Snow blankets the rugged mountains of Colorado's Sawatch Range, where two Colorado Mountain College students were found dead near West Apostle Mountain on October 28. ( e) On October 28, rescuers found the bodies of two missing Colorado Mountain College students in a basin on West Apostle Mountain, a remote peak in the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness, northwest of Buena Vista. Kaden Matsuda, 19, and Jackson Donlon, 20, had planned to climb nearby 13,960-foot Ice Mountain but were reported missing on October 26, according to the Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office. Matsuda and Donlon left Colorado Mountain College’s Leadville campus on October 23, planning to return on October 24 or 25, depending on conditions.
Friends told investigators the pair had shared a map identifying Ice Mountain as their intended destination. Ice Mountain, West Apostle, and North Apostle make up the Three Apostles, a rugged trio of 13ers in the Sawatch Range. Less famous than Colorado’s 14ers, the peaks attract climbers seeking more challenging terrain and solitude.
They’re less popular, they’re more remote, and they’re more technical,” Dillon Geiger, owner and chief guide at Buena Vista-based Ark Valley Mountain Guides, said. Geiger, an American Mountain Guides Association-credentialed guide with more than a decade of alpine guiding and climbing instruction experience, works throughout the Sawatch Range. He described the Three Apostles as unusually rugged for the area, with steep gullies, loose rock and couloirs, including Ice Mountain’s Refrigerator Couloir, a well-known backcountry ski descent.
Colorado’s 14ers attract hikers seeking the state’s famous 14,000-foot summits, many with relatively accessible, nontechnical routes, according to Geiger. But elevation doesn’t necessarily determine difficulty, he said. The Three Apostles, though shorter than the 14ers, offer steep, rocky terrain and require more advanced mountaineering skills.
According to mountaineering database 14ers.com, Ice Mountain’s standard northeast-ridge route involves scrambling, requiring climbers to use their hands to navigate steep, sometimes exposed rock. The website also warns of substantial rockfall risk and challenging route-finding, including bushwhacking. Even in Colorado’s popular Sawatch Range, Geiger says that climbers visiting the Three Apostles in late October might spend an entire day without encountering another person.
It’s an extremely remote area, and this time of year, it wouldn’t be uncommon to not come across anyone else,” Geiger said. While experienced mountaineers can sometimes complete these climbs in a day in favorable summer conditions, backpacking into the basin and attempting a summit from camp isn’t uncommon. But the mountains become a different undertaking in winter conditions.
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