Authorities believe a rock anchor failed during a rappel, causing the deaths of two college students in Colorado last week.
Kaden Matsuda, 19, and Jackson Donlon, 20, were students at Colorado Mountain College. They were found in a snow-covered basin on West Apostle Mountain, about 100 miles southeast of Aspen, after they did not return from a weekend climbing trip.
The Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office said the students were descending the mountain when the accident happened. Donlon had started down from an anchor point that included additional safety measures when the rock likely gave way. Matsuda was connected to the same anchor, and both fell. Investigators have not established the distance of the fall.
The students had left the college’s Leadville campus intending to climb nearby Ice Mountain. They apparently changed plans and headed for West Apostle Mountain instead.
Autopsies found that both died instantly from multiple blunt force injuries. Authorities said the severe snowstorm in the area did not directly cause their deaths. Investigators also found no apparent errors in the students’ preparation.
“In most similar cases that have led to a devastating conclusion, we find it easy to pick apart what was done wrong,” Chaffee County Sheriff Andy Rohrich said. “That was not the case with Kaden and Jackson.”
Rohrich said the students spent their final moments together in the mountain landscape they loved, and that it was a comfort to know they had not suffered.
Both students were passionate about the outdoors. Matsuda, who was from Ridgway, Colorado, was studying to become a wildland firefighter. Donlon, from Queensbury, New York, was studying outdoor recreation leadership.
Other fatal climbing accidents have occurred in recent months. Earlier this summer, climber Jake Whisenant, 30, died from blunt force injuries after a fall in California’s Sequoia National Park. And earlier this year, three Latvian mountaineers died and a fourth was critically injured after a fall near Denali Pass on Alaska’s Mount McKinley.
