She is Why You CAN'T Ignore the Warnings in a National Forest. Ever.

Today I'm going to be giving you a disturbing example of why you can't ignore warnings in a national forest, especially when you're all alone. And once I finish that story, if you can handle it, I'm going to tell you the story of the suspicious disappearance of a woman who is nicknamed the Go Fund Me Hiker. You'll understand what I mean very shortly. And speaking of suspicious, I'm going to close this episode out by telling you about a park ranger who vanished on the job. How does that happen under extremely suspicious circumstances? It makes no sense. If you're enjoying the show, please leave us a five star review because I have a goal of reaching 1,000 five star reviews and we're not even close yet. But the show has been growing like crazy and so I think we can do it, but only if you leave that five star review right now and hit the follow button while you're at it. I need you to listen to me right now. Do not ever ignore a warning when you're in a national forest, especially if you are all alone. If you do, your story is probably going to end up like hers. On the morning of her hike, 32-year-old Kate Matrasova was supposed to be dropped off at the trailhead by 4.30am, but there was a problem. Both Kate and her husband Charlie accidentally slept through their alarms and they didn't end up getting to the parking lot until 5am. And at first you might think that like 30 minutes isn't that big of a deal and that's what I tried to explain to my high school home room teacher when I slept through my alarms, but the problem was that Kate wasn't about to start any ordinary hike. She was solo hiking in a mountain range notorious for claiming lives, the white mountains of New Hampshire, and she was doing it during the deadliest time of year, the middle of winter. Now I love white mountain national forest. I'm not exaggerating here. It's my favorite place in the entire world, and I've logged hundreds of miles there over the years, but even I don't dare set foot on those trails during the winter. And so already behind schedule, Kate made her way up her first peak, which was Mount Madison, which she originally hoped to summit by eights in the morning. The cold air was already painful and biting, and this first leg was going to be a 3.8 mile hike with 3,500 feet of elevation gain. For the first hour and a half of her hike, she moved through darkness with her path illuminated only by the steady beam of her headlamp, and she climbed higher and higher. She also passed by an ominous sign that warned her of the dangers ahead. The sign said quotes, "Try this trail only if you're in top physical condition, well clothed and carrying extra clothing and food." Many have died above timber line from exposure, turned back at the first sign of bad weather, and then she passed by an even crazier sign that said quotes, "The area ahead has the worst weather in America. Many have died there from exposure, even in the summer. Turn back now if the weather is bad." Now these signs were quite intense, but they weren't going to scare Kate that easily, and besides she had hiked in these kinds of conditions countless times before. And so Kate kept pushing. You see Kate was an accomplished hiker who had grown up in the rugged landscapes of southern Siberia. Now if you've ever seen the movie Rocky 4, there's an all-time great movie montage where rocky trains and deep snow in the middle of nowhere Siberia, and that's basically where Kate grew up. She was no stranger to adversity or to the outdoors. She first came to the United States on a student visa, and she went on to build a successful career working on Wall Street. She lived in New York City with her husband Charlie, and together they often ventured into the mountains. Up to this point, Kate had already summited some of the world's greatest peaks, like Aakinkagua, Elbrus, Kilimanjaro, and Denali, as well as numerous other mountains ranging from 15,000 all the way up to 25,000 feet in elevation. She had also ran several marathons, and so it's obvious that she was extremely fit. But beyond her endless list of accomplishments, everyone who ever met Kate would tell you that she had a radiant smile and always made people feel instantly comfortable. I'm sure we've all met someone like that. And if you were to ask Kate what her next adventure was, she would tell you that she had her sights set on New Hampshire's white mountains. Specifically, she hoped to summit five different peaks in the presidential mountain range in one single hike. Now I've hiked in the presidential's a ton of times before, and of course it's just a collection of peaks that are all named in honor of American presidents, like Mount Madison, Mount Adams, Mount Jefferson, and of course Mount Washington. And it might surprise you to hear that these mountains are not very tall. At most they're 5,000 and 6,000 feet, or about 1,500 and 1,800 meters. And yet despite their low elevation, these mountains are known for having some of the most uniquely awful weather conditions on the face of the earth. And I'm not exaggerating by the way. For example, in the 1930s, Mount Washington recorded a wind speed of 231 miles an hour, which I believe still holds the record for North America for the highest wind speed ever recorded. I'm telling you guys, I know this place well, it's extremely cold. It's even colder than the back of my ice chest and that place has some of the most freezer-burned Klondak bars known to mankind. The high peaks of the white mountains, especially in the winter, are not meant to support human life. And Kate was about to learn this the hard way. Kate was fully aware that the presidential range was infamous for its extreme and unpredictable weather. She had even read about the 147 climbers and hikers who had lost their lives in the presidential range. But at the same time, she had already summited so many of the world's tallest mountains, and she believed that she understood all of the risks that she was taking. And to her credit, she did take things pretty seriously. She made a detailed plan of attack that tried to factor in her timing, the weather, her energy, I mean, all of it. And I feel like a broken record at this point, but Kate had done this type of adventure before. Hell, she even planned to take on Mount Everest at some point in the near future. She was definitely very confident, and sometimes the wilderness choose confident people up and spits them right back out. On February 14th, 2015, Kate and Charlie left New York City to make the 6-hour drive to New Hampshire for a romantic and adventurous weekend away in the mountains. And you see, my girlfriend and I typically like to spend Valentine's Day at a nice restaurant. You know, some places that has candlelight and maybe a soft piano playing in the background, but like I've been saying, Kate and Charlie were pretty hardcore when it came to their outdoor adventures. And so their idea of a romantic weekend involved bagging peaks and harsh winter conditions, which to each their own. On that very same day, the Mount Washington Observatory weather forecast showed a winter storm watch for the presidential range. And then that forecast would be upgraded to an official winter storm warning later on in the evening, specifically it called for wind speeds between 80 and 100 miles per hour with gusts up to 115 miles per hour and windshale between negative 60 and negative 70 degrees Fahrenheit. And with the weather looking more and more brutal, you'd think that Kate would maybe have some second thoughts about her adventure. But nope, the winter storm didn't scare her. Maybe it should have. The next day, on the morning of February 15th, 2015, the plan was for Charlie to drop Kate off early in the morning and then meet her on the other side of the ridge at the end of the day. So she wouldn't have to like double back, you know. She was going to do all of this in just a single day, 13 planned hours in total, 15 miles, 8,700 feet of elevation gain. She didn't want to weigh herself down by bringing a sleeping bag or a shelter either her first second and third priority seem to be speed. And I just have to say, because I know the presidential ridge so well, I've traversed it myself a couple times over the years, it is extreme. And in my opinion, a little bit insane to do what we call a prezy traverse in the winter. I mean, sure, people have done it before, but I'm just trying to illustrate that even as someone who knows a lot about this specific area and like the things that people have accomplished there, a prezy traverse in the winter is insane. Like, it's insane to even do it during the summer, honestly, in a single shot like this. Most people will do it over the course of a few days and optimal weather. So yeah, I had to just make that clear. This is a hardcore plan, especially for someone going by themselves in the winter. And actually, the original idea was for Charlie to join Kate in the mountains, but after they talked a little bit more about Kate's fast pace, they both realized that Charlie wasn't even going to be able to keep up with her. And so now her expectation was to go alone, go fast and to return in time for a late dinner at the hotel with her husband. But of course, we all know that expectations don't always turn into reality. Kate watched the forecast carefully in the days leading up to her hike and all of these forecasts warned that the wind speeds would increase dramatically later in the day. And so her plan was to be so fast that she'd be back below the treeline before the worst of the weather rolled in. She had a pair of ski goggles in her backpack and she wore a pretty standard GPS wristwatch that marked her six different potential bailout points where she could abandon the hike and get down the mountain in case of an emergency. She also had a GoPro, a headlamp, black diamond crampons, basically what I'm trying to see. here is that Kate brought some of the best gear from pretty much every aisle in your local REI, right? She was prepared. And so, Charlie dropped her off, and Kate began making her way up the mountain, brushing off the warning signs that she passed as she climbed. And as she reached the tree line on Mt. Madison for the very first time that morning, she turned on her GPS watch, and she would check it as much as she possibly could for the rest of the day. And then this watch to navigate, right? Because if she lost the trail, even for just a moment, that could mean losing precious time and potentially losing any chance of survival. By 8.59am, she arrived at Madison Springs Hut, which is a mountain hut that was pretty much just boarded up for the winter. It's mostly used for the summer. This hut would serve as a landmark for Kate before she hiked up to the summit of Mt. Madison, and she stopped there to take a short break and collect herself before making that final push to the top. However, in that moment of rest, Kate had no clue that things were just getting started, that that's something horrific was heading her way. You see that morning, while Kate was already in the middle of her hike, the Mt. Washington Observatory reported a developing weather system that included an increase in snow, blowing snow, and white out conditions. Others were predicted to start at 5 degrees Fahrenheit and would drop down to -20, along with wind gusts expected to reach an intense 125 miles per hour later that morning. This weather report even insisted that hiking above the tree line was strongly discouraged. But of course, Kate didn't know just how serious the weather was about to get. And at around 9.57am, she was still some 200 feet below the summit of Mt. Madison, which means at that point she was already more than an hour and a half behind schedule. And just before she set off for her second peak, which is Mt. Adams, Kate did something that puts literal chills down my spine just thinking about it. She took a selfie. That's right, she was running way behind her plan and the weather was only getting worse, but she still took some extra time just to snap a photo. Now I searched and searched and searched, and I could not find this photo. I even found some forms online where people were discussing this photo, making it sound like they had seen it, and so I think it's out there somewhere, but I could not find it, and I really tried, so I'm sorry about that. In my research, I saw that a book referenced this particular photo and acknowledged that it looked pretty normal. I did find some writing from a few experts that actually got their eyes on this photo somehow, and they acknowledged that at first it looks pretty normal. However, there was some frost building up on Kate's eyebrows and her eyelashes, as well as signs of frostbite on her cheeks, and so at this point, we know three things for sure. Number one, Kate's trip is not going to plan. Number two, she was slowing down and showing clear signs of frostbite. And number three, the weather was only getting worse. It then took Kate a pretty long time to finally reach the summit of Mt. Adams, just the second of five peaks she was planning to hike, and apparently she got there right around noon. And by that time, the wind had reached, like, hurricane level speeds. The gusts howled over the massive mountains, and inside Kate's high-tech snow jacket, her chest started to feel colder than she thought it should, and her fingers started to go more and more numb by the minute. However, this wasn't Kate's first rodeo. She had made a plan for all of this ahead of time, right? On the summit of Mt. Adams, she had planned to make it to a place called Thunderstorm Junction, which was close to her first of many billow points. From Thunderstorm Junction, there was a place called Greynob Cabin, which is a year-round service cabin with emergency food, supplies, and warmth. As Kate pushed through the insane winds on top of Mt. Adams, she considered the option heading down to the cabin. She wondered what would it be like to sit by the wood stove in there and just warm up by the fire. There's even some mattresses in there, maybe she could just lay down for a bit, and wait out the storm, or just message Charlie to come and get her, and the two of them could just relax for the rest of the weekend. I don't know exactly what Kate was feeling, but I can imagine that at this point, that cabin probably felt like the difference between life and death. And in case you think I'm being dramatic, I want you to picture this, a completely frozen world where it hurts to even breathe. That's where Kate is right now, at this point in the story. And as the wind kicked up to 141 miles per hour and the wind chill dropped to -80 degrees Fahrenheit, I can only assume that she was probably being reminded in her head of those 147 people that lost their lives attempting to hike in the presidential range. Kate was determined not to become the 148th person, and she thought back to the carefully laid out plan that she had made before she even stepped foot on these mountains. After summoning Mount Adams, Kate had initially hoped to reach peak number 3, which was Mount Jefferson. And along the way, she actually thought of another potential bailout option known as the perch, which was a three-sided lean-two that would give her at least a little bit of protection from the cold, the wind, and the snow. If she could make it there, she knew that there was even another route from the perch that would take her directly to Grey-Nob Cabin. Could she make it to the perch and wait out the storm there? Or maybe she could even make it to the cozy wood stove at the cabin. She had a lot of options, and her mind raced as the wind continued to howl. Beyond Mount Jefferson, she had another bailout option too. From there, she knew that she could take a short side trail that would bring her below treeline. Right now, she was exposed to the wind and the freezing temperatures, but below the treeline, she'd at least be able to get herself a little bit of relief and protection. But that option felt so far away in this exact moment, because, well, it was. Kate continued to think on her full route, maybe after her fourth mountain, Mount Clay, she could bail out by following the cog railway down the mountain, and then she remembered that she was supposed to be summoning her fifth peak, Mount Washington, by 3pm, and it was already noon, and here she was just kind of trapped on her second mountain. She was metaphorically frozen with endless options, and she was rapidly becoming physically frozen as well. Kate couldn't waste any more time dreaming about her safety or trying to figure out what to do, she had to move right now and she had to save herself. At 12.47pm, Kate decided to reverse course and head back down the way that she came. She even tried to cut the trail in hopes of getting back below the treeline even faster. At this point, she's getting very freaked out. The wind was hitting her like a ton of bricks, knocking her down over and over, I mean, it's just about for her to stand up after every single painful fall. Her body is completely exhausted from the trip just to this point, and again, her mind is worn out from all of the problem-solving. She's supposed to be this big adventure all-star, right? She's supposed to be getting ready to climb Mount Everest. All of this stuff is kind of just weighing on her, and she's wondering what people would think if she can't even do this relatively non-technical mountain that's not even very high in elevation, and then she pictured her husband Charlie sitting back at the hotel waiting for her with flowers and chocolates for Valentine's Day, and that's when Kate finally made her mind up, right there and then. She was going to get herself off this damn mountain. As Kate began her descent down the Star Lake Trail towards Madison Spring Hut, the very first hut that she had passed earlier, she faced the full brutal force of the storm. The wind was absolutely insane. Each step was a battle, basically, and the violent gusts slowed her progress to basically a crawl, stripping away body heats and driving her deeper towards hypothermia. The cold, combined with the immense wind pressure, would have made it nearly impossible to remain upright for very long. Time and time again, she was knocked to the ground, but she continued to rise and pushed forward, fighting to reach the safety of that height, fighting to reach the safety of her husband eventually, and of course, fighting for her life. As she neared Madison Spring Hut around 3.30 pm, the conditions only got worse. In one particular violent gust, she was blown roughly a hundred feet downhill from the trail. By this point, she realized the true severity of her situation. She could no longer afford to worry about being embarrassed to ask for help. She needed to get home to Charlie, and so Kate reached into her pack and she grabbed what was her final lifeline. She grabbed her personal locator beacon, or PLB for short. She activated her PLB and her spot communication device and prayed that someone somewhere would hear her cries for help. And faithfully, somebody did. Almost immediately after she hit the SOS button, Kate's distress signals triggered multiple calls from the search and rescue response team to her emergency contacts. Her husband Charlie got this call and was immediately sick to his stomach. He knew that the situation must have been dire, I mean Kate would have never triggered her emergency beacon unless she was in like serious life-threatening danger. He was already in contact with the Mount Washington Weather Observatory, which confirmed that the temperatures had plunged to -21F with sustained winds of 77 mph, and the forecast predicted that. evening was going to be much, much worse. Search and rescue teams were soon notified and provided with Kate's GPS location, but the coordinates placed her in an extremely difficult, exposed, and dangerous area. The New Hampshire Fish and Game Office jumped into action and contacted the Mountain Rescue Service, which is a highly trained group of elite climbers and rescuers with extensive experience in the White Mountains. At this point, they were Kate's best and only hope of being reached before the cold claimed her life. The search and rescue team mobilized and began making their way towards the Valley Way Trail, battling the exact same winds and cold that had seemingly defeated Kate, except now, well, the sun was going down. Kate was cold and battered from the wind, exhausted and hungry, lonely and probably a little bit embarrassed, and now she was all of those things but in the pitch black darkness. Her headlamp wasn't really much help at this point. She got achieving that to the point where she hoped that the moonlight would show her the way back down the mountain, but of course the white out conditions obscured pretty much everything. It felt like she just couldn't catch a break whatsoever. Around 7pm, over three hours after their first distress signal, the search and rescue team received a second emergency signal from Kate's spot device, this time showing the GPS coordinates below the tree line along the Valley Way Trail. And this confused the rescuers for a moment. I mean, had Kate managed to get herself below the tree line, which emergency signals should they actually follow. Based on that second signal, the rescuers started to think that Kate had indeed managed to get herself to a somewhat safer area and they decided to head for this new location, which I think is pretty wise since it's literally the most up-to-date information that you have to work with, right? Maybe Kate was on the move and she was able to seek some form of shelter. As the search and rescue team headed towards the second set of GPS coordinates, they ran into dense forest, steep slopes, and snow so deep that every step was a battle. And I'm not exaggerating there. Progress was so slow that the rescuers advanced at barely 600 feet per hour as they were forced to bushwack through wastey snow drifts under punishing conditions. They started to worry that not only would they not reach Kate in time to save her life, but they might not even survive this either. But around midnight, they finally reached the location indicated by Kate's second distress signal. But Kate was nowhere to be found. It quickly became clear that she couldn't possibly be anywhere in that area, and the team realized that the coordinates must have been inaccurate, especially since they were struggling to move even with snowshoes and Kate had apparently been traveling without them. And then, not long after they reached the second location, a third distress signal came through, placing Kate back closer to the initial coordinates. And this didn't make any sense to the search and rescue team. I mean, they've now received what three completely different signals. And they began to wonder if Kate's beacon maybe was malfunctioning or maybe there was someone else out there. I don't know. But by this point, the temperature was down to negative 35 degrees Fahrenheit, and the wind continued to roar across the mountain at devastating speed. The rescuers started to feel like it wasn't even safe for them to be out there. After all, they definitely couldn't save Kate if they suddenly faced an emergency of their own. The brutal truth is that the conditions had become too dangerous for even them to continue at this time. And so they had to make the heartbreaking decision to suspend the search until daylight with the hope that they could call in another search and rescue team for help. And at that point, make one final push to rescue Kate, exhausted and frozen. The first team carefully descended the valueway trail finally returning to the parking lot right around three in the morning. And while all of this was happening, Charlie found it impossible to fall asleep that night. I mean, he racked his brain thinking about where Kate could be and hoping against hope that she was somehow okay. He thought back to a month earlier when the two of them actually made a very similar trip together to the presidential range in order to scout for Kate's big adventure. They hiked up from the exact same trailhead where he had dropped Kate off and they had hiked up together and pitched the tent near the Madison Springs Hut. They were trying to get a feel for the area and visualize exactly how this adventure would start out for them. But of course, neither of them ever imagined that it would go like this. While Charlie waited, he had a painful amount of time to kind of pour over Kate's GPS data. And while he was doing this, he noticed something that made him truly panic as if he wasn't already terrified enough. As he studied her GPS signal, he noticed that earlier that morning, right around nine fifty-seven a.m. just before summoning Mount Adams, Kate's GPS signal completely shut off. Koof. Gone. Just like that. And Charlie couldn't think of a reason why this could happen. It was a total mystery, especially because nearly 30 minutes later, her signal reappeared almost in the exact same location. And so what could have happened in those missing 30 minutes? It wouldn't make sense for Kate to shut off her GPS right before summoning. And the weather wasn't nearly as bad that early in the morning as it would end up getting later on. All of these things, you know, from their hopeful trip a month earlier to this mind-boggling 30 minutes where Kate seemingly dropped off the map, all these things haunted Charlie all night, as his Valentine's Day flowers wilted and his box of chocolates sat alone there in the hotel room. At 9 a.m. the following morning, the Andrew Skoggen Valley search and rescue team began their ascent towards the original GPS coordinates. By this point, Kate's devices had transmitted nine more desperate distress signals, each one slightly different from the last, which only added to the confusion for everyone. And in case you weren't counting, that makes 11 total distress signals. Everyone involved wondered what the hell was happening. I mean, was Kate really setting off her beacon over and over again? Maybe it was broken, but then they begin to wonder how could that have happened? Like what might have broken it? Temperatures were around -35 degrees Fahrenheit, and the winds held steady at 100 miles per hour. The team made their way up the Valleyway Trail to the Mazin Spring Hut, and they continued towards mount Adams along the Star Lake Trail. An 11-member search team fanned out across the slopes methodically scanning the snow fields and ridgelines for any sign of Kate. At approximately 1 p.m. that day, one of the members of the search and rescue was pushing through the snow in his particular search area, doing everything he could just to stay upright in the brutal winds. When all the sudden, he spotted something roughly 30 feet ahead that seriously stood out in the Whiteout conditions. He went up to it and then he bent down and he picked it up. And when he did this, he got a very sick feeling as he realized what it was that he had found. It was a headlamp nearby. He also spotted a backpack with a mysterious stick-like thing poking up in the air. He didn't know what it was at the moment, but if you or me or Charlie had been there, well, we would know that this was Kate's homemade selfie stick. Again, she had that GoPro with her, right? And so this team member called everyone else over and their collective fear began to intensify, you know, figuring that this stuff had all belonged to Kate. And as their eyes moved up the nearby slope, their worst fears were confirmed. After more than 22 hours of searching, after chasing 11 different distress signals all over the mountain, they found Kate's body lying face down in the snow completely motionless. She was located several hundred feet off of the main trail. Her face was all cut up, likely from being battered and knocked down over and over by the wind. From the scene, rescuers concluded that a violent wind gust must have lifted her off her feet and hurled her more than a hundred feet downhill where she had landed and ultimately succumbed to the cult. Which is, I mean, that's crazy, right? But this story is about to get even crazier and much, much more tragic, so buckle up. It turns out that Kate wasn't far from the Madison Springs hut at all when she died. Perhaps only a few hundred yards away, but in this awful, white out condition, that hut might as well have been a million miles away, right? She was so close to safety and maybe she was so close to a Valentine's Day miracle, and that's why my heart seriously breaks for both Kate and Charlie. I mean, this was supposed to be a fun weekend for a young, extremely adventurous and happy couple, and it ended up becoming an absolute nightmare. But one question still floats around in my head as I think back to all the circumstances that led up to that frosty mountainside. What the hell happened with the 11 different distress signals? The experts that looked back at this case believe that Kate first used her PLB, which relayed the correct location. And then after a number of hours, she then used her spot device, which they believe sent the wrong GPS location roughly about a mile off course. And tragically, that second GPS reading sent the rescue team in the complete wrong direction. The entire search effort lost precious hours chasing after fail. and incorrect GPS coordinates. And I can't help but wonder if they had been able to just simply follow the first signal, which was essentially correct. I mean, would there have been a chance that they could have gotten to Kate in time? I think that is quite likely. And don't interpret that as me criticizing the search and rescue team here, 'cause I do think it made total sense in the moment for them to head to the second location, you know? What they thought was the most up-to-date information at the time. For this confusion, this mix-up, this technological error perhaps, would ultimately prove fatal. And to make matters worse, the final nine confusing transmissions actually came from her spot device. And it should be noted that the spot device is only capable of transmitting a signal down to negative 22 degrees Fahrenheit, or at least it was at the time. It's probably changed, but as it turns out, it was much colder than that on this particular night. And I guess we can chalk it up to, it just not being the correct device for the conditions on that hike. And ultimately, not only did it not help Kate, but it just caused more chaos. From the 11 emergency transmissions that confused the search and rescue teams to the drastic shift in weather, to Kate's decision to abandon her hike just a little bit too late, to her very confident choice to hike solo without any kind of shelter. You'd get what I'm saying. There certainly were moments that I'm sure Kate would have done different in retrospect, but it's easy for me to say that, or for you to say that, or for the experts to say that, from our very warm houses, while the wind outside is well under 100 miles per hour, but you have to remember in the winter and in the mountains, even the smallest mistakes can mean life or death. And that was the ultimate fate of Kate Matrasova. She fought so hard to survive, and so hard to live up to her reputation as an elite mountaineer, but the unforgiving power of the White Mountains was just a little bit too much. And sadly, her husband Charlie will never be able to think about Valentine's Day the same ever again. Make Kate rest in peace, and please show some love for her and for Charlie in the comments. Also, please join me in donating to the Andrew Scoggen Valley Search and Rescue Team. Again, if I hadn't said this enough, I know the White Mountains very well, and I know for a fact that Andrew Scoggen Valley Search and Rescue saves a ton of lives every single year, and so I encourage you to donate a few bucks their way. I promise you the money will be put to good use. I have their link in the description. I also want to shout out a book called Where You'll Find Me by Ty Gagne, which is a very well-known book that covers this story. A lot of the information that we used in this video was sourced from that book. I believe that selfie is probably in there as well. And so I will have a link to that book in the description if you want an even longer version of this story. All right, listen up, because you're about to hear the story of what has to be the most shocking disappearance in National Park history and not for the reasons that you might think. So leave that five-star review if you haven't done so already. Once again, we're trying to hit 1,000 five-star reviews and we need your help, and OK, let's get into it. In October of 2020, Holly Cordier decided to visit Utah's Zion National Park. She was dropped off by a private shuttle and expected to be picked up to leave the park that afternoon. But when her return shuttle arrived a few hours later, Holly Cordier was nowhere to be found. Within a few short days, searchers were tearing through the park, trying their best to leave no stone unturned. And despite that, days and days went by still with no sign of Holly. And as the search hours added up, so did the costs associated with it. $10,000 quickly turned into $20,000, which quickly turned into $40,000, and the number kept climbing. But after all, when an innocent hiker is lost in the wilderness, I think most people believe that no cost should be spared to find them. Holly's family even set up a GoFundMe in order to help with the costs associated with finding her. But little did they know. This GoFundMe would quickly turn into the center of attention in Holly's case. Holly Cordier was found alive, albeit barely almost two weeks after she had gone missing. Initially, this was cause for celebration. But this celebration quickly turned to scrutiny when one of the sheriffs involved in the search and investigation came out and publicly questioned the circumstances surrounding Holly's disappearance. Was her disappearance legitimate? Or was it done in order to potentially pocket the GoFundMe cash? Was she really stranded in the wild during the 12 days that she was missing? Or was she hiding out somewhere else only to reappear at a spot that was suspiciously close to the parking lot she started from? And on the flip side, did the authorities even have a right to question her disappearance in the first place? If her case was so suspicious, then why hasn't she been charged with anything at all in the years that have followed? What the hell is going on here? I'll attempt to answer those questions and more in this video. This is the bizarre disappearance and investigation of Holly Cordier on October 6, 2020. 38-year-old Holly Cordier traveled to Zion National Park. And just a side note here, I'm going to pronounce it as Cordier, but I honestly found a few different ways that people pronounced it online. And so I hope that's right. That seemed like the most common way to say it. But I'm not exactly sure. Anyways, Holly had recently lost her job due to the response to the coronavirus pandemic and was reportedly traveling the country in a converted van. She took a private shuttle into Zion National Park and she was dropped off at the Grotto parking area in the early afternoon. She was also briefly captured in this photo by a surveillance camera. After this photo was taken, Holly seemingly vanished. She was supposed to be picked up at the very same parking law at 440 in the afternoon on October 6. But she never showed up. I did see one report that mentioned she had plans to hike the Kanta Trail towards Emerald Pools, but I also saw a statement from her family in which they said she had not shared her plans with anybody. So I'm not sure which account is true. I tend to believe the family, but regardless, I can't help but know that you should always leave your plans with somebody every single time you go hiking. And I'm not trying to lecture here, but whether it's a long, multi-night excursion or just a short day hike, you should always do this. This is one of the biggest safety takeaways from this entire story. And I just wanted to make sure I got that in there. Despite the fact that she missed her planned shuttle in the afternoon, Holly wasn't reported missing until two days after she was last seen. And to be clear, I'm not trying to blame anybody for this. The shuttle drivers aren't responsible for anything other than driving. And I don't know, two days seems like a reasonable amount of time for her friends and family to realize that something was wrong. My understanding is that Holly was not carrying a cell phone at the time of her disappearance, which potentially means she had one less tool at her disposal that could have been used to bring her to safety. With that said, I don't know if she would have had cell service, but she wasn't carrying a cell phone apparently. I think that's important to note. On October 9th, park officials began searching Zion for any sign of Holly. They used search dogs, helicopters, and drones, and of course, a lot of manpower on foot. They were able to locate her vehicle at Zion Southwest entrance, presumably that's where she got picked up by the shuttle, but there was no sign that she had been there recently. Well, actually, that's not entirely true. I did see some reports that there had been like a ticket or a sticker on her car that had been removed in the middle of the search while she was still missing, but don't take my word for that. I didn't see a ton of reporting about it, so I didn't see that significant, but there was some chatter about that. And while that remained a mystery, investigators did have a clue into what items Holly had been carrying at the time of her hike. They believed that she was carrying a large ospre backpack, a yoga mat, a puffy blanket, and a hammock. And honestly, this must have brought the searchers some sort of relief, because while that's not the ideal setup for spending the night in the wilderness, that is more gear than most day hikers would typically bring with them, and it could have potentially provided her with some much needed shelter and warmth while she was lost. My understanding is that she could have expected temperatures as low as 30 degrees Fahrenheit during the night, which is just under zero degrees Celsius for my non-American viewers. Now, despite these seemingly promising gear choices, as the search dragged on, her friends and family became more and more concerned. Her daughter was quoted saying, "I do know there are fresh water streams she's able to get water from, but without food, we are running a few days on her survival, so this is very crucial." At some point during the search, Holly's loved ones created a GoFundMe to help raise money for supplies to find Holly, lodging expenses for her family, hiring special equipment, and medical expenses for if and hopefully when she was found. The search continued for 12 days, but then on Sunday, October 18th, everything changed. Park officials had received a tip that somebody had spotted a small human in a hammock. This tip was followed up on, and sure enough, it proved to be legit. The searcher that found Holly was quoted saying, "I came to a small social path that looked unused but led to an area of dense vegetation. I decided to investigate the area as I moved through the building." brush I noticed a blue object that I later identified as a backpack. As I made my way closer to the object, the area opened up and I could clearly see a hammock and a redacted, I don't know, laying in the hammock. Holly Cordier was found in a "fickly vegetated area" along the Virgin River. She was thankfully alive, albeit just barely. She was severely dehydrated to the point where she apparently couldn't even open her mouth and she had lost 15 to 18 pounds during her ordeal. She had bruises, quote, all over her body. Holly actually had a sharpie with her at the time of her disappearance and she had been making marks on a tree to count the number of days that had passed. She was also found with a large lump on the back of her head. Apparently at some point, Holly had actually hit her head while doing something with her hammock and this had caused her to become disorientated. This seemed like a logical explanation for why she was unable to find her way to safety despite being an experienced hiker. So clearly, she was in rough shape, but thankfully she was alive. One of Holly's sisters was quoted saying, "It wasn't until two days ago I actually said I'm starting to lose hope. They had a lot of cadaver dogs out and I knew what they were looking for was a body not a person. It was the first time I actually started losing hope. The fact that Holly had been found alive was nothing short of a miracle." Now, one would think that after she had safely been brought home, her discovery would be reported by the media and then her name would slowly disappear out of the headlines. This is not what happened. As it would turn out, the media storm surrounding the disappearance and discovery of Holly Cordier was actually just getting started. A few days after she had been brought home, Sergeant Daryl Cashin of the Washington County Sheriff's Office publicly questioned the circumstances surrounding Holly's disappearance. Sergeant Cashin had served as an advisor during the search and, according to him, at least at the time, things didn't add up. And this wasn't just a vague statement with no follow-through. Sergeant Cashin noted a number of discrepancies in Holly's story, the first of which was about Holly's water consumption or lack thereof. She was found very close to the Virgin River, but this river apparently contained toxins that made it unsafe to drink from. Sergeant Cashin said that if Holly did in fact drink from the Virgin River, there would have been a high possibility of her dying. He also noted that if she didn't drink any water at all while she was missing, she would have died within two or three days. Sergeant Cashin was quoted saying, had she been drinking that water, referring to the Virgin River, she would be extremely ill or passed on by now. If she did have a good water source, what was it? As I mentioned earlier, Holly was so dehydrated that she apparently couldn't even open her mouth. And to this point, Sergeant Cashin said that in his experience working with patients, if they're so dehydrated that they can't open their mouth, they most likely would not survive, especially for almost two weeks. And the sergeant's speculation didn't stop there. He also questioned her condition at the time of her discovery and whether or not she was truly as banged up as her family had reported. Holly's daughter had said that Holly was so weak that she couldn't take more than a step or two without collapsing to the ground, but according to Zion National Park Officials, she was actually able to walk on her own and only needed minimal assistance after she was located. Whatever that means. Sergeant Cashin said, quote, if we had found somebody in that condition with that kind of severe head injury, we would have, at a minimum, called for a transport agency to check her out. Physically, she seemed to be in a condition that did not warrant an ambulance. The fact that this didn't happen tells me that they did not find any significant injury to her that would have prompted them to do that. Sergeant Cashin also brought up another strange inconsistency. He questioned the location that Holly was discovered in, which was apparently only about 800 meters from the grotto parking area where she had started her hike in the first place. This is apparently a very heavily trafficked area and it seemed odd that despite all the searching, she wasn't discovered sooner. Sergeant Cashin said, quote, she's in that main part of the canyon, which always has thousands of people walking up and down those trails. I'm sure people walked by yelling for her. I'm going to get more into the response from Holly's family in just a second, but I do think it should be noted that apparently because she couldn't talk, she couldn't open her mouth, she might have heard some people yelling, but she couldn't respond back because of that. So just keep that in mind. Though Sergeant Cashin wasn't shy about pointing out the inconsistencies in Holly's story, he was careful not to speculate on the reason for them. He said, quote, "I don't have all the answers and I don't pretend to have all the answers. I don't know the motivation behind that." That's a question that only the family can answer and only the victim can answer. I have questions and I think some people in the public have questions. And boy was he right. The public did in fact have questions. It didn't take long before online forums were abuzz with speculation. A lot of it, at least from what I see, relating to the go fund me that had been created while Holly was missing. My understanding is that this go fund me raised almost $12,000 and many people online believed that she had actually staged her disappearance to either pocket this money or to make money off of it in some other fashion. When confronted with all this speculation, Holly Cordier's family had no choice but to respond and to also explain their situation in greater detail. They started by updating the go fund me page with additional details about her disappearance and additional details about how the money was being used. Quoting from the page itself, this fundraiser is and always was 100% legitimate. However, we acknowledge and respect people's concerns over the many inaccuracies portrayed by the press and social media regarding Holly's ordeal. Whomever has concerns about our use of their donation is welcome to request a refund without any objection from the family. They also went into greater detail about how the money was being used, including things like Holly's medical bills and future therapy costs. They also shed some light on her mental state leading up to her disappearance. Quote, Holly has suffered from mental health issues in the past and went on her hike not in the best frame of mind. She did not intend to become injured or so weak on her journey. Nor did she intend for her trip to become a search and rescue effort. Holly's sister also did an interview with today.com hoping to answer some of the questions surrounding the story. In this interview, her sister said that Holly had had a mental breakdown before the trip to Zion and she talked about how her sister had experienced trauma over the last few years and had not properly dealt with it. She said that essentially, Holly had gone out on a spiritual journey in the national park. Her sister also addressed the inconsistencies raised by Sergeant Cassian. When asked about whether or not Holly was able to leave the scene under her own power, which was again something that the sergeant had questioned, her sister said, quote, "it's just so blown out of proportion." When you think you're going to die and you see a ranger, she said she literally got like giddy inside because she knew she was going to now see her daughter and her family so you definitely have some adrenaline working for you at that point, which I mean that's fair. Her sister also clarified that Holly had a ranger standing right behind her on that walk out in order to catch any falls and that Holly had to stop and rest every five feet on her way out. She said that Holly was taken to the hospital not by an ambulance but rather by her family. So for my understanding, Sergeant Cassian made it sound like she just kind of walked out, largely unassisted on her own, but her sister is now saying that while she might have walked out under her own power, it was definitely a lot more complicated than that. Holly's sister also clarified that she did not drink from the Virgin River because as Sergeant Cassian noted, she likely would have become very ill from it, apparently Holly knew that the river had toxins in it. Now one thing that's still unclear to me is how much clean water she had on her or how she survived for 12 days without drinking from a natural water source, but that's what her sister said. By the end of October, 2020, the Washington County Sheriff's Office had opened a criminal investigation into Holly Cordia. They made it clear that they were not interested in investigating the circumstances surrounding her disappearance, but were rather hoping to find out if Holly had staged the incident to pocket the money through her GoFundMe page. A few months went by and then in January of 2021, the Sheriff's Office reached their conclusion, much to the dismay of Holly's online critics, by the way. They did not in fact believe Holly was guilty of fraud. Lieutenant David Krauss said, quote, "We never found any evidence to support any of the claims that any criminal activity took place. There was a lot of miscommunication, speculation, and sometimes it came to not having all the facts." A few months later, Zion National Park released the investigation documents which were heavily redacted and they didn't reveal much new information other than the fact that the search for Holly Cordia had cost over $60,000. So, where does that leave us today? Holly Cordia was never charged with any crime and her family has maintained her innocence to this day. They've even, I'll be very gently and respectfully criticized the sheriff for his initial speculation about the case. Now, everything I've presented to you in this video is just the facts about what happened. You might have noticed I quoted a lot in this video and that's because I was really just trying to stick, yeah, to the facts. But having researched this story quite a bit, obviously, I do want to share a bit of my personal opinion. While I do think that some of the details surrounding her disappearance were sketchy, most notably the water thing. Like I said, I still don't know what she drank. She must have had a lot of water on her, I guess. But anyways, some of the details were certainly sketchy, but I also think that the sheriff caused a lot of grief for Holly and her family by questioning things publicly. His concerns at the time were definitely valid, but couldn't he have kept those under wraps while the investigation was going on? Like, why did he have to go to the media? And as far as the GoFundMe thing goes, GoFundMe's are heavily regulated and to steal money through it in such a highly publicized case. I mean, this was making national headlines. That just seems very bold to me and personally, I'm pretty doubtful that this was her plan. To me, it really seems like she was in a bad mental state at the time. She made some poor choices as a result and some unclear statements by her family and a sheriff eager to make some headlines just made the entire situation even worse. But that's just me. Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments, although please make sure you do so in a respectful manner. I'm gonna say it one more time, folks, always leave your hiking itinerary with somebody else before you set off into the wilderness, always take your cell phone with you and even better than that, always carry a satellite messenger in case you need to call for help and you don't have cell service. I cannot stress these points enough. Now, despite some of the lack of clarity and controversy, my heart does go out to Holly and her family. I'm so glad that she was okay. And genuinely, I hope that she's doing a lot better today. I honestly do feel pretty bad for her and her family for the grief that was caused by all the online speculation and honestly, part of the reason why I wanted to make this video. Now, even though this story is a few years old, I've still seen it mentioned from time to time online. And again, you can make up your own mind here, but hopefully I was able to clear some things up. And if you thought that story was suspicious, then you better listen closely to what happened in our next story. On a Sunday afternoon in January of 1980, a park ranger decided to go for a short hike. His name was Paul Fugate and he wasn't planning on being out in the backcountry for long. And while nobody knows exactly what his objective was, we do know this. Paul Fugate never returned from his hike and he was never seen again dead or alive. He had gone missing in Arizona's Chiracawa National Monument and the search for him started out small. A few fellow rangers hunted around the area's canyons by flashlight, desperately yelling Fugate's name, but they didn't find him. And so by the morning, the sheriff's office was involved and by the next day, the National Guard was out searching for Fugate. How the hell did a park ranger of all people vanish on what was supposed to be just a short and simple hike? This was obviously the first question on everyone's mind, but as the search and investigation grew in intensity, more and more questions began to emerge. What started out as nothing more than just a short hike would eventually turn into a mystery involving multiple different theories of foul play, numerous lawsuits and a fair with a pregnancy and much, much more. And as if that all wasn't strange enough, here we are over 40 years later and no closer to the truth than we were that fateful afternoon when Paul Fugate hiked out into the Arizona wilderness. This is the story of the only national park service ranger who vanished and has never been found. I hope you'll excuse my language here, but I just gotta say this entire story is a giant cluster f*** and you'll know what I mean by that by the end of this video. To start off, let's take a trip together to the mysterious Chiracawa National Monument in Arizona. Chiracawa National Monument is a unit of the national park system located in southeastern Arizona. It's most known for its volcanic rock pinnacles and it has an eight mile paved scenic drive, 17 miles of remote hiking trails, and a visitor center. In January of 1980, park ranger Paul Fugate was working out of this very visitor center, answering questions, putting together hiking trail guides, and curating park information for the visitors. Though he might fit in better today, Paul Fugate was not a typical park ranger for the 1970s and 80s. He grew his hair, mustache, and beard out, and he had what was described by some as a laid back personality. Others described him as being lazy and as having a negative personal attitude, and by others I actually mean the national park service, who in 1971 used this as well as personal grooming violations as justification for firing Paul Fugate. My understanding is that at the time Paul had been employed by the National Park Service for about six years and had been stationed at three different parks. The first was Karlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico, and the second was Navajo National Monument in Arizona. And it's actually here that Paul Fugate began budding heads with his superiors. In 1967, Navajo National Monument Super Intendent wrote Paul a letter which read quote, "If you want to look and live like a hippie, that is certainly your prerogative, but not here at Navajo National Monument." It's reported that the superintend tried to get Paul fired, but was unsuccessful for some reason. The superintendent did still manage to get Paul out of his park, however, because in 1970, the National Park Service actually transferred him to Chiracawa National Monument. Approximately one year after that, Paul's position was officially terminated. However, Paul did not go down without a fight. Upon his termination, Paul Fugate hired a civil rights lawyer, and for the next five years, he fought back in court trying to get his job back. Now, I don't know the details of the legal battle, but I do know that ultimately, Paul Fugate was successful, and by 1976, he was once again working as a park ranger at Chiracawa National Monument. The National Park Service even had to provide him with some back pay due to his five-year absence. In the years that followed, Paul Fugate would spend his time hanging out with the younger seasonal employees at Chiracawa. He would spend his time making trips to Tucson to visit his wife, and he would spend time working on his vehicle. He was described as a lost soul by one of his fellow rangers who also said, "Paul wasn't going to go anywhere in the park service. They had it out for him." Though the legal conflicts had since been settled, it appeared that Paul's presence within the National Park Service was certainly not being celebrated. And then, on January 13th, 1980, Paul Fugate went for a hike. He had been working at the Park's Visitor Center, and around 2pm, he set out apparently hiking towards Far Away Ranch. There was one other co-worker at the Visitor Center when Paul left. Paul actually told her that if he wasn't back by 4.30pm, then she should just shut down the Visitor Center without him. He was wearing his park service uniform with his badge, but he left his radio, his ID, and other personal items behind, which indicates that he wasn't planning on being gone for very long. After Paul left the Visitor Center, he was never seen again. At 8pm, his co-worker reported him missing, and a few other rangers began searching the park by flashlight, calling out his name along the way. When this initial search was unsuccessful, the sheriff's office was called in, and by the next morning, 22 people were conducting a ground search, and they even brought along a search dog. But this search, too proved unsuccessful, and so the next day, the National Guard was brought in to search the park on the ground and by air. At one point, searchers actually found some footprints, which gave them some hope, but this hope was quickly dashed when they realized the footprints had actually been created by another searcher. The official search for Paul Fugate lasted just over two weeks, but an unofficial search headed up by Paul's wife lasted for years to come. And despite all this searching, exactly zero physical evidence was found, let alone Paul himself or his body. While the investigation into Paul Fugate's disappearance and entered year number two, controversy was brewing on the side. This came in the form of a lawsuit between Paul's wife and the National Park Service. Shortly after Paul disappeared, the park service declared him missing and therefore began making partial salary payments to his wife. These payments ended up totaling just under $7,000 at the time, which is worth roughly $25,000 today. But roughly a year later, in early 1981, the director of the park services Western Region reviewed Paul Fugate's case and made the determination that Paul had quote, voluntarily abandoned his position. This led to him officially being fired and the park service even demanded that his wife repay the money that she had been given plus 11% interest. Paul's wife was told that no appeal would be possible and so she loyered up and eventually, by the end of the 1980s got the government to finally pay her Paul's retirement benefits and approximately $40,000 in back pay, which is worth almost $100,000 in today's money. Now, some people think this was a massive injustice on the part of the park service and maybe it was. Other people believe that Paul's wife may have actually been involved in her husband's disappearance. That's right, it's time to get into the main theories into what happened to Paul Fugate. And I just wanna stress that I'm not aware of any hard evidence that proves any of these theories. I wanna make that crystal clear. These are all speculation, take it with a huge grain of salt, but with that said, here are the two main theories about what happened to Paul Fugate, plus a bonus third theory that I don't think is being talked about anywhere, but I just couldn't shake it from my mind. The first theory is that Paul simply ran away and wanted to start a new life somewhere. Now, this is always a theory tossed around when somebody goes missing and my understanding is that one of the main things driving this theory, Paul Fugate was having an affair with a park service co-worker who had actually gotten pregnant with his child. And apparently this co-worker had told Paul about the pregnancy only a few days before he went missing. Apparently Paul's wife knew about the affair and was kind of okay with it actually. And so maybe calling it an affair isn't even true. Paul was apparently still very dedicated to his wife and had no intentions of leaving her. I don't know, maybe it was more of like an open marriage kind of thing, but either way, investigator Pat Hanley believes that Paul was frustrated from his conflicts within the park service. He was having issues in his marriage and had now accidentally gotten his much younger girlfriend pregnant. And so he just decided to run away one day. I even read a few articles stating that there was actually an unconfirmed sighting of Paul Fugate in Bend, Oregon in 1983. So that would potentially support this theory. Although I will say that I could hardly find any detailed information about this sighting. To me, it kind of seems like the sighting was either just a false sighting or that it never even happened. Regardless, this theory certainly does seem plausible and it's one that multiple people involved in the investigation believed to be true. And I'll remind you once again, that the entire reason Paul's wife was ordered to pay back the National Park Service in 1981 was because at the time the park service believed that her husband had just run off. But if that's what Paul Fugate did, then what explanation is there for the valuable things that he left behind? A gun collection, expensive camera equipment, over $1,000 worth of cash in today's money and his Chevy truck that he was in the process of restoring. Now, obviously this doesn't completely discredit the runaway theory, but it does make you wonder. Now, the second theory about what happened to Paul Fugate is that he was murdered. After the disappearance, a park service volunteer who was actually friends with Paul came forward with a potential clue. This volunteer said that on the day Paul went missing, he drove by a pickup truck and actually saw Paul inside slumped between two men as the truck sped away at like 50 miles per hour. Other employees at Chiracawa National Monument allegedly saw vehicle tracks and signs of a struggle in the dirt near Far Away Ranch, the intended destination of Paul's hike. Now, this sighting and evidence has never been proven to be true and I'm not even sure which murder theory it supports, honestly. The first of these murder theories is that Paul was actually met with foul play due to accidentally stumbling upon illegal drug activity. Due to the park's close proximity to the Mexican border, it wasn't exactly unheard of for drug traffickers to be in the area at the time. That holds true for well beyond the 1980s. In fact, in 2013, a park service employee was nearly killed by an alleged drug smuggler at Far Away Ranch, which is undeniable proof that the possibility of violence exists in the area. There were a few different suspects over the course of the investigation and in 1983, a detective from the Sheriff's office actually announced that he would be charging, quote, "persons with the homicide of Paul Fugay in the not-so-distant future." However, no one was ever arrested, which is really bizarre that the government would just come out, make this announcement, and then nobody gets arrested, I don't know. According to a 1981 article from the New York Times, Paul Fugate's wife and her legal team believed that Paul was hiking alone when he accidentally stumbled upon a drug deal. And since he was in uniform and wearing his badge, the drug traffickers responded with violence and abducted him. There are some people out there that don't believe this theory and actually instead point the finger at Paul's wife herself. I am not accusing Paul's wife of murder. In fact, I'm not aware of any solid, real evidence that points the finger at her. My understanding is that it's all just vague speculation. There are some people out there who believe that Paul's wife's actions following Paul's disappearance were somewhat suspicious. Paul's wife didn't arrive at Chiracawa National Monument until four days after her husband had vanished, which is, it's pretty odd, you gotta admit, because she only lived a few hours away. And since she wasn't a suspect at the time and still really has never been a suspect, her home was never searched and she was never asked by the authorities to provide an alibi. According to one park service employee, Paul's wife seemed more upset about her husband getting his coworker pregnant than she was about him disappearing. And all of that weird stuff aside, I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about the potential financial motive that Paul's wife might have had. When investigators searched Paul's cabin, they found an unfinished life insurance application and then two weeks after Paul's disappearance, his wife was already asking Paul's boss about when she would receive her husband's retirement benefits. That's really weird because at this point, it had only been two weeks. Obviously none of the things I just said could even be considered close to proof of murder. And while Paul's wife was never really considered a true suspect, she did actually take a polygraph test and during it she was asked if she had anything to do with her husband's disappearance. I just wanna be clear, I'm well aware that polygraph tests are not reliable. You can't even use them as evidence in court. So make of that what you will, but Paul's wife was never charged, let alone convicted of murdering her husband. And so allow me to suggest a third theory about who could have potentially killed Paul Fugate. And this is a theory by the way that I've seen very little speculation or conversation about. Now I try not to inject my opinion too much in these videos, but when I do, I try to make it clear that I'm doing that and so make no mistake, I'm going to share my opinion with this next point. I'm just wondering if it's possible that maybe the National Park Service itself had something to do with Paul Fugate's disappearance. There's no true evidence of this. So I'm probably way off, but I don't know. While researching for this video, I just couldn't get this theory out of my mind. I mean, once again, Paul Fugate had numerous conflicts with the National Park Service. He was officially fired twice. He had conflicts with his supervisors. He spent five years battling the National Park Service in court. And then he went and got one of his fellow employees pregnant. And then a year after his disappearance, the National Park Service quite confidently declared that he had abandoned his job and ran away, despite not really having any evidence of this. I don't know. Again, this is far from proof of anything. I really don't know, but I don't know. It just makes me a little weird. little suspicious and I haven't really heard anyone talking about this. Is it possible that maybe the park service was just sick of him and wanted him gone once and for all? I don't know. Maybe one of these theories is true or maybe none of them are and Paul simply went for a hike, got lost and succumbed to the elements. That's certainly possible as well. The truth is that we don't know what happened but hopefully we will someday. The reason that I say that is because the investigation into Paul Fugate's disappearance is still active and a few years ago the park service actually raised the reward to $60,000 for information leading to his whereabouts or the arrest and conviction of whoever is responsible for his disappearance. Please keep Paul Fugate in your hearts and in your minds. Thank you so much everybody for watching.