that, that was definitely her. Bebe shared his vision with some of the women in the Vale Mountain Rescue leadership. And then in October 2023, and I have goosebumps all over my arms right now, team member and current V Vice President of the group, Emily Brown, emailed all 17 women in the organization's uh roster about starting an all-female rescue group. The Michelle Vanick case had historically been dominated by males, she wrote. The initial eight-day search and every effort in between has only been run by men. Personally, I don't think Michelle wants to be found by a man. Six women, including German, signed on. They met that spring at Vale Mountain Rescue Headquarters in Edwards and started sketching out a mission. They decided to go in August when snow in the area would be at a minimum. Brown says that search and rescue, especially the search part, is part pattern recognition and part logic and part human behavior analysis, which I like that detail because I I've never been a part of something like this. Sure. Right? Their team used all their skills as they researched the files and documents from Bandeck's disappearance. Without the time pressure of that original search, they could study every detail. I spent over 20 hours going over every file, basically putting everything into one map, German says. Another member of the team, Megan, works for the mapping company Cal Topo and helped German use the software. They sorted all the previous search paths by date, digitized the hand-drawn maps, and placed coordinates for where the initial rescuers had brought in dog teams and helicopters. And on the screen, the women saw gaps in that initial strategy, a series of like little gaps and valleys on the north and northeast side that had been barely searched. When Emily and I initially looked through all the information, it didn't feel like there was much in there, German says. But when you put it all on the map, it gets pretty interesting. BD thinks that the 2005 rescuers never looked in those areas because they never deviated from the original plan. Something he now attributes to the way the male-dominated search was run, because it was driven by a single leader, which is typical, I guess. German points out that the women's crew had the advantage of modern technology an endless time. Still, she does think their approach was slightly different. In addition to conducting an in-depth data analysis, they slowly and deliberately tried to understand what Vannock had been thinking on that ridge. Humans tend to behave very similarly when they're lost, Brown says. They go downhill to water and to shelter. And with that in mind, they prepare to return to Holy Cross. I mean, I have goosebumps all over me, and I haven't even gotten the best part.

SPEAKER_01 42:50

That's what that's this is this is crazy.

SPEAKER_00 42:53

I know, isn't it? And that I mean, and the whole dream aspect, I mean, I really vibe with that part because so much of my life comes from that part of my life. Yeah. And then it's a pastor. Like, and I love that it's a man, and she's just like, I gotta tell you this straight, Scoop. I kind of want women to find me. And I thought that was very interesting too. And he just passed it along. He's like, we need to do this. So here's the rest of the story. I feel like such a tease, but um the summer mornings they write are usually calm in the Vale Valley, but the winds were already whipped up before sunrise on August 20th, 2024, when Brown, German, and four other members of that rescue team packed into a helicopter bound for Holy Cross. They intended to land on Holy Cross Ridge, adjacent to the Fort Tener, but wind prevented the pilot from reaching that spot. She dropped them three miles away next to Seven Sisters Lakes instead. And from there, they picked the paths of at least the least resistant. Distance across a ridgeline of three 13,000-foot peaks. The group wanted to get inside Vannock's head to inhabit the choices she could have made at the time. They gathered at the point where Sawyer last saw her and gave each other the same directions Sawyer had given Vanick. Head toward the hump on the north ridge. In pairs, they followed what those instructors, um, what those instructions meant to them, which eat with each group taking a slightly different route. Yet every searcher ended up on the east side of the north ridge above a series of boulder-filled valleys. But unlike German, Brown had never experienced a sixth sense before finding human remains in the wilderness. She's logical and believes a successful rescue is based on pattern recognition and information synthesis. So she's like hyper logical. But that evening up on Holy Cross, something stirred in her. German lifted it up. It had a blue mitten attached to it, similar to one she'd seen in the last photo taken of Vannock. That's when we called Scott and Emily and got them to call the sheriff. They took photos of everything, including a tiny fragment that would later be identified as part of her bones. The sheriff told them to collect any belongings but to leave the human remains where they were. They gathered a backpack, a camera, and other detrius and hiked down the valley and out through the campground, passing groups of people hyper-aware of what was in their packs and just shaking with adrenaline. The initial thought is like, oh my God, we found someone who has been missing for 19 years, German says. I know. How can it be? I mean, it's so emotionally moving. She heard wolves howling in the dark. They met Brown, Bibi, and the sheriff at the Holy Cross Ranger Station where they pulled out the gear from the pack. There was this crushed uh water bottle, a digital camera, car keys, and a shriveled up GU gel pack, which people eat, you know, for quick, you know, uh, it's like sucrose and stuff is in there. Um, Sawyer had given it to Vanick when they'd separated. The last item they shook out was the one that elicited the most emotion, that blue knit hat Vanick had been wearing the day she went missing. The team went back in October to recover evidence that would lead to the DNA IDing of her. One of the first things they found was her intact spine sitting at the mouth of a cave, Bibi says. They discovered more bones, including a scalpula with a lavender beaded necklace wrapped around it. They sent a picture of the jewelry to Ben Vanick, who recognized it immediately. He'd bought it for Michelle on a vacation to Las Vegas. When we saw that, Bibi says we all started bawling. The remains not only confirmed that the bones belonged to Vannock, but also put some rumors to rest. Her body was discovered only a half mile from her last known location. And authorities were confident there was no foul play. A forensic anthropologist reported the fracture on the spine was consistent with a fall. From these clues, the rescue team in the sheriff's office started putting together a picture of what probably happened. They believe that Vannock made it to where Sawyer told her to go. And from that ridge, you can look down to see Lake Patricia, just past some gently rolling meadows, they write. Michelle was out of water and had been hiking for hours. You can imagine the thirst, right? Rescuers think she started heading for the lake, not aware that the meadows abruptly ended in a sheer 30-foot fall. Their best assumption, yeah, is that she started down climbing desperate for water and fell. And it was likely a tragic accident. So the clarity has been a bomb for her family. It feels like peace, her husband says. I don't try to use the word closure. That means end. She will always be a part of our lives, but this is a chapter we can now close for Michelle. It feels like a cloud was lifted around our house and our family. In October, Ben and his daughter Haley, who was a toddler when her mother went missing, met the team at Vale Mountain Rescue's headquarters to talk about the search and share memories of Michelle. That's what brought humanity back to it, Ben says. Haley, who's 21 now, really didn't know a lot about Michelle's disappearance and how it touched a lot of people. It changed her outlook when she met those women. It shed so much light on her mother. And then the meeting brought German some peace as well. She said this when I met Haley, she said, I lived my entire life with people having these theories like your mom got abducted by aliens. That's one of the leading factors I've taken away from rescues. Being able to close cases really helps families. I mean, it's just emotional. Oh my gosh. BB talks about the women's intuition of the group, but actually, German is very quick to say, we were so lucky to have every capability that the initial crew didn't have. So I don't think it was a gender thing. So I thought that was kind of really beautiful, also. And it's just uh, you know, BB just keeps giving credit to this team of women. He says, We let men look for her for 19 years, and women found her in less than three weeks, which I I just love the fire in his belly for them.

SPEAKER_01 52:05

They really did, they really did. They uh less than a month, yeah. You know, they found her.

SPEAKER_00 52:13

But you see why I don't think it, but it doesn't fit the the stereotyping of the um alpine divorce. You can see that everybody they cared immensely, and she he he was like, he even gave her that little gel pack.

SPEAKER_01 52:28

I don't I don't think it's the same thing, it's not at all at all.

SPEAKER_00 52:32

That's why I really wanted to tell her story of like it's not, and I wish her name wasn't associated with this phenomenon, and it got me thinking, is this phenomenon even real or is it just like clickbait, like TikTok, you know, Detrius? Um, you know, some of the cases that I looked at and I mentioned earlier seemed malicious, but when did this phenomenon start to appear in recent times? Apparently, the origins of the this 2026 resurrection of this 1800s term came in the form of a TikTok video. And when it went viral, women recalled times they'd been asked to hike and then bed ditched without concern by the men that had invited them. The internet pointed to this well-written essay in The Strong Buzz. And it um I've linked to it in the show notes. It's by Andrea Strong, and I don't want to read the entire thing, but she's basically she talks about um she had um a date go, a hiking date go really wrong really fast. This the signs were there before they'd even reach the trailhead, and she's curious about herself. Why didn't she stop and ask? What's your definition of a hike? What's the goal here? When her ideas and intentions were to just enjoy nature and vibe together, stop and take photos, and then when the mood hit, they could keep going on the trail or not. But there's this article from climbing magazine's Maya Silver who writes this if you venture out with a more experienced partner, here's how to protect yourself. And she goes into some of the takeaways that basically, uh, if you've never climbed at altitude, don't try it for the first time in the winter. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 54:25

That seems like really good advice. It seems like that makes sense. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:30

Right? I mean, I think if you've never climbed at altitude, don't have a huge expectation of hitting a summit. And then if you're like somehow defined as a failure or your date isn't good if you don't make it, because altitude is a whole nother beast. I kind of forget I'm so used to out acclimated to altitude, and we'll have people come into town from out of town and they're like, Why can't I breathe here? Why am I thirsty all the time? I feel like SpongeBob, you know, where he's like just turning into this little like kitchen sponge. And I forget that I like my body loves altitude, and most people don't.

SPEAKER_01 55:11

I mean, one, I don't hide two, fair enough. As far as first date goes, uh, what happened to uh, hey, me at Chili's? You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 55:22

Like, let's have some uh yeah, some hors d'oeuvres.

SPEAKER_01 55:26

Yeah, they got they get baby back ribs and uh great margaritas. Like, what are we doing? You know, why are we but okay? Everybody's into their own thing, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 55:35

If you can't get messy and eat either crab legs or baby back ribs with that person, they're not the person for you.

SPEAKER_01 55:42

They're not the person.

SPEAKER_00 55:44

And they're not gonna tell you you got a little something right there, you know. You know what I'm talking about?

SPEAKER_01 55:47

Not the person for you.

SPEAKER_00 55:48

I agree. There, her second tip is give yourself plenty of time to get down before dark or bad weather. And yeah, I have to say no shit, Sherlock, for that. Especially in winter, she says, always bring an emergency shelter, which goes hand in hand with the next tip, which is make sure you have the right equipment and are familiar with it before you're on the mountain. So don't use crampons, those like spiky things on your boots for the first time when you're out there. And if your partner tries to convince you that you can make it without the right equipment, that's a red flag, right? Turn back no matter what they say.

SPEAKER_01 56:29

I'm 6'3 and like 240. Okay. I'm not I'm I'm not going hiking with like just as a couple of dudes hanging out. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 56:39

Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:41

I just I don't as far as like this dating situation shit goes.

SPEAKER_00 56:46

And on top of it, I feel like you wouldn't be shy about saying, you know what, this isn't for me. I think I've done enough. I'm good.

SPEAKER_01 56:52

I'll meet you back at the tell you that before we even left. I'd be like, nah, I'm not going to do that. But that's me. I'm not everybody. I feel like there's a difference between like if you go on a hiking date in the hills uh above LA, you know what I mean? Like where there's tons of people on the train, and you know, you're not really you're not climbing a fucking mountain, you know what I mean? You're just like uh, you know, that that's where people go exercise. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So uh between like uh, hey, let's let's go out into the you know, let's let's hike up the mountain in the wilderness, you know what I mean? In in yeah, winter, you know what I mean? And that's our first date.

SPEAKER_00 57:39

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 57:40

Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_00 57:41

No, maybe, maybe not. I mean, I remember I was on a blind date, somebody had set us up, and the very first blind, like the very first thing that he wanted to do was hike Mount Psy. And you know, Mount Psy is out, you know where Tweeds is in North Bend. It's like uh people people go eat at Tweeds after they do Mount Psy. But I was like, okay, we were part way up, and I went, you know what? I didn't know we were gonna do this on a date. I don't even have the right shoes. I have running shoes on. He was like, Oh, well, let's go get food instead. I said, That sounds great. That was nice, but that was our only date, you know. I think I don't know what I think what he was looking for maybe in his forever person was somebody that was like wanting to eat the mountain with him all the time. And it was like, I actually can't get to know you as I'm like racing behind you. And he was so open to hearing that it's like, yeah, okay, that wasn't a good idea. You know, maybe that's why I'm single. I'm like, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 58:46

But um, I think we need to bring back putt butt. Okay.

unknown 58:51

I love it.

SPEAKER_01 58:53

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, that's date stuff. Is a solid first date.

SPEAKER_00 58:58

You can be competitive, nobody gets hurt. Um, you can have bets, side bets. There's lots of things. You go to a movie to touch each other and flirt.

SPEAKER_01 59:07

If you go to a movie, you can't talk, you can't get to know the other person. If you go to a club, same dude too loud, yeah. Too loud, yeah, putt-putt, you're walking around, hopefully chit-chatting, uh, and just like you know being slightly competitive in a fun way. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 59:27

I like that a lot more. Yeah, because the the tips basically wrap up and say, um, they're basically saying be prepared at all times to take care of yourself first and and don't ever rely on somebody else to be taking care of you. So have a personal beacon or make sure you have a phone with cell phone coverage, have an emergency blanket, have food of your own, have water of your own. And then this is the New York Times, and I really can appreciate their clarity and their clear speaking. This is their bit of tough love. If your partner leaves you on the hiking trail, end that relationship, that's a deal breaker right there.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:09

Yeah, if the two of you are already together for sure. Yeah, that's a it's like a yeah, we're breaking up.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:16

Yeah, um, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:18

But but like uh if it's if it if you're on a date with somebody, it's like uh yeah, dude, we're not we're not going on another second date.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:27

No, exactly. We are definitely not going on a second date. So that's the topic this week. I I think it is, I don't know if I think that it's a um phenomenon. I'm like Doug is really worried about it. He's like, he's really worried for the people out there going on these hikes and getting lost by these um hiking companions. And I I love and appreciate that he he wanted us to shed a light on it, but I think that the bigger message is nature is no fucking joke.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:00

Nature Yeah, that's what I was kind of about to say. It's like I don't I I think it's more of a situation where it's not so much a phenomenon, it's like uh you're not you're not being respectful of nature and like uh you know you're not you're and you're going places and not understanding where you're going or being prepared, yeah, and having the right gear or a plan to get your get your ass off the mountain. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:28

That's exactly how I feel too. So that's it. And um be careful on the trail. I would say here's some other things is um, you know, make sure your phone is all charged up, make sure that you leave a note um with a roommate or um text um, you know, people that you know, I'm going on this trail. Here's the Google pin, drop it and say I'm expected to be home around here. Um, you know, just don't don't just go out into the wilderness and not have some sort of kind of a little trace of where you went and what you're doing. Please, I would really like that if you guys are all safe on the trail because I love hiking, but there's always at least one person that knows where I went and when I expect to be back. Yep. Yeah. Um, I was trying to look up so how your day you lost time, Jesse. Do you want to tell us now or should we just say goodbye to people and then you tell me afterward? And we don't record.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:30

No, it's just uh, you know, uh it's no big deal.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:34

Work stuff, work stuff, yeah. Well, I'm glad you were able to jump on for half of it. I was like, you know, I don't, I'm not getting the feeling that you're dead, so I'll just keep moving on. And also, it felt so appropriate alpine divorce, and then you're not even here for half of the episode. It's like we had a podcast divorce, podcast separation.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:56

I mean, we that we would have to be on a mountain for that to happen. So you're safe.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:01

It's safe forever. All right, well, that's it for this week. So you guys be safe on the hiking trail. Tell somebody where you're going, have your stuff. Don't rely on your companion that invited you on the trail to bring you your granola bar and your water and your um liquid IV that you're gonna put in your water bottle. And never be afraid to say, I think that's enough. Like I had that recently. I was on a hike I've done before, and I was like, this trail is kicking my ass today, and I'm not gonna go six miles because I think I'm gonna throw up and I don't want to end up throwing up on myself. So I turned around. Don't be afraid to just turn around.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:43

Good plan, good plan.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:46

All right, everybody. Well, stay curious, stay safe. I love ya.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:51

Bye.